Monthly Archives: October 2011

Wednesdays are wunderbar – Jenny Erpenbeck, Clemens Meyer and Berlin City-Lit Giveaway

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Today we have a double giveaway. One on Lizzy‘s blog (that will be posted around 18.00 UK time) and the other one here. The giveaways are part of our German Literature Month in November.

Lizzy is giving away Pereine titles  (Next World Novella, Portrait of The Mother as A Young Woman and Maybe This Time) and two copies of Berlin City-Lit (see below). Her giveaway is UK only.

I’m very happy to be able to offer you three great book choices.

The first is Clemens Meyer’s short story collection All the Lights, courtesy of And Other Stories. Meyer started as a very young author and since he has entered the literary scene he has received a lot of praise.

Fifteen stories, laconic yet full of longing, from the young star of German fiction.’ GQ ‘The best crafted, toughest and most heart-rending stories in Germany.’ Spiegel ‘Respect to him. He’s the real deal.”

A man bets all he has on a horserace to pay for an expensive operation for his dog. A young refugee wants to box her way straight off the boat to the top of the sport. Old friends talk all night after meeting up by chance. She imagines their future together…Stories about people who have lost out in life and in love, and about their hopes for one really big win, the chance to make something of their lives. In silent apartments, desolate warehouses, prisons and down by the river, Meyer strikes the tone of our harsh times, and finds the grace notes, the bright lights shining in the dark.

The second book is Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation which we give away courtesy of Portobello Books. I’m sure you have seen the one or the other review of this book. It was a huge success in Germany and is now equally appreciated everywhere else.

`This haunting novel beautifully dramatises how ordinary lives are affected by history’

By the side of a lake in Brandenburg, a young architect builds the house of his dreams – a summerhouse with wrought-iron balconies, stained-glass windows the color of jewels, and a bedroom with a hidden closet, all set within a beautiful garden. But the land on which he builds has a dark history of violence that began with the drowning of a young woman in the grip of madness and that grows darker still over the course of the century: the Jewish neighbors disappear one by one; the Red Army requisitions the house, burning the furniture and trampling the garden; a young East German attempts to swim his way to freedom in the West; a couple return from brutal exile in Siberia and leave the house to their granddaughter, who is forced to relinquish her claim upon it and sell to new owners intent upon demolition. Reaching far into the past, and recovering what was lost and what was buried, Jenny Erpenbeck tells an exquisitely crafted, stealthily chilling story of a house and its inhabitants, and a country and its ghosts.

The third book is a contribution from Oxygen Books. You can win a copy of City-Lit Berlin. An anthology of stories set in Berlin. There are a lot of interesting authors included. Many German ones but also others.

If you would like to win one of those books, or enter for more than one, please let me know which ones you would like. Ideally you would read and review the book that you win.

Don’t forget to visit Lizzy’s Literary Life if you are located in the UK. She will post this evening (18.00 UK time).

The giveaway is open internationally, the books will be shipped by the editors. The winners will be announced on Sunday 23 October 20.00 – European – (Zürich) time.

Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern – Group Read Week II (Parts 3 and 4)

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The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson ebook

This is the second week of Carl’s R.I.P. VI group read of Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern. This week’s questions have been sent by Kailana. Here is the link to the other posts.

This week we read part 3 and 4 of the book. I’m still in two minds about the novel as a whole. There are passages I like and others I don’t but overall I enjoyed parts 3 and 4 much more than parts 1 and 2. They were more mysterious and creepier and I really wanted to know how the book ends that’s why I already finished it but I will not spoil it for those who haven’t read part 5 yet.

Those who have not read the book at all, shouldn’t read the answers. It wasn’t possible to avoid spoilers.

1. The title of this book is The Lantern, and a lantern makes an appearance in both of the stories. In Benedicte’s past, it had a meaning, but what do you think the lantern signifies in her future and in Eve’s story?

