The Yellow Sailor
In 1914, the German freighter Yellow Sailor, owned by Julius Bernai, sails from Hamburg. Among its crew are four men: Nicholas Bremml, Jacek Gorecki, and brothers Karl and Alois Dach. Shortly after, through mishap, the ship sinks in the Gulf of Danzig, yet they make it ashore. Thus begins the story of their interwoven journeys as they drift through a war-ravaged Europe searching for life’s purpose. The main storyline focuses on nineteen-year-old Nicholas as he wanders from prostitute to prostitute in search of love. Jacek, avoiding numerous disasters, achieves his goal of landing a job in a mine. Karl and Alois stumble from one misadventure into another, both together and separately, sometimes barely escaping with their lives. The story also weaves in the adventures of Julius, who, although avowedly homosexual, falls in love with a doctor’s fiancée after checking himself into a hospital for nervous disorders.
Weiner’s novel is dreamlike and surreal which mirrors both the physical and mental landscape of this era. At times, the narrative along with relentless staccato sentences can be jarring; still it is a fresh, if trying, examination of a hallucinatory chapter in history.
