Category Archives: German Literature

Bernhard Schlink: The Weekend – Das Wochenende (2008)

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Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart. They plumb their memories of each other and pass quiet judgements on the life decisions each has made since their youth. This isn’t, however, just any old reunion, and their conversations of the old days aren’t typical reminiscences. After 24 years, Joerg – a convicted murderer and terrorist, is released from prison on a pardon. 

Bernhard Schlink Week, hosted by Judith (Reader in the Wilderness), is part of German Literature Month. We had the option to choose either a literary  or one of the crime novels. I opted for the first. I have read The Reader a few years ago and liked it. It’s well-written, carefully constructed, thought-provoking and suspenseful. No wonder it was a bestseller. It took me a while to decide which of his novels I should read. Since I’m interested in the history of the RAF (Red Army Fraction), I felt like reading The Weekend – Das Wochenende which tells the story of Jörg, former terrorist, who is amnestied by the president, after 20 years in prison. To ease him into this transition his sister Christiane, invited the old friends to her house in the country, to spend a weekend together.

Family weekends or holidays are tropes I love because they often manage to look under the surface; taken out of their daily lives and put together, people clash and reveal their carefully hidden and often ugly feelings. To choose this setting for the homecoming of his protagonist wasn’t a bad choice but the way it was written was awfully bad. While there were a few scenes I liked and although it was a quick read, the melodramatic tone, the trite symbolism – the book starts on Friday and ends on Sunday with a “redemptive” scene in which everyone helps to carry buckets of water which flooded the cellar after a torrential rain (hello, heavy-handed allusion) – just didn’t do it for me. Add cancer, a budding love story between two elderly people who don’t need to fall in love as they are mature and therefore can skip the intro – read – jump into bed without the nervous fussing  – …

What’s really bad is that this is a book about terrorism. A terrorism which was a reaction to Germany’s post-war attempts at forgetting the past and leaving the old Nazis in prominent places. A terrorism which protested against imperialism, bigotry and hypocrisy. While initially in her first wave the RAF didn’t want to harm or kill people, the second wave became much more aggressive and violent and didn’t shy away from murder. Jörg is exemplary of this second wave. But nothing is shown, or discussed. There are just people with opinions, sitting together, eating and discussing. Each character serves as a vehicle expressing the one or the other opinion on terrorism.

The German newspaper critics hated this book. The readers on amazon like it. I don’t always agree with critics but in this case I have to. This is a book written like a corny genre novel and the only thing interesting about it is the topic but it’s not treated well. I don’t know any more than before reading it. Jörg says that there was a war on and that it was normal that people got killed in a war. On the other hand he is crying over getting old and being ill…. A sentimental man who pretends he doesn’t care that he killed people? That doesn’t work for me.

The book was published in 2008, just half a year after Brigitte Mohnhaupt was amnestied, while Christain Klar was not. It’s ok to be topical in novels but this book makes me think Schlink wanted to exploit something.

At the end of the year we write our Best of lists. I always add one or two worst of books, books that I found so bad that in some cases they infuriated me. The Weekend will be on the list. It’s insufferably botched.

Prague German Writers – Franz Werfel: Pale-Blue Ink in a Lady’s Hand – A Guest Post by literalab (Michael Stein)

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This is the second in the series of guest posts from literalab on Prague German writers. Part I – The introduction – can be found here. 

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here is the first of what will inevitably be an incomplete list of Prague German writers and some of the books they wrote:

1 – Franz Werfel

During his lifetime Werfel (1890-1945) was Prague’s leading literary star, the one whose fame allowed him to leave his provincial hometown behind for the intellectual and cultural bright lights of Vienna. Initially famous as a poet and playwright, Werfel’s current revival is based on his prose, specifically his 1933 international bestseller about the Armenian genocide The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and 1941 novella Pale Blue Ink in a Lady’s Hand, both published by Godine in 2012.

Though Musa Dagh had been translated into English and has been reprinted periodically since the 30s it suffered from cuts of up to 25% of the original novel, cuts that weren’t even made to appease Turkish political pressure (though that was present at the time and helped prevent a Hollywood adaptation) but to fit the work for this adaptation that wasn’t made and for the Book-of-the-Month club. The new edition is the first time the novel has appeared in English in its entirety.