For me the lantern is one of the most creepy elements, together with the slender figure Eve sees several times at a distance but who disapears every time she gets closer. The discovery of the bones in the pool was quite creepy as well. At one point I thought it might be Dom who was carrying the lantern and trying to confuse and scare Eve.

2. Carl mentioned scents in last weeks questions, but they have been addressed even more in these sections. What significance do you think scents have in this story overall?

Scents are powerful triggers for memory. A scent can open up a door to a long forgotten past. That seems to be the function of the scents in the novel. For Bénédicte the scents and especially the perfume Lavande de Nuit are tied to Marthe, for Eve, I think, they will forever be her link to the first summer with Dom. And, finally, they capture the essence of the South of France, this very essence that Marthe tried to recreate with her perfume.

3. What do you think of the combining storyline of Marthe? She connects Benedicte, Eve, and Rachel. What do you think will be revealed about this connection in the next sections?

Marthe’s story is the one that fascinates me the most. The other characters in the story seem to feel the same. They are all equally fascinated by her. Her disappearance echoes Rachel’s story.

4. Now that things are beginning to move along, what do you think of the characters? Are any standing out for you? Do you particularly like any? Dislike any?

Of course I totally dislike Pierre. Dom is still without any interest to me. Eve is not very fascinating either but I’m interested in Bénédicte, Marthe and, more surprisingly in Rachel. I also start to feel pity for Rachel. I wonder if Dom ever really understood her. It seems she had issues but usually this type of issues does have an origin. Nobody becomes this obnoxious and dishonest without a reason.

5. What do you think really happened to Marthe and Annette? What do you think the significance of the bones in the pool are to the story? Especially now that it has been revealed that Rachel is also dead.

I was pretty sure they had been killed by Pierre but I didn’t see a connection with Rachel.

6. Do you have any other things you think are significant to talk about? Are there any other predictions to be made for the last two sections of the book?

I’d rather not answer this as I already finished the book.

7. Lastly, what do you think of this book overall? Other than for the read-along, why are you reading it? Is it meeting your expectations?

It’s different from what I expected. I thought I would like the story Eve – Dom – Rachel best but now I realize I’m far more interested in the triangle Marthe – Bénédicte – Pierre. During parts 3 and 4 it met my expectations. I didn’t mind the descriptions anymore and, as I said before, I really wanted to find out the ending and rushed right through the final pages.

Kleist Novellas Giveaway – The Winner

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It’s finally Sunday and I’m glad to be able to announce the winner of the giveaway of the following two novellas by Kleist, courtesy of Melville House Press.

The giveaway is part of Lizzy and my German Literature Month in November.

The winner of this week’s giveaway – drawn by random.org number generator – is Vishy from Vishy’s Blog.

Please send me your contact details via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com.

We hope you will be able to read and review at least one of them during Kleist week in November.

Happy reading, Vishy.

The next giveaway will take place next Wednesday.

Annie Ernaux: Une Femme – A Woman’s Story (1987)

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Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to “capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris.

I found this book on a shelf in the cellar of an apartment building in which I used to live. People left the books they didn’t want anymore on that shelf and you could always find an interesting choice. I have never read anything by Annie Ernaux and so I took it and forgot about it. The other day I detected it, read the first few lines and was hooked.

In A Woman’s Story – Une femme Annie Ernaux writes about her mother’s life and death. It’s a memoir but she doesn’t call it a memoir which is interesting. She writes that the book was neither a biography nor a novel but that it was a mix. I found this odd at first but then I understood that this had something to do with the year in which it was written. It seems that in 1987 there wasn’t such a wave of memoirs and autobiographies yet and she didn’t even see the book as belonging to one of these categories.

I wonder what was the ultimate reason for Ernaux to write about her mother. She asks herself this question all through the book a few times. I think she wanted to stay close to her. She started writing right after her mother died. Although her mother had been suffering of Alzheimer’s and was living in a nursing home, she didn’t want to lose her. The book read like a long eulogy. I was surprised how sober the tone was. Sober and detached. The life of Ernaux’ mother unfolds in a sequence of short sentences, statements. It’s quite unemotional with the exception of a few passages that explode like little bombs containing pain.

