Category: GERMAN LIT MONTH

German lit month here again …

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Well it’s that time of year when I start keeping my eye out and looking through the recent buys from the last twelve months to find some books for Lizzie’s and Caroline’s  German lit month ,well after it was announced earlier this week my first trip was to the Library to see if they had any Joseph Roth week is the theme for the last week ,I have only read him once before and missed out on getting the recent Granta reissues  from the other year but luckily for me my library had a couple .

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So I have two great books to read for that week both sound great I had a different copy of job out of library a few years ago but never got chance to get to it so now is the chance ,I also fount this gem

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An old Gunter Grass novel Local Anaesthetic ,a story of an idealstic teacher ,another section of German lit month is to read a prize winner and Gunter won the Nobel prize in 1999 ,I also remember I have the box but need to get hold of the peeling the onion to read his memoir in order .

Well that is it for now I have a number of other books a couple of surprises among them ,have you any plans ?

#bookaday 7 a book you forgot you had

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Well I decide for today just go to my shelves and have a good look around and the first I saw and went oh yeah I brought that and haven’t read it yet .It was this Herman Hesse short story collection which I picked up a few years ago with German lit month in mind ,but also to remind folks Hesse had written other things apart from Steppenwolf ,Siddhartha and Glass bead game .I remember I stuck it to back of the shelves as the cover as you see is rather surreal ,but finding it this morning I think I will keep it now in mind for this years German lit month
What book had you forgotten ?

The lost honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll

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The lost Honour of Katharina Blum  or how violence develops and where it can lead  by Heinrich Böll

Original title – Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann

German fiction

Translator – Leila Vennewitz

Source – personnel copy

A couple of years ago I review the German Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll best known book billiards at half past nine .Böll  he refused to join the Hitler youth as a boy took an apprenticeship as a bookseller before becoming a full-time writer aged thirty .He was chairman of German PEN for a long time and then he chaired International PEN .He won the nobel prize in 1972 and passed away in 1985 .His book were mostly reissued in english a couple of years ago by Melville house .

Inquires into Blum’s activities during the four days in question progressed nicely enough at first ,and it was only when attempts were made to gather information about that sunday that they were brought up short

On the Wednesday afternoon Blorna personally paid Katharina Blum two full weeks wages at 280 marks per week ,one for the current week , the other for week to come

The reportage style of Böll writing in this book

 

The lost Honour of Katharina Blum ,follows Katharine Blum ,she gets drawn into a tabloid sensation after meeting a man at a party who it turns out is a bank robber  and she becomes the target of the newspaper “der zeitung “( this is thinly veiled version of the German paper der bild a sort of German  version of the sun ) .She is called a whore ,a communist sympathizer as she sees her private life torn apart by the paper and gets hate mail just for knowing one man . this leads her agreeing to do an interview with someone from the paper and now a couple of hours later she is at a police station giving this statement to the  police about recent events in her life  .What happened during that interview ? We see the story of her recent life unfurl .

Seven anonymous postcards , handwritten with “crude ” sexual propositions that in one way or another all included the words “communist bitch”

Four more anonymous postcards containing insulting political remarks but no sexual propostions .These marks ranged from “Red agitator ” to “Kremlin stooge ”

The fall out of what of Katharina Blum life in the papers .

 

The style of this book is like a police report or a bit of reportage we get a detached feel on the events in Katharina’s life and what lead to her agreeing to the interview and how she meet the man ,whom dragged her into the presses eyes .Amazing this book to say it was written in the 1974 before the modern scandals and rise of the modern celebs that have been caught in the media spotlight  ,Katharine blum reminds me of many people who have been in the  UK papers over the last few years people who have  gotten  caught up in a big story by chance  or accident , like the landlord of a recent victim of a killer  who saws his life invade by the papers by just being her landlord or the woman that hid her child .Katharine story is a bit more than theres in the end but we see how far some can be pushed by the tabloids and the prying eyes .For a book that is nearly thirty years old I would say the themes and style of Böll writing is still relevant today as much as ever .He captures what it is to have your life fall apart it seems .A small work that packs a punch above its weight .

Have you read Böll ?

Naw much of a Talker by Pedro Lenz

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Naw much of a talker by Pedro Lenz

Translator – Donal McLaughlin

Swiss fiction

Original title – Der Goalie bin ig

Source – Review copy

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Well when I was contact by the publisher about this book it sound really fun take on a translation Pedro Lenz has spent time in Glasgow the lead character in this book is from Glasgow ,so the choice of Donal McLaughlin a Scottish translator meant that he could translate the book into a Scottish vernacular .Pedro Lenz was born in Langenthral in Switzerland studied spanish literature at Bern university ,since then has spent time as a freelance writer for papers ,magazines and is also a member of a spoken word group .This is his debut novel and was nominated for the swiss book prize and won the Berne prize .This book is also to be made into a film .

Tell me summit ,Goalie .Whit like wise it in jail ? Ah don’t kow anyone else who’s been .

Is thart how ye came ?

