Sex, lies, and the absent patriarch -the Mennonite way

Sex- Check
Lies- Check
Absent patriarch- Check
Armin Wiebe is a true Mennonite writer. And not just because his last name meets the criteria.


Last spring I took a Manitoba Literature course at the University of Winnipeg studying the work of authors Armin Wiebe, Patrick Friesen, David Bergen, Di Brandt, and Miriam Toews (who quickly became my favourite author) so I was relatively familiar with the themes in Mennonite literature.

Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz (written by Armin Wiebe, directed by Kim McCaw) deals with the sexual frustrations of a young couple who want to conceive, a single female who is in love with her married friend, and a random drifter who transfers his "affections" for someone named Sophie onto the same married women.  The married couple at the centre of it all, Obrum and Susch, wish to conceive a baby and have been unable to, which may be due to Obrum's past brush with poison ivy on his parts needed to reproduce. So, one day, instead of bringing home a washing machine for Susch, Obrum brings home a broken piano and Beethoven Blatz to fix it when NEITHER OF THEM know how to play the piano. Beethoven then sets up shop and camp at the couple's home for many months to fix this piano.

What struck me as weird about this was how random the piano was in the story even though it was basically the reason for the story. From what I have read in Mennonite literature, the patriarch was very unlike Obrum. Obrum was far more flexible like Nomi's father in Toews' A Complicated Kindness, communicative, and modern than the stern male characters in other Mennonite lit, like Lucy's father in Toews' Summer of My Amazing Luck. In the Moonlight Sonata, Obrum appears to give his houseguest permission to have sex with his wife, which does not fit with the typical male Mennonite character portrayed in other novels.

The language in Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz came as no surprise either. Similar to that of Wiebe's Salvation of Yasch Siemens was the improper sentence structuring of English, like when Susch said "What want you with such a thing on a farm?" (referring to the broken piano). I also recognized the combination of Flat or Low German used exclusively in Wiebe's novels.

I have yet to read a Mennonite novel where sex doesn't play a large role. The Salvation of Yasch Siemens also relies on heavy sex content with a comedic angle, where a young man accidentally impregnates a Mennonite girl. All deal struggle with feelings of rebellion towards tradition and religion.

The lies and ambiguity that I find present in many Mennonite novels were too in The Moonlight Sonata, particularly in the end when we are unsure of who the father of Susch's baby is and Susch decides to say nothing of her affair with Blatz. Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness (ACK) contains many ambiguous parts that lets the reader's imagination take its own course, like whether Nomi's mother did kill herself or what happened to her father, Ray, in the end.

One thing that I obsessed over during my Manitoba Literature course that stuck out with me the most, was the patriarch's tendency to be absent throughout the major parts of the story, whether it be emotionally or physically. Like in Sandra Birdsell's Agassiz Stories, Maurice Lafreniere spends many days away on drunken binges and later died, without much of a role in his children's lives. In ACK, Ray Nickel was emotionally absent for much of the novel after his wife and eldest daughter disappeared. Obrum was away doing carpentry work during much of Susch's pregnancy, as one of the scenes was of Susch deciding whether or not to tell Obrum of the pregnancy but she doesn't need to since she was already showing.

The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz is another hilarious example of Mennonite work riddled with sexual content. It was a great performance played by very talented actors. I don't think the talkback given from Armin Wiebe furthered my knowledge on the story, but provided context to certain aspects of the story, like that his inspiration for Obrum's previous brush with poison ivy came from a similar story he heard about his grandfather.

**All of the above information is based off of opinion and classroom assignments and discussions about novel themes. I don't believe this information to be true of all real-life Mennonite families.**