All this made me think a lot. The choice to write about her mother, her death and how she wrote about it. It’s been on my mind to write about my own mother but the reasons are very different and the approach would be as well.

What Ernaux wrote about her mother’s life is thought-provoking. Her mother was a simple country girl from a rather poor family, from the Normandy. It was her dream to have her own business and in 1931, ten years before Ernaux was born, she opened a café/shop that flourished all through the war. It made her feel important. Not only was she in charge but she could help others who were less fortunate. Many years later, after the death of her husband, she would have to close that café and would go and live with her daughter and her family in Annecy. Thanks to her mother’s efforts her daughter went to university and got married to a man who also had a degree. It’s very hard for me to understand what this must have felt like, when your cultural background is so different from that of your parents. It was difficult for Ernaux. From a young age on she felt completely estranged from her mother, at times ashamed of her, at the same time grateful. She later wrote a book called La honte  (shame) in which she explores these feelings.

I liked the final pages best in which she looks back on her mother’s last years, starting from the moment she begins to act strange until she has to live in the nursing home. The memories are like descriptions of photos. Little moments, frozen in time. It’s touching to see how she tries to be close to a mother who hardly recognizes her. She starts something, she has never done before, she combs her mother’s hair, brings her sweets and cleans her face, after she has finished eating.

Annie Ernaux says that she wrote the book because she wanted to recapture the woman her mother was before the illness but she also wanted to write about her because she thought the life of her mother was typical for the generation of French women born in the first decade of the last century. The hardships they knew were different, the dreams -“being someone” – were different and so were the fears – dying in poverty, shame or criminality.

As sober as the tone of this book is, it touched me. I think it would touch everyone. We all have or had mothers. We can’t help comparing and thinking about our own mothers and our relationship with them.

Unfortunately the book I found was very old. I saw that the newer French editions contain an interview and an annex in which the writing is analysed and texts by Stendhal, Rousseau and Sarraute are included for comparison. It also seems that Ernaux went on writing other memoirs on her mother and also on her father.

I will read more of her. I like how she seems to approach her parents and her own life, slowly groping, feeling along for meaning, reflecting on each step as she takes it.

Wednesdays are wunderbar – Kleist Novellas Giveaway

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As Lizzy already announced last week, you should get used to our “Wednesdays are wunderbar” series that will take place on a fairly regular basis until the end of November. They are an integral part of our German Literature Month in November.

This week’s giveaway has been kindly provided by Melville House Press. We have two of Heinrich von Kleist’s novellas to give away, The Duel (aka Der Zweikapmpf) and Michael Kholhaas (Michael Kohlhaas deutsch).

Heinrich von Kleist died 200 years ago, on November 21 1811. Kleist was 34 years old when he died or – to be more precise – killed himself together with his friend, Henriette Vogel. As much as we appreciate his work now, that was not the case during his life. He got little recognition at the time. His plays and novellas that are considered to be among the finest in German literature had to wait until the 20th century to be discovered and treasured.

Like Jean Paul, or the equally tragic Friedrich Hölderlin, Kleist didn’t belong to any specific movement. He was neither a classic nor a romantic, but somewhere in between and quite unique. He certainly was a troubled man who was too sensitive for his time. Not being understood and the fear of losing his livelihood made matters worse.

He may be more famous for his plays but he has written some extremely impressive novellas. The stories are often violent and somewhat stretching believability but the accuracy of the descriptions and his use of language are what make him one of the very great German writers. He has a voice entirely his own.

Below you can see the two novellas we are giving away. As I haven’t read these two, I added the blurbs.