Naw , naw at aw .Ah telt ye , didnt ah ,someone said it wis yir birthday .Ahm jjust intrtisit ,that ‘s aw

It’s nowt special

Just after he gets let out Goalie ask how it was locked up .

Now the title has change from German to English but the German title gives a clue tot the books main character he is called Goalie ,and is like a character out of an Irvine Welsh novel he has just been released from prison after serving time for drugs  and he  has decide to get away with his friend Regi and his new girlfriend to spain for a break .Now how do you describe Goalie well he is one of these guys that is destined to be a no hoper a loveable rogue ,but his greatest flaw is that he trust those around he maybe a little too much and this can lead him into trouble .It seems this isn’t the first time this level of trust and belief has led goalie astray .He is also a great spinner of yarns and likes to twists his own truths .As they are away he tells his yarns and slowly his friend ,tells him he should be doing more with his story telling ability .In the end we see him trying to forge a new life away from his old life .

Well this is a book of the voice ,I can see why some that does spoken word performance ,would fall in love with the loveable rogues and tall tales of Glasgow .Goalie is the embodiment of type of man not even from Glasgow but a man who lives his life large on tall tales and what he has done ,there is many of them in every big city in the corner of a pub or club holding court and telling his Yarn .As I said in the start Goalie could walk of the pages of Irvine Welsh or even Roddy Doyle Novel ,he would be a side character in their books maybe a man in the pub as the commitments played telling tales or a fellow drug taker from train spotting telling a story as the buy There drugs .Now this isn’t the easiest book to follow at times it is in a thick Scottish dialect ,but when I tend to speak the lines to myself I got the real feel of the book .This is a book that would do well as an Audiobook or to be read out loud a clever take on modern Glasgow and its colourful characters .

would you like more books in Dialect or given a more regional feel if set in the uk in translation ?

Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel

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Bunker - Andrea Maria Schenkel cover

Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel

German Crime fiction

Original title – Bunker

Translator – Anthea Bell

Source – Personnel copy

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Andrea Maria Schenkel is probably the best known German crime writer ,translated into English .her first novel murder farm was published in German in 2006 and has since been made into a radio drama ,she has used well-known German crime  case to base her books partly on but this book is a truly fictitious crime .she has won a number of prizes for her books .She currently lives in New York .

I still have to get the Keys .They’re in the bedroom , on the bed .Back into the bunker .Damn the paraffin lamps have burnt out ,even thou I had two for each room in it .Funny ,I thought those things lasted longer .What a waste ,six lamps in three rooms .

The opening lines and why the need for lamps and to be in the bunker ?

Bunker is the tale of a kidnapping the title refers to where the woman who has been kidnapped .Monica is  being held by a kidnapper  .The book unfolds in an unusual narrative style where as opposed to a beginning middle and end to the story we see all three of these parts happen at once so the event leading up to the kidnapping of Monica ,the time she spent with the kidnapper and the rescue of her are all told in changing chapters .Monica doesn’t initially know why she has been kidnap or who could have done this to her see gets small glimpse into what has happen who the kidnapper is and maybe even why she was taken .What has happened in her past  to cause this to happen ?

I lie there on my stomach , the cold cement floor under me .A musty cellar smell .I feel awful .My arms and legs are scratched .My grazes are burning .My head aches he dragged me down to the cellar by my hair .Every root of it hurts .My mouth is dry my tongue feels thick and swollen ,glutinous saliva sticking my mouth up .

Monica describing her situation just after the kidnapping .

 

I really fell for Schenkel unusual narrative style in the book it remind me of the way we sometimes see crimes unfold on Tv Crime dramas especially something like CSI were the crime is shown how the crime was done and how the victim and criminal were dealt with even why the crime was done and not always in the order they happened .The setting was caught so well the room Monica was held in and the conditions she found herself in ,made my skin creep at times .I will be going back to the other books schenkel have written to find if this style she writes in is carried on in her other books .As ever Bell has done a great job on the translation .I am actually not a huge crime fiction fan but this book has gone to the top of my list of all time favourites .

Have you a favourite translated crime novel ?

 

Mrs Sartoris by Elke Schmitter

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mrs sartoris

Mrs Sartoris by Elke Schmitter

German fiction 

Original title – Frau sartoris 

Translator – Carol Brown Janeway 

source – personnel copy

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Elke schmitter is a German writer from Krefeld ,she studied philosophy at Munich university and then became a journalist before becoming a full-time writer in 1994 . This was her début novel .I choose this book because I had visit Krefeld ,it was a chance buy in the works (a uk shop that sells unwanted stock cheap ) and may I say a gem of a find for 50p!

Without hesitation I was immediately ready to attribute all of Ernst’s annoying characteristics – including his ridiculous name – to his father .For example ,Imri was always proper and took her self seriously ,as was the expression back then , but Ernst displays of pedantry must have come from Heinz-Gunther 

Ernst wasn’t an easy husband to have for Margaret 

Mr sartoris is a first person narrative told by Margaret Sartoris ,her life is told by her from her lost love for a rich landowner called Philip that she feel in love with one summer .The break of this relationship caused her to have a mental breakdown and end up in a hospital that happened when she was 18 ,we capture her later when she is married to Ernst a veteran from the war but a man who has no real passion as she is now in her forties she finally meets another man that makes her feel the passion she had felt in her youth with Philip so she begins an affair with a man .Along side this plot there is a plot about a car crash the two finally meet at the end but you have to find the book to see what happens .