I’d like to highlight the lesser-known novella because Werfel is sometimes criticized for writing long and long-winded novels – in other words for being the anti-Kafka, the opposite of the writer who was so sparing of his adjectives and adverbs. Yet Pale Blue Ink is a masterpiece of concision, and with a lot of recent discussion on the value and nature of the novella, it’s a prime example of a literary form (not just a short novel or a long short story) that at its best contains both the sweep of a long novel as well as the kind of precision in dramatic moments or individual lines typical of the best short stories.

The book opens with Austrian bureaucrat Leonidas Tachezy and his rich and beautiful wife, whose life of empty elegance reflects the Vienna of the 30s they live in. Unfortunately, for both the couple and the city, this smooth surface is only an illusion everyone pretends to believe in at a precipitously high cost. For Tachezy it’s a letter from his past that shatters his present life, though to what degree it will break he spends a great amount of effort trying to determine. An affair is one thing, actually not all that uncommon, but as the details of the letter get drawn out and as Tachezy is forced to confront his self-image Werfel subtly shifts the grounds of the book from ballrooms and boudoirs to Gestapo jail cells in a way that the impact is far stronger than if he had confronted the Nazis head-on.

Pale Blue Ink takes place within a single day and possesses a singular intensity in its focus on a letter and the specific long-ago relationship with a Jewish woman it recalls to the protagonist. Yet the novella’s reach is immense, bringing in Tachezy’s past and modest upbringing, Viennese high society, its government bureaucracy and the darkness of neighboring Nazi Germany.

In achieving the economy of the novella Werfel makes powerful use of leitmotifs that recur with particular characters or to drive home certain themes. Tachezy’s wife Amelie is obsessed with retaining her youthful beauty and the descriptions of her eyes become increasingly haunting and elaborate throughout the book. As a student Tachezy inherited a tuxedo from a Jewish fellow boarder who committed suicide, and this tuxedo likewise goes on to carry a dark, symbolic weight.

The best part of Pale Blue Ink is how unbalanced you are kept reading it, not knowing from one moment to the other just what type of story it is – a love story, a psychological portrait, a society novel, an early Holocaust book – and whether the main assumptions of the protagonist (and reader) are true or not.

Thanks a lot, Michael for this review.

The subsequent posts in the series will either be featured on this blog during German Literature Month or on literalab. I’ll add the links in any case. 

Here is part I of the series: Introduction and Werfel and Kafka (literalab)

Prague German Writers: A List – A Guest Post by literalab (Michael Stein)

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I’m so pleased to have a few guest posts for you from one of the blogs I admire the most. literalab is my go-to blog for Central and Eastern European fiction. Michael is an American expat living in Prague. He is a journalist and writer and has written for different European and American magazines. His posts have always something completely new to offer. Either because the writers are new to me, or because the angle from which he writes about them is unusual. For German Literature Month he has written a few guest post on Prague German writers. We kick off today with an introduction, tomorrow I’ll feature one of his reviews. You will see, there are far more Prague German writers than Kafka to be discovered or re-discovered. The posts wich will follow are part of a series. I’ll feature a few, the following will be posted on literalab in the upcoming weeks. 

As the number of early 20th century German-language writers such as Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig get “rediscovered” and belatedly translated into English there is the impression that the deep literary mines of the era might have dried up and all that’s left are the correspondence and diaries of those same writers, or perhaps a new translation of Kafka’s second-grade homework or some of his miscellany that will inevitably come out of the recently litigated manuscript stash in Tel-Aviv.

That impression is, of course, wrong, and one of the sources of the many German-language writers still left to be read, re-published and even translated for the first time happens to be the same source as those contentious manuscripts and the posthumously famous “prophet of the 20th century” who wrote them in the first place – Prague.

Recently, Prague German writers have finally been getting rediscovered to a certain degree, though generally without getting profiled in the New Yorker like Joseph Roth or shredded in the London Review of Books like poor Stefan Zweig (the exception is Ruth Franklin’s New Yorker profile of H.G. Adler, unavailable online.) I have written about a recent exhibition on Prague’s Forgotten German Writers at Readux and a number of the writers I’ll list have been republished or published for the first time in English only this year.