Based on actual historic events, this thrilling saga of violence and retribution bridged the gap between medieval and modern literature, and speaks so profoundly to the contemporary spirit that it has been the basis of numerous plays, movies, and novels. It has become, in fact, a classic tale: that of the honorable man forced to take the law into his own hands. In this incendiary prototype, a minor tax dispute intensifies explosively, until the eponymous hero finds the forces of an entire kingdom, and even the great Martin Luther, gathered against him.

One of the few novellas written by the master German playwright, The Duel was considered by Thomas Mann and others to be one of the great works of German literature. The story of a virtuous woman slandered by a nobleman, it is a precise study of a subject that fascinated von Kleist: that people are sometimes seemingly punished for their very innocence. This new translation reinvigorates a key work by this revolutionary German writer

If you are interested in reading these two novellas, please leave a comment. The only condition is that you read and review them during the Kleist and Other German Classics week of our German Literature Month in November (week 4).

The giveaway is open internationally, the books will be shipped by the editor. The winner will be announced on Sunday 16 October 20.00 – European – (Zürich) time.

Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern – Group Read Week I (Parts 1 and 2)

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The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson ebook

This is the first week of Carl’s R.I.P. VI group read of Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern. This week’s questions have been sent by Carl. Here is the link to his post. We have been reading part one and two of the book. It’s safe to read the answers below as they do not contain spoilers. It’s too early in the book. But some of the answers can give you a good impression of whether you want to read the book or not.

The blurb calls The Lantern a novel in the vein of Rebecca. Eve, a young woman, falls in love with a complete stranger. When he asks her to come and live with her in an old beautiful house in the South of France, she abandons her life in London and follows him. The house and its surroundings are enchanting and so seems their life at first. But when Eve begins to ask questions about Dom’s first wife and discovers strange things in the old house, it all starts to change.

1.  This may seem like an obvious opening question, but what do you think of The Lantern thus far?

I am in two minds about it. There are passages that I like for their detailed descriptions and others that I do not like for the exact same reason. Sometimes water is just water. But in The Lantern you will always find a fancy description. Blue-green icy sea water. They do not eat fruit, they eat mulberries and figs and cantaloupes and probably they will taste spicy, caramel-sweet and refreshingly juicy. There is no noun that isn’t accompanied by an adjective. I find this tiring at times. I feel as if I had entered a stuffy old boudoir with too much furniture and knickknacks in it. But then again, at other times, she captures the scents, the aromas, the colors, the light and the flora of the South of France so well, that I enjoy it.

The story is interesting so far and I’m curious to find out what is going to happen next but I’m not overly keen on the characters.

2. The book appears to be following the experiences of two different women, alternating back and forth between their stories.  Are you more fond of our main protagonist’s story or of Benedicte’s or are you enjoying them both equally?

They are both interesting and I want to find out, why the book skips back and forth. One moment we are in the past with Bénédicte, then we are back with Eve. Bénédicte is the more interesting of the two because she is more mysterious. I also think that the parts that are dedicated to her are less fraught with details.

3.  The Lantern is a book filled with descriptions of scents.  How are you liking (or disliking) that aspect of the book?  How do you feel about the lavish description of scents? How are the short chapters working for you?

I like the short chapters. I also enjoy the descriptions of scent but all in all, as I said in my first answer, I think it is overdone. There is too much of it. It has an appeal but at the same time it’s overpowering. The strength of the novel is at the same time its weakness.

4.  How would you describe the atmosphere of Parts 1 and 2 of The Lantern?

Part 1 seemed almost playful, a few hints that things may not be as they seem, but there is a lot of hope, a joyous atmosphere. In part 2 there are more and more strange things going on, there are omens and signs and much more chapters focus on the past.

5.  Has anything surprised you to this point?  Anything stand out?

I’m surprised by the descriptions, how appealing and artificial they are at the same time. I’m also surprised that the story goes back and forth in time and changes between the point of view of the two women.

6.  What are your feelings about Dom in these first two sections of the story?

I simply cannot stand the guy and have no clue why any woman would follow someone who makes a secret out of his past. I wouldn’t trust him at all.

