This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.
Michael Commane
CEO of bookshop chain Waterstones, James Daunt, was on radio last week talking about the influence of Artificial Intelligence in the book trade. He said that if they were to sell AI books in their shops it would have to be expressly mentioned on the book.
Listening to James Daunt I was reminded of a book I’ve just read and how I came to buy it.
I was waiting for a bus on Dublin’s Camden Street, which is outside a treasure trove second-hand bookshop. A book caught my eye titled ‘Marzahn, Mon Amour’. I quickly had a glance, bought the book and ran. If ever there had been a random book buy this was it.
Some years ago I went with a family on holidays to Berlin; we stayed in an Airbnb in Marzahn, which is an eastern suburb of Berlin.You might rightly say what a weird reason to buy a book. Guess what? It turned out a gem.
The author Katja Oskamp is in her late 40s, considers herself a failed writer, decides to change trades and becomes a chiropodist.
It’s a collection of interactions she has over a number of years with clients. She tells some extremely funny stories, sad ones too.
Marzahn was in the former East Germany. What struck me reading the book was their life stories differ little from those of us who live in the West; people’s feet come in all shapes and sizes East or West.
Oskamp has a great ability of building a lovely rapport with her clients.
It’s mainly elderly women who visit her but there is the occasional man and also two young girls have been sent by their mothers, worried that their children’s feet are not perfectly correct down to the smallest detail.
Eberhard Pietsch was born in 1941, a retired maths and history teacher, married with one daughter. He joined the Community Party and rose through the ranks. He was proud of his sexual conquests and suggested Katja would add to his number. She politely refused. And goes on to tell the reader: ‘I get the better of his woody toenails, which are never easy to trim.
There’s the lovely old Gerlinde Bonkat, who experienced much suffering in her life but managed it well. Katja Oskampf was greatly impressed with her: ‘She has seized the opportunity to make up for her difficult start in life, defending her independence to this day.’
The author tells us in her years in the job she took care of 3,800 feet, in other words 19,000 toes.
What must doctors, dentists, chiropodists, all those who attend to people, hear and see every day?
No doubt AI could write this but what about Katja Oskamp’s lived experience?
If only we all looked around and paid more attention to the other we’d be surprised what could land on our ears and eyes.
Catching those moments surely adds to the quality and reality of our lives.
Katja listens carefully to her clients, takes them seriously and they know that.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier says of the book: 'Katja Oskamp knows how to capture the essence of people beautifully. They really come to life in her portraits. A powerful book’.
It would make an excellent Christmas stocking filler.
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