This will be a totally unsystematic list, consisting of writers I love and have read and reread, writers I haven’t read in a long time and some I haven’t gotten around to reading yet at all. I wanted to put them all there to show the variety of Prague’s now vanished literary scene.

These writers suffered from some very stark and evident wrongs – they grew up in an atmosphere of nationalist intolerance, and with many of them Jewish, experienced Czech nationalism at first as harshly, if not more harshly, than its German counterpart. Later, they experienced more severe repression, exile, and privation.

One ironic result of Nazism’s defeat, in combination with the Holocaust, was that their language was erased from their homeland. This meant that Prague German writers became almost unknown in their homeland, and even today putting up a public bust to a world-renowned figure like Rilke took until 2011, seemingly after all the busts of Czech choral directors and dental school founders had found there eternal homes.

Yet perhaps the darkest and most obscuring shadow for this group of writers has been that of their canonized compatriot Kafka. Their work is compared to his (even by people who haven’t read theirs) in a way that is patently unfair and which would kill off any number of other national literatures of the period if their work was put to a similarly unfair test. Kafka’s labyrinths are supposed to be a stand-in for the streets of Prague, so then why read about those actual streets? Well, I can think of any number of reasons, one of which is that Kafka’s labyrinths aren’t a stand-in for the streets of Prague.

Prague offered a fantastic starting point for its writers to go in a multitude of directions, Kafka included, but where he uses a sparse prose style to delve into layers of symbolic meaning, Leo Perutz, for example, makes use of the city’s rich history and myth, whereas writers like H.G. Adler and Hermann Grab ventured into entirely different realms of modernist writing, often being compared to Joyce and Proust respectively.

Thanks a lot, Michael, for this great contribution. Tomorrow I will post the sequel,  the first name on the list of Prague German writers. The list will be continued in the upcoming weeks and will either be featured on this blog or on literalab. 

German Literature Recommendations II – 89 Novella and Short Story Writers You Should Read

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First of all, welcome to German Literature Month. I’m sure it will be an exciting journey for all of us. If you participate, please leave comments so that we can visit your blogs and add your posts to a final list. We will most probably not do as many wrap up posts this year but the occasional update will surely appear on the one or the other blog.

Last year I published a post called German Literature Recommendations – 20 German Novels You Should Read. It was based on Marcel Reich-Ranicki’s famous “Der Kanon der deutschen Literatur”. There were many questions about missing authors in the comment sections. Many famous and outstanding writers were not on that list which made it look like an omission but in many cases they were not on that list because Reich-Ranicki considered them better at writing novellas and short stories.

In order to fill the gap left by last year’s post, I have decided to post his list on novellas and short stories. I indicate the authors (over 80 names) and some of their best stories with their German titles. For those who are famous it’s easy to find the English equivalent as it will be in collections, for others it’s more difficult. If you have a particular interest in an author or a story but difficulties to find it in English – or French… Don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail. If it’s available, I’m sure I can find it for you.

The first week of this year’s German Literature Month is dedicated to novellas and short stories, if you still don’t know what to read, I’m sure you will find suggestions on the list.

I’ve already read two, one of them is on the list below, it’s Schnitzler’s Leutnant Gustl, which is available under the same title in English.

For more details on the different weeks, please visit the German Literature Month Announcement.

  • Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Die Sängerin Antonelli; Die wunderlichen Nachbarskinder; Der Mann von funfzig Jahren
  • Friedrich Schiller: Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre
  • Johann Peter Hebel: Der kluge Richter; Eine merkwürdige Abbitte; Kannitverstan; Drei Wünsche; Moses Mendelssohn; Ein teurer Kopf und ein wohlfeiler; Unverhofftes Wiedersehen; Drei Worte; Glimpf geht über Schimpf
  • Jean Paul: Des Feldpredigers Schmelzle Reise nach Flätz
  • Ludwig Tieck: Des Lebens Überfluss
  • E. T. A. Hoffmann: Ritter Gluck; Der Sandmann; Das Fräulein von Scuderi
  • Heinrich von Kleist: Das Erdbeben in Chili; Die Marquise von O…; Michael Kohlhaas; Die Verlobung in St. Domingo; Der Zweikampf; Anekdote aus dem letzten preußischen Krieg
  • Clemens Brentano: Die Schachtel mit der Friedenspuppe; Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl
  • Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl’s wundersame Geschichte
  • Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm: Hänsel und Gretel; Aschenputtel; Rotkäppchen; Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten; Der Gevatter Tod; Dornröschen; Schneewittchen; Rumpelstilzchen
  • Joseph von Eichendorff:
    Das Marmorbild; Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts; Das Schloss Dürande
  • Franz Grillparzer: Der arme Spielmann
  • Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Die Judenbuche
  • Jeremias Gotthelf: Die schwarze Spinne
  • Heinrich Heine: Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski; Florentinische Nächte; Der Rabbi von Bacherach
  • Wilhelm Hauff: Die Geschichte von Kalif Storch; Der Zwerg Nase
  • Eduard Mörike: Das Stuttgarter Hutzelmännlein; Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag
  • Adalbert Stifter: Turmalin
  • Georg Büchner: Lenz
  • Theodor Storm:
    Immensee; Die Söhne des Senators; Hans und Heinz Kirch; Der Schimmelreiter
  • Gottfried Keller: Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe; Die drei gerechten Kammacher; Kleider machen Leute; Der Landvogt von Greifensee
  • Theodor Fontane: Schach von Wuthenow; Stine
  • Conrad Ferdinand Meyer: Der Schuss von der Kanzel; Gustav Adolfs Page
  • Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: Krambambuli
  • Ferdinand von Saar: Schloss Kostenitz
  • Eduard von Keyserling: Die Soldaten-Kersta
  • Arthur Schnitzler: Sterben; Der Ehrentag; Leutnant Gustl; Der Tod des Junggesellen;Fräulein Else; Spiel im Morgengrauen
  • Gerhart Hauptmann: Bahnwärter Thiel
  • Frank Wedekind: Die Schutzimpfung
  • Heinrich Mann: Gretchen
  • Jakob Wassermann: Der Stationschef
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Das Märchen der 672. Nacht
  • Thomas Mann: Der kleine Herr Friedemann; Tristan; Tonio Kröger; Schwere Stunde;Wälsungenblut; Der Tod in Venedig; Unordnung und frühes Leid; Mario und der Zauberer
  • Rainer Maria Rilke: Die Turnstunde
  • Hermann Hesse: Knulp; Klein und Wagner
  • Martin Buber: Abraham und Lot
  • Robert Walser: Sebastian; Ein unartiger Brief
  • Alfred Döblin: Die Ermordung einer Butterblume
  • Robert Musil: Das verzauberte Haus; Tonka
  • Stefan Zweig: Die Weltminute von Waterloo; Schachnovelle
  • Ernst Weiß: Franta Zlin; Die Herznaht
  • Franz Kafka: Das Urteil; Die Verwandlung; Vor dem Gesetz; Ein Bericht für eine Akademie; Ein Landarzt; In der Strafkolonie; Ein Hungerkünstler
  • Lion Feuchtwanger: Höhenflugrekord
  • Egon Erwin Kisch:
    Wie ich erfuhr, daß Redl ein Spion war; Die Himmelfahrt der Galgentoni
  • Ernst Bloch: Fall ins Jetzt
  • Gustav Sack: Im Heu
  • Gottfried Benn: Gehirne
  • Georg Heym: Jonathan
  • Kurt Tucholsky: Rheinsberg
  • Franz Werfel: Der Tod des Kleinbürgers
  • Joseph Roth: April; Stationschef Fallmerayer; Die Legende vom heiligen Trinker
  • Heimito von Doderer: Acht Wutanfälle
  • Carl Zuckmayer: Geschichte von einer Geburt
  • Bertolt Brecht: Der Augsburger Kreidekreis; Der verwundete Sokrates;
    Die unwürdige Greisin
  • Elisabeth Langgässer: Saisonbeginn
  • Anna Seghers: Der Ausflug der toten Mädchen; Post ins Gelobte Land;
    Bauern von Hruschowo
  • Hans Erich Nossack: Der Untergang
  • Marie Luise Kaschnitz: Der Strohhalm; Lange Schatten; April
  • Marieluise Fleißer: Avantgarde
  • Elias Canetti: Die Verleumdung; Die Lust des Esels
  • Wolfgang Koeppen: Schön gekämmte, frisierte Gedanken;
    Ein Kaffeehaus; Jugend
  • Max Frisch:
    Der andorranische Jude; Skizze eines Unglücks; Glück
  • Arno Schmidt: Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas; Die Umsiedler
  • Peter Weiss: Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers
  • Wolfgang Hildesheimer: Ich schreibe kein Buch über Kafka;
    Das Ende einer Welt
  • Heinrich Böll: Der Mann mit den Messern; Wiedersehen in der Allee; Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa …; Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen
  • Wolfdietrich Schnurre: Das Manöver
  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Die Panne
  • Wolfgang Borchert: Das Brot
  • Ilse Aichinger: Spiegelgeschichte
  • Franz Fühmann: Das Judenauto; König Ödipus
  • Siegfried Lenz: Der Verzicht; Ein Kriegsende; Ein geretteter Abend
  • Martin Walser: Ein fliehendes Pferd; Selbstporträt als Kriminalroman
  • Günter Grass: Katz und Maus
  • Günter Kunert: Alltägliche Geschichte einer Berliner Straße; Die Waage
  • Christa Wolf: Kein Ort. Nirgends
  • Thomas Bernhard: Die Mütze; Wittgensteins Neffe
  • Gabriele Wohmann: Wiedersehen in Venedig; Sonntag bei den Kreisands
  • Adolf Muschg: Der Ring; Der Zusenn oder das Heimat
  • Uwe Johnson: Jonas zum Beispiel
  • Ulrich Plenzdorf: kein runter kein fern
  • Peter Bichsel: Die Männer; Sein Abend; Der Mann mit dem Gedächtnis
  • Hans Joachim Schädlich:
    Besuch des Kaisers von Russland bei dem Kaiser von Deutschland
  • Jurek Becker: Die beliebteste Familiengeschichte
  • Hermann Burger: Der Orchesterdiener
  • Peter Handke:
    Das Umfallen der Kegel von einer bäuerlichen Kegelbahn
  • Christoph Hein: Der neuere (glücklichere) Kohlhaas
  • Botho Strauß: Die Widmung
  • Christoph Ransmayr: Przemysl

