Die Zürcher Verlobung [literally: The Zurich Engagement] is a novel by Barbara Noack.
Finished on: 25.6.2025

Content Note: child abuse

Plot:
Author Juliane, called Julchen, needs a break from her ex-boyfriend who just got engaged to another woman. She goes to visit her uncle Julius in Berlin, a dentist. As luck will have it, he needs an assistant for a day. Julchen helps out and thus meets Julius‘ patient, the charming, good-looking Jean from Switzerland who is accompanied by his friend, a rather rude man with the nickname Buffalo. Julchen is inspired by the encounter and decides to write about it. When a film studio picks up her script and none other than Paul Frank – aka Buffalo – is set to direct, Julchen finds herself announcing a totally real engagement to the totally existing Uri in Switzerland – and that is just the beginning of the chaos.

I found this three novels in one book collection by Barbara Noack in one of the book shelves at home. It seems to have just materialized there, I certainly don’t know where it came from. But whatever fate conspired to slide this book into my shelves, I want to thank it, because Die Zürcher Verlobung is a fun screwball romance that I absolutely devoured.

I am always on the look-out in free little libraries etc. whether I find a book by a female writer that has been a little forgotten (as female authors are more easily forgotten) and that is worth being remembered. Noack is the kind of author I’d consider an absolute win in that regard. I don’t know if she was forgotten, or if I just didn’t know her, but she definitely had a good run in her day – with this novel being adapted into film (twice!) – and is not really somebody I hear being talked about. Or whose books are easy to buy anymore (in paper at least).

Anyway, she was quite the discovery for me, and I am very happy that I have two more novels in the magic book on my shelf. The entire novel has excellent pacing and a great sense of humor that propels you through. Julchen is a great heroine, definitely flawed but self-aware and independent. And I really liked how her attraction to Jean is resolved in the end.

Not everything aged quite as well – that Frank keeps slapping his son Pips is obviously played for laughs, but 70 years after its first publication, this is just not funny anymore. Fortunately, it’s not outright beating, and there are only a couple of moments where it happens, so I was able to ignore it and enjoy the rest of the book.

And I really did enjoy it, although it leans on a couple of tropes that I don’t love too much (like Frank’s teasing of Julchen that went almost too far). That the book gets in some digs at the film industry is something I appreciated. There is generally an ironic tone in the book that just makes it a breeze.

In short, the book knows what it’s doing, and it is doing it very well, not pretending to be more than it is, but not downplaying itself either. And it is just funny.

Summarizing: great.