Michael Kumpfmüller’s novel “Mischa and the Master”. Roman – culture

Assuming that Jesus would come to Berlin today – which is a possibility, after all, according to the Bible he was risen – what would he do first? Tear down the churches? end wars? alleviate poverty? If you believe Michael Kumpfmüller: none of that. Jesus, or Yeshua as he is called, is a rather low-key guy who hangs out and eats borscht more than is interested in any kind of excitement.

Let the air out of the Jesus myth for a moment. Michael Kumpfmüller does this with relish in his novel “Mischa und der Meister”, but completely incidentally. Because even if it is sold in the title and in the blurb, the novel is not really about Jesus. Instead, it’s about everything possible, and at the same time: the magical, the inexplicable, about love, good and evil, about Berlin, the devil.

And a lot of it is about Russian literature, the allusion to Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” is already in the title. Michael Kumpfmüller rolls up his sleeves and ignites a veritable firework of quotations: a wink in the direction of Dostoyevsky here, a borscht there, people dance to music by Shostakovich, and then the biblical Messiah also comes by. It’s hard to decipher the references, which turns out to be not absolutely necessary.

Thanks to his sheer presence, a love epidemic breaks out in Berlin

The main character Mischa is a Russian-born student in Berlin who wants to be an author and is enthusiastic about Russian literature. So does the well-behaved Anastasia, with whom he falls in love (rather than the mysterious Luna, with whom he spends a few nights). Anastasia then jokingly expresses the wish that Jesus should come back to earth. That’s what he does then, in Mischa’s apartment, completely in real life, with a finely trimmed beard and sparkling eyes “as blue as Lake Maggiore”. Not a Russian, but an Aramean, Yeshua.

This Yeshua is one who turns up somewhere once in a blue moon, trailing a path of bliss behind him. Thanks to his sheer presence, a kind of love epidemic breaks out in Berlin: couples get along, people pay their taxes on time, grumpy literary critics renounce the nasty slating. But no one traces this back to Yeshua. “Countless stories circulated about him and his visits: that he had never even entered a single church,” writes Kumpfmüller. “He didn’t despise women either” and “showed his usual tricks with which he messed everything up”. But Yeshua argues “for nothing at all.” Mischa asks: “So what is written about you is not true?” “I have never said anything that is written there,” Yeshua replies. Also a Bulgakov quote, because in “The Master and Margarita” Jesus reveals himself to the Roman Pontius Pilate during his condemnation.

The possible return of some kind of messiah to the present may not be a pressing question at the moment, but it is still an enticing thought experiment if taken seriously. Kumpfmüller only does this half-heartedly. He only touches on the questions about people’s longing for a moment of redemption, for reconciliation, the current meaning of faith in general and the theological appropriation of a deeply human figure as a projection screen. Or rather, he seems too busy keeping track of all his references and quotes and adding more of his undoubtedly original ideas and characters.

Yeshua is even less than a projection screen here, because almost nobody who could project anything onto him at all recognizes him. Only the devils partying wildly, here for example dentists, tax consultants and a poodle (Goethe quote!) become active to bring the new ideal world out of joint again. Yeshua hardly serves the author as a reason for telling a story, as a character he remains spectacularly indifferent and pale. Almost as if Kumpfmüller were demonstrating anti-projection here. But that’s not even provocative, it also doesn’t relieve the historical Jesus, but in view of the large number of ideas and characters it seems more like the consequence of the author’s indecision, who wants to tell too much and therefore tells little. Eventually Yeshua disappears again, as quietly as he came.

Michael Kumpfmüller wrote in his last novel “Oh, Virginia” sensitively told by Virginia Woolf, his Kafka book “The Glory of Life” became a bestseller. “Mischa und der Meister” feels like an evening with wildly ignited table fireworks: you laugh, you marvel at the colours, there’s a nice bang, but in the end it all fizzles out pretty quickly.