Theodor Storm – Bulemanns Haus -The House of Bulemann

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I often return to Storm’s short stories and novellas in autumn and winter. Not many know how to create an atmosphere like he does. His stories are either set in one or the other Northern town with their narrow, winding little alleyways, flanked by high houses with pointy gabled roofs and small, dark gardens or near the marshes and the dykes along the coast. His stories are realistic and eerie at the same time. Stories of unhappy love can be found as well as fairy tales or ghost stories. Many of his characters have become odd, whimsical and embittered through misfortune and loneliness. Two days ago, rummaging in my book shelves, I found a collection of short stories entitled “Katzen – Texte aus der Weltliteratur“, classic stories with a cat theme. When I looked through the contents I discovered a story by Storm called Bulemanns Haus. Should you like to read it in German here is the link Bulemanns Haus. I couldn’t find an English translation but it’s a very typical Storm story and can give you an impression whether you’d like to read him.

Bulemanns Haus is a story that reminded me a lot of A Christmas Carol only it is more sinister. In a German town, somewhere in the North, stands an abandoned old and dilapidated house. People pretend that they often see a face behind the dirty windows and at night they hear a scurrying sound as if huge colonies of mice were running through the house. The house used to belong to Bulemann, a bachelor who inherited the house from his father, a pawnbroker. He inherited the house, including all the objects people had left. Bulemann had been on a ship for many years and was said to have sold his black wife and their children and chosen to come back, accompanied by two cats only.

The first thing he did upon his return was selling all the objects in the house and making a fortune. The money was hidden everywhere. He was rich and avaricious and treated people in a mean and nasty way. Even his cats were frequently abused. When his impoverished sister turned up with his sickly nephew to ask for charity, he turned them down promptly and didn’t even care, some time later, when it looked as if the child was going to die. His sister who asked for help once more, was turned down again.  Before she left the house, she cursed her brother and soon afer her departure something weird was going on with Bulemann’s cats. It looked as if those two animals were growing. They got bigger and bigger daily and were finally capable not only of fighting back their master but of keeping him in check and finally imprison him.