Bonus question:  Did anyone else hear “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” ringing in their ears through the first sections of the book

I read that it had a lot in common with Rebecca. Maybe the storyline is similar but the writing is so completely different that I didn’t really think of du Maurier’s book.


German Literature Recommendations – 20 German Novels You Must Read

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I’m planning on writing a few posts with recommendations  for Lizzy and my upcoming German Literature Month in November. While I will give my personal recommendations in another post, I chose to follow one of the most famous German critics for the classics and modern classics.

The notorious German critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (also called Literaturpapst aka Pope of Literature), who, for decades, made writers – praise from him would invariably lead to sales, a negative comment could ruin a career – edited a few years ago the so-called Canon of German Literature. While I don’t always agree with the foreign books he chooses to praise, I trust his judgement on German literature. Especially classics. His “Kanon der deutschen Literatur” has five parts. The first consists of 20 novels, the others are dedicated to short stories, poems, plays and essays.

As I suppose most people who will join us in November will go for novels, I chose to present Reich-Ranicki’s list of novels. There are a few I haven’t read but I got all of them and have at least read the initial pages. I think it’s a good choice and it is great that you can find German, Austrian and Swiss authors on it. I indicated whether or not the book is available in English or out of print (OOP).

  1. Johann Wolfgang Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther aka Die Leiden des jungen Werther (1774) Germany
  2. Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Elective Affinities aka Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809) Germany
  3. E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Devil’s Elixirs aka Die Elixiere des Teufels (1815/16) Germany
  4. Gottfried Keller: Green Henry aka  Der grüne Heinrich (1854/55) Switzerland
  5. Theodor Fontane: Frau Jenny Treibel (1892) Germany. Seems not available in English.
  6. Theodor Fontane: Effi Briest (1894/95) Germany
  7. Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks (1901) Germany
  8. Heinrich Mann: The Blue Angel aka Professor Unrat (1905) Germany, OOP
  9. Hermann Hesse: The Prodigy aka Unterm Rad (1906) Germany
  10. Robert Musil: The Confusions of Young Törless aka Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (1906) Austria
  11. Franz Kafka: The Trial aka Der Prozess (1914/15) Germany – Prague
  12. Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain aka Der Zauberberg (1924) Germany
  13. Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) Germany
  14. Joseph Roth: The Radetzky March aka Radetzkymarsch (1932) Austria
  15. Anna Seghers: The Seventh Cross aka Das siebte Kreuz (1942) Germany
  16. Heimito von Doderer: The Strudlhof Steps (The link included the translation of the first 79 pages)  aka Die Strudlhofstiege (1951) Austria. Seems not available.
  17. Wolfgang Koeppen: Pigeons on the Grass aka Tauben im Gras (1951) Germany
  18. Günter Grass: The Tin Drum aka Die Blechtrommel (1959) Germany
  19. Max Frisch: Montauk (1975) Switzerland. OOP
  20. Thomas Bernhard: Woodcutters aka Holzfällen (1984) Austria

Obviously there are authors and novels missing that I and others consider to be great, maybe in some cases greater than those included but you have to start somewhere. I think that Swiss author Robert Walser should have been mentioned. Many of my favourite authors have mostly written novellas and short stories and are therefore not included in this list. Some of them are Eduard von Keyserling, Theodor Storm, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Heinrich von Kleist, The Brothers Grimm and Arthur Schnitzler.

Be it as it may, the above mentioned list is a great starting point. The books vary a lot in style, length and themes.

My favourites are Effi Briest, The Elective Affinities, The Radetzky March and The Confusions of Young Törless. When it comes to Thomas Mann I liked everything but the book that impressed me the most was his Doctor Faustus, his most ambitious novel. Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull aka The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man is the most entertaining. I read a lot of Hesse. Personally I think Narziss und Goldmund aka Narcissus and Goldmund to be his best.

Did you read any of them? Which ones did you like?