In this novel Ledig depicts the atrocities of the Eastern Front. The fact that he is so explicit about the horrors and destruction is, according to Sebald, the reason why Ledig was forgotten and only rediscovered thanks to Sebald’s lectures and later book.
Here’s what is written about the book on the nyrb site
Gert Ledig (1921–1999) was born in Leipzig and grew up in Vienna. At the age of eighteen he volunteered for the army and was wounded at the battle of Leningrad in 1942. He reworked his experiences during the war in this novel Die Stalinorgel (1955). Sent back home, he trained as a naval engineer and was caught in several air raids. The experience never left him and led to the writing of Vergeltung (Payback) (1956). The novel’s reissue in Germany in 1999 heralded a much publicized rediscovery of the author’s work there.
Here are the first sentences
Prologue
The Lance-Coropral couldn’t turn in his grave because he didn’t have one. Some three versts from Podrova, forty versts south of Leningrad, he had been caught in a salvo of rockets, been thrown up in the air and with severed hands and head dangling, been impaled on the skeletal branches of what once had been a tree.
I hope that some of the participants of this year’s German Literature Month will join us. As you can deduce from the first lines – this is a very graphic novel.
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The discussion starts on Friday, 30 November 2012.
Further information on the Literature and War Readalong 2012, including all the book blurbs, can be found here.
Like last year, Lizzy is compiling all the reviews in one big final post which will be a great resource for anyone interested in German literature.
But since part of the appeal of this event is to find new books and new blogs I thought you might be keen to check out what’s happening while the event is still ongoing. That’s why I have set up a German Literature Month 2012 Page where I am collecting all the posts. Today is day 3 of this year’s German Literature Month and we have already 20 posts. That’s so amazing.
Please check out the posts, especially the intro posts are interesting as they contain book lists and reading plans something we all love to see.
Here as a teaser the contributions of the first 2 days (in order of their chronological appearance)
Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler was one of those whose books were burned in Nazi Germany. Hitler considered him to be a typical example of what he called ‘Jewish filth’. What infuriated the Führer and created a lot of controversy among other readers of the time was, among other things, how outspoken Schnitzler wrote about sexuality, notably in his most famous play Round Danca aka La Ronde (Der Reigen). La Ronde is easily one of the best plays to convert people who don’t read plays, as it’s such a stunning piece. It’s a play about promiscuous and venal love in which we always see one of the two characters from the preceding scene in the next one too.
Schnitzler was highly influenced by Freud, a fact that is most apparent in Dream Story aka Dream Novella (Traumnovelle) on which Stanley Kubrick’s last movie The Eyes Wide Shut. While I liked the movie a great deal, I was pleased to find out the novella is even better.
I have read both The Dream Novella and La Ronde some years ago and wanted something else and finally decided to re-read Lieutnant Gustl and (after Tony’s suggestion) added Fräulein Else. Both are available in the collection Short Fiction.
They are both written entirely as interior monologues, a technique which was very new at the time and also influenced by Freud’s theories. At 35 pages, Lieutenant Gustl is the shorter of the two, Fräulein Else is twice that size.
Both monologues show young people in distress. Both are victims of their society. The effect of listening to their hidden fears and desires, their hopes and wishes, their silliness and despair, is spellbinding.
Lieutenant Gustl takes place in Vienna during one night. Gustl is a young officer and has a history of duels to show for. When we are introduced to him during a Oratorioum which bores him to death, we also learn that this is the evening before another duel with a doctor will take place. Gustl is all about honour and reputation. All that is on his mind are girls and the hope people will respect him. When on the way out of the theater, a master baker insults him, he feels there is only one way to save face – he has to kill himself. As the man is below him, he couldn’t ask for satisfaction in a duel. He spends the whole night debating, looking at pros and cons of his decision, imagining the reaction of the people he knows when they will find out about his death, remembers similar cases like his. At the same time he displays how much he loves life.
Fräulein Else’s story is similar but far more tragic. Else is a young girl from a rich family whose father, a gambler, again and again maneuvers the family into impossible situations. While she stays in Italy at a hotel with her aunt, her cousin and a few other people she knows, her father has lost a lot of money, some of which belongs to his charges. Because he has lost such a lot of money before, he owes most of his family and acquaintances already a fortune and there is nobody left he could ask this time. Else’s mother decides to write to her and begs her daughter to save her father. There is a rich man, Dorsday, staying at the hotel with her, someone who fancies her and the mother thinks if Else asks him, he will lend her the money. This puts Else in a very delicate situation. Not only is she deeply ashamed, she also senses that asking a man like Dorsday for money will lead to complications and most certainly he will want something in exchange. The story is quite upsetting as we get the feeling the parents know very well that this request is as if they were asking her daughter to prostitute herself. Else, like Gustl, contemplates suicide, sees herself dead, imagines escape routes and hopes for help.