The years went by, the cats were hunting mice at night and Bulemann was shrinking until he wasn’t much more than a helpless gnome, condemned to spend all eternity in an empty house with two giant cats.

Storm wrote a poem with a similar title In Bulemanns Haus which you can read here in German.

I thought this story was quite eerie, reminiscent of some of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tales. My favourite Storm story so far was Immensee. But The Dykemaster aka The Rider on the White Horse is equally good. Vishy reviewed them recently here and here and Lizzy has written a review of a lesser known collection Carsten the Trustee.

When it comes to 19th century German writers I would say that from a language point of view Fontane and Storm are two of the most accomplished writers, only surpassed by The Brothers Grimm who have written the most beautiful German you can find. Should you never have read anything by The Brothers Grimm, Mel U found a great online resource for 19th Century German stories which he shares here.

Do you have a favourite story by Storm?

Bulemanns Haus und andere Geschichten Theodor Storm 32825 Blomberg Bild 1

Heinrich Böll: The Silent Angel – Der Engel schwieg (1951) Literature and War Readalong November 2011 Meets German Literature Month

Posted in Books, German Literature, Novel, Readalong by

Written between 1949 – 1951 Der Engel schwieg  or The Silent Angel is unique in many ways. Unique for German literature but also in Böll’s work. I have already written about it in my post on Sebald’s The Natural History of Destruction. Böll’s novel, which is one of the rare to depict a German city after the massive bombings by the Allies, had to wait 40 years for its publication. For this reason many of the chapters have been re-used in other books and if you are familiar with Böll the one or the other scene or description may appear familiar. All the important themes of Böll’s work can already be found here. Criticism of post-war Catholicism, compassion with those who have nothing, with those who suffer. His books often circle around the same elements, motives and themes and although he doesn’t always use the same style, this gives the impression of a very organic work that, read in its entirety, gives an excellent panorama of Post-war Germany.

The Silent Angel is one of the most important works of the so-called “Trümmerliteratur” (the literature of the ruins). The story as such can be told in a few sentences. It’s May 8 1945. Hans, a deserter, returns from the war without a passport. He tries to find the woman of a comrade who died instead of him. While walking the bombed and destroyed city he meets a woman who lives in an appartment in a house that is almost a ruin. He feels a strong connection to her and asks her if he can stay with her. She has lost her baby in an air raid, his wife has died as well and so, like two castaways, they are stranded together in this apartment. At first they both envy those who died but slowly they find their way back to love, hope and some kind of livable future.

It isn’t said but we know that the city which is described is Köln, Böll’s hometown. The description of the despair of the people, how tired they are physically and psychologically is impressive. The way he depicts their struggle to find bread, their fight to survive in those ruins is powerful. There is one scene in which Hans tries to visit someone and to walk a distance which used to take him ten minutes, he takes an hour because of  all the debris and the rubble. As I said before, Catholicism is an important theme in Böll’s work and in this novel, in which the greed of some Catholics is shown in all its ugliness, the description of the bombed churches becomes a very significant additional meaning.

What impressed me the most apart from the descriptions of the ruined city is how tired these people are. They spend days and days on end in their beds, staring at their walls. Finding something to eat, moving about the city, coming to terms with was has happened, takes an unimaginable effort, drains them of all their energy. All they have left is exhaustion.

This must sound very depressing but Böll isn’t only a writer of despair. He describes hopelessness but his characters overcome it, they find hope and the courage to go on living. The negative people have their positive counterparts. The greedy Dr. Fischer who doesn’t care for anything but money and for whom Catholic artifacts are just collectible items finds his counterpart in the gentle priest who helps Hans. The priest is the embodiment of a pure, compassionate Catholicism.

I was wondering while reading The Silent Angel whether I thought it was well written. I think he could have improved the structure, some passages read like short stories, some elements could have been left out, all in all it feels a bit loose at times which isn’t the case in his later work. His later novels are much more condensed but Böll has a gift for description which is rare. And he represents a rare model of moral integrity, he is an author who wrote for those who have nothing, who tried to unmask hypocrisy and uncover everything that was fake and phony in post-war Germany. I don’t know all that many authors who are so humane.

I have read The Silent Angel before. It isn’t my favourite Böll novel but since it’s an excellent example of “Trümmerliteratur” it seemed a great choice for the readalong. I’m very interested to know what others thought of this book.

Other reviews

Christina (Ardent Reader)

Danielle (A Work in Progress)

Fay (Read, Ramble)

Lizzy (Lizzy’s Literary Life)

Rise (in lieu of a field guide)

Tony (Tony’s Reading List)

Eduard Mörike: Mozart’s Journey to Prague – Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag (1855)

Posted in Books, German Literature, Novella by

This is one of those books that I had meant to read since years. Now that I have read it, just after reading Kleist, I must say, I couldn’t imagine another classic as far from Kleist as Mörike. Mozart’s Journey to Prague is a truly lovely piece of writing. Sunny, cheerful but still profound, thoughtful and with a melancholic undertone. All in all one could say the sunniness is deceptive.

It’s the year 1787 and Mozart and his wife Konstanze are on a journey to Prague for the opening of Don Giovanni. They are cheerful but not without worries. Money is a big issue in Mozart’s life. Money and his health. He never rests, never stops running from one invitation to the next, working till the early morning, hardly sleeping.

His needs were various, above all his passion for all the pleasures of society were extraordinarily strong. Honoured and sought out as an incomparable talent by Vienna’s noblest families, he seldom or never declined invitations to dinners, parties and soirées. In addition he would entertain his own circle of friends with befitting hospitality. The Sunday musical evening, a long-established tradition in his house, or the informal luncheon at his well-furnished table with a few friends and acquaintances two or three times a week, were pleasures he refused to forgo. Sometimes, to his wife’s dismay, he would bring unannounced guests straight in off the streets, a very varied assortment of people, dilettanti, artistic colleagues, singers and poets. The idle parasite whose sole merit lay in an untiring vivacity, ready wit and the coarser sort of humour was made as welcome as the learned connoisseur or the virtuoso musician.

They talk about a few of these things but they are enjoying themselves as well. Mozart steps out of the carriage in a forest and gets all enthusiastic about the trees, the beauty of nature of which he hardly sees anything in Vienna.

A little later they stop at a village and Konstanze rests in a guest house while Mozart goes for a walk in someone’s garden. Lost in his thoughts he carelessly snaps an orange from a little tree and halves it with his knife. He immediately gets arrested by the gardener and brought in front of the noble man whose park he has entered. Lucky for him they recognize him and are delighted to have him there.

The little tree is very dear to the daughter of the noble man. It has once been a gift from Mme de Sévigné herself. The little tree was about to die but thanks to a skillful gardener has recovered. His oranges were counted and the tree was meant as a gift for the daughters engagement.

Mozart and his wife are invited to spend the day and the evening of the engagement with the family. He plays the piano, sings, introduces them to Don Giovanni.

There is a lot of cheering, drinking and laughing but towards the end the daughter of the family feels a chill. She is convinced that Mozart is burning from an inner fire, that he consumes himself too fast and will not live much longer. The novella finishes with a sad poem by Mörike that ends the book on a melancholy note.

Mörike wrote this novella as an homage to Mozart whose music he adored. He tried to capture the beauty and the cheerfulness of his music and the man himself but did not omit the fact that Mozart wasn’t able to refrain himself. He couldn’t live in a moderate way, was excessive in everything, burned the candle on both sides and did, as we all know, not live very long.

Reading this novella felt at times like watching a painter paint a very colorful painting, drawing flowers and trees, a sunny blue sky but in the upper left corner of the painting we can see a dark cloud slowly starting to spread.

Mozart was without any doubt a genius and there is always a mystery surrounding them. One could wonder whether he was living and working so excessively, as the novella wants us to believe, because he knew deep inside he was going to die young or whether his excesses led to his untimely death.

It’s a very visual novella, lovely and enchanting but profound as well.

The review is part of German Literature Month – Week IV Kleist and the Classics