What finally becomes of Else and of Lieutnant Gustl is for you to find out. I would really encourage you to read these stories, if you haven’t done so already. I liked them a great deal and think Schnitzler may be one of my favourite authors. What impressed me a lot as well was how fresh the stories and the language are. The society has changed but the things that are at stake are still the same: love, death, money. And the style is precise and emotional without ever being sappy or sentimental.
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.
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
Is there anything that would make life in a concentration camp bearable? Anything that could make it worth living? Is it justified that talent will help you survive? And if you do, how can you go on living? Maria Àngels Anglada’s short and powerful novel The Auschwitz Violin – El violí d’Auschwitz asks precisely these questions.
When Climent, a famous violinist, is invited to Krakow in 1991 for a concert, he meets the elderly Polish violinist Regina who plays on an exquisite violin. He is intrigued, he thinks he should know the luthier but, as he is told, he doesn’t. He is curious and she is keen to share the story of the beautiful instrument. The violin has been made by Daniel, Regina’s uncle, a luthier who was sent to Auschwitz. Regina was only a small girl then. She had lost her parents in the ghetto but was saved and spent the war with a non-Jewish family who let her pass as their daughter.
Daniel who is still a young man, is only saved and not exterminated right away with many others because he pretends to be a carpenter. He helps to build a greenhouse for the sadistic and despotic camp Commander and later, when the commander finds out that he is a luthier, he is ordered to build a violin for him. Another captive, Bronislaw, will have to play on it during one of the dinners the Commander gives for other Nazis. Both their lives depend on Daniel’s success. If he wasn’t such a talented and passionate luthier, he wouldn’t stand a chance to make such a delicate instrument, with hands that are rough and split from the cold and material that is far from perfect.
Working on the violin changes everything for Daniel. It isn’t only a means to survive, like helping with the greenhouse was, but it gives sense to his days, makes a human being out of him again.
The way his workshop in Poland is described and how he makes the new violin, with so much care and love, infuses this book with beauty, despite the horrors which are evoked as well.
Every chapter begins with a quote from a historical official document in which life in the camp is rendered in a statistical and factual manner. There are reports about shootings, about medical experiments and other atrocities. This adds another layer to the book, echoes the horrors Daniel has to endure and stands in stark contrast to the beauty he experiences while remembering his old life and crafting the violin.
When the instrument is finished, Bronislaw, the violinist, plays Corelli’s Sonata “La Folia” on it. Schindler, a passing figure in the novel, tells someone about Bronislaw and he is freed and brought to Sweden.
It’s a beautifully written book but a bit light at times. I don’t know if working on an instrument would really have transformed the days at the camp like this.
The idea that two people can better their lives, maybe even save it, because of their talents struck me as cruel but realistic. It’s certainly true that those with special talents had a higher chance to live longer or even survive. What does that say about us humans.? Do we always need a reason to help? Talent, looks, frailty, illness, as long as there is something different and special. The thought made me shudder because it’s at the core of so much injustice in this world, not only in the concentration camps.
Since Corelli’s Sonata “La Folia” is so important in the book, I attached a recording. It’s a very haunting piece.
The Auschwitz Violin manages to capture the horror’s of the concentration camps without being horrifying. I think Anglada wanted to tell us that there can be beauty in the most horrible places. I hope that’s true.
A recent excellent review of Jakob Wassermann’s novel My First Wife (just published by Penguin Classics) by Tom (A Common Reader) led me to hunt for the book in German. You know the feeling, you read a review and you think: “I want to read this now!” or rather not “now” but”NOW”. Only, I couldn’t find the German book. It took me quite a while to figure out which novel this was and only the review in the guardian which mentioned that My First Wife was “carved out” of another novel, solved the mystery.
I have inherited quite a lot of books of my late grandmother and a few of them are by Jakob Wassermann (1873 – 1934), an author widely read and admired until the 50s but then, I would say, slowly forgotten. I wouldn’t know of anyone, not even in Germany or Switzerland, who knows or even read him. What kept me from reading his books is the fact they are substantial. When I read Tom’s review I was pleased to see that there was one shorter novel to be discovered but I was wrong.
My first Wife doesn’t exist in German. The novel is a part of the much longer novel Joseph Kerkhoven’s Third Existence, which is part III of a 1600 pages long trilogy. Part I is The Case Maurizius, Part II Etzel Andergast. The Case Maurizius or Der Fall Maurizius which was published 1928 is considered to be his masterpiece and I hope it will be retranslated soon. It was a great success when it was published, Henry Miller was very fond of it.
According to the blog jakob wasserman, a blog which is entirely dedicated to the German author, many of his novels have been translated but are long out of print.
Judging from Tom’s review, The First Wife works very well as a standalone novel. I’m not going to discuss here whether I think it is legitimate or not to publish a part of a novel, which is part of a trilogy, as a standalone. I just thought I might be able to save other German reader’s the trouble to hunt for something that doesn’t exist in this form in German.
The best news for German readers however is that all of Jakob Wassermann’s novels are available free for the kindle. I’m very tempted to read the part which is called My First Wife in English and have already downloaded Joseph Kerkhovens dritte Existenz.
English readers who are still looking for something to read for German Literature Month may consider My First Wife, it seems a great choice.
Here’s the blurb but don’t hesitate to visit Tom’s blog and read his review.
It is the story of Alexander Herzog, a young writer, who goes to Vienna to escape his debts and a failed love affair. There he is pursued by book-loving Ganna: giddy, girlish, clumsy, eccentric and wild. Dazzled and unnerved by her devotion to him, and attracted to the large dowry offered by her wealthy father, he thinks he can mould Ganna into what he wants. But no-one can control her troubling passions. As their marriage starts to self-destruct, Herzog will discover that Ganna has resources and determination of which he had no idea – and that he can never escape her.
Posthumously published in 1934 and based on the author Jakob Wassermann’s own ruinous marriage, My First Wife bears the unmistakable aura of true and bitter experience. It is a tragic masterpiece that unfolds in shocking detail. Now this story of rare intensity and drama is brought to English readers in a powerful new translation by Michael Hofmann.
Reviews:
‘Like something out of Chekhov – it’s all there, the ennui, the preening etiquette, the intellectual posturing … painfully heartfelt … My First Wife is a devastating indictment of the choices we make out of convenience against our hearts and instincts, and the tragedies that ensue’ Independent
‘You won’t find a more agonising, fascinating literary account of a marriage hitting the rocks’ Mail Online
ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT, eight trick-or-treaters gather at the haunted house by the edge of town, ready for adventure. But when Something whisks their friend Pip away, only one man, the sinister Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, can help the boys find him.
I hadn’t been thinking of Bradbury that much until I read that he has died this year. If this hadn’t happened I might not have felt like picking one of his novels right now. The Halloween Tree has been on my TBR pile for a long time and it’s almost the end of October; it seemed like a good final choice for R.I.P. VII.
The first thing that struck me was how original and descriptive his writing is. I re-read so many of the sentences, I suppose I already read the whole book twice. It is full of passages and sentences like these
And it was the afternoon of Halloween. And all the houses shut against a cool wind. And the town was full of cold sunlight.
But suddenly, the day was gone. Night came out from under each tree and spread.
The wind outside nested in each tree, prowled the sidewalks in invisible treads like unseen cats.
On the night of Halloween eight boys in costumes gather to go trick-or-treating. One of their friends, Pipkin, isn’t ready yet and tells them to go and wait for him, outside of the town, near a well-known haunted house.
Until they stood at last by a crumbling wall, looking up and up and still farther up at the great tombyard top of the old house. For that’s what it seemed. The high mountain peak of the mansion was littered with what looked like black bones or iron rods, and enough chimneys to choke out smoke signals from three dozen fires on sooty hearths hidden far below in dim bowels of this monster place. With so many chimneys, the roof seemed a vast cemetery, each chimney signifying the burial place of some old god of fire or enchantress of steam, smoke, and firefly spark. even as they watched, a kind of bleak exhalation of soot breathed up out of some four dozen flues, darkening the sky still more, and putting out some few stars.
They wait but Pipkin doesn’t show up. Instead a mysterious man shows an takes them on a journey through history, starting with ancient Egypt at the time of the construction of the pyramids, from there he takes them to the Celts, to medieval Paris, the Europe of the witch hunts and finally Mexico on the Día des los muertos. Their trip, which they undertake on broomsticks, is an introduction to the secrets and history of Halloween, its meaning, its source, the way it changed through the ages until it became the almost meaningless contemporary trick-or-treating custom. Their journey introduces them not only to the secrets of Halloween but to Death, the source of it all. And while they follow the man from one time period to the next, enchanted, thrilled and a little scared, the boy Pipkin appears in different forms. At the end it looks as if this hadn’t only been an exploration but that the journey was an attempt to free their friend of the claws of Death who already tried to grab him.
The book is an exhilarating wonderful ride. It’s fantastic and enchanting and I loved reading it. The writing is wonderful. I’m glad I rediscovered an author I had almost forgotten. Reading Ray Bradbury so shortly after Neil Gaiman, I would say that he, like so many others, must have been heavily influenced by Bradbury.
Which Is your favourite Ray Bradbury book?
The review of The Halloween Tree is a contribution to Carl’s R.I.P. VII Challenge. Don’t miss to visit the review site.
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 