When I got to the hotel for the first time ,I could hardly breathe .It was a mild summer day ,with no wind  .I had my hair cut , and glad it wasn’t raining .I was wearing  doe brown suede pumps and a wine two piece I had brought a few days before …

Margaret waiting for her first meeting with Michael the man .

Well I don’t read many books about love and affairs ,I am not a huge fan of romantic fiction but this book is slightly darker than that it is easy to view this from my description as simple chic lit but now Magaret jumps of the page as a damage soul that is having an affair to try to finally grasp what she had once lost .The cover quote says a modern-day Madame Bovary but it is a far more German take on that story ,that sense of duty that I feel is very common in German society is deep in the story her relationship to Ernst is far from perfect but she makes in work out of duty to him  and the daughter so this affair is a real test of her as a person .But she wants the passion she is finding in the arms of the other man .I feel sorry this one is a book that has dropped of the radar and hope this review makes a couple of you root it out as it is well written with a real sense of tension as she builds Margaret’s life and her story to the climax in more ways than one .Another book that if not for Lizzy and Caroline push to make more women writers read this German lit month may have gone unread .

Have you a favourite book about affairs ?

 

The taste of apple seeds by Katharina Hagena

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the taste of apple seeds

The taste of apple seeds by Katharina Hagena

German literature

Original title –  Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen.

Translator Jamie Bulloch

Source – review copy

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Katharina Hagena studied English and German at Marbach , Freiburg and London ,after getting her degrees ,she spent two years working at the James Joyce centre at Zürich ,this lead to her first two books which are non fiction and relate to Joyce’s work .This is her first novel .she currently lives in Hamburg .

I was intoxicated by the aroma in the entrance hall : it still smelled of apples and old stone , and my great-grandmothers carved dower chest still stood by the wall .on either side of it were the oak chairs adorned with the family coat of arms : a heart divided by a saw .My mother and Aunt Inga’s heels clacked against the floor ,sand crunched beneath the leather soles .

such a feast for the reader in her words sums up the farm-house so well .

I feel awful it took me so long to get to this book I read it earlier in the year but I loved it so much I felt it need the chance of German lit month to get every one to know about it .The story follows Iris and her growing up ,a grandfather with a secret in  his past during the second world war and her grandmother ,now in her twenties her grandmother has died she is having to return to the house where she spent her summers and to the memories of those summers ,so she decides to spend the summer there and choose what to do with the farm-house remember her family the smells of summers gone by and her mother and also her  aunt a pair that were so close  growing up .A journey through iris growing up ,and having friends and falling in love for the first time  families and how three generations got on in post war Germany chuck in a handful of interesting side characters some that always wore black the odd secret her and there you have a stunning book .

An apple

Or , rather the remains of an apple .The flesh at the blossom end was missing ; the top half with its stalk lay in two pieces by his shoe .Lexow stood still , his breathing was rapid and fitful . there was a rustling in the tree .

The trees played a huge part in Iris memories .

I loved the nature of this book rural Germany a happy on the whole family a young girl finding herself in the world ,I don’t read many female writers mainly as it seems to be male writers on whole that get translated more so Lizzy and Caroline saying we had to read two weeks of female writing means I have read a few more female German writers recently  .Given Katharina hagena history and previous work I had to try to link it some how to Joyce and I can in the sense of place she capture that so well like in Joyce the smell of liver cooking is memory for me that lingered long after I read Ulysses ,this had the scent and taste of apples and apple  trees  the clean smell of there blossom in my mouth for weeks after I had put the book down.Also as ever I have to say Jamie has shown why he is one of the best young translators from German around as with his work on peirene you are hard pushed to find fault with it  .I’m pleased to see this visual book has had a film made and just released in Germany and by the look of the trailer they have caught what I visualized in the book .

Do you have a smell you have attached to a book you have read ?

The Black spider by Jeremias Gotthelf A Halloween german lit month treat

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the black spider

The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

German Gothic Fiction

Original title Die Schwarze spinne

Translator – H M Waidson

Source personnel copy

Jeremias Gotthelf was a swiss pastor and writer ,His actual name was Albert Bitzius ,he was educated in Bern wre he founded the second oldest Swiss fraternity ,before becoming a pastor and then in his thirties he took up writing .He used the Bernese countryside and his strong religious beliefs in his books .

Christine had been gleefully watching everything outside in the field .The sun might burn hot as she worked at the heavy labour ,but the spider hardly burned any more at all .

The devil made his mark  on her .

The book focus on the people in a Bernese village ,we start at a farm where a baptism is in full swing ,then we get an unbaptized baby that  is kissed by a hunter and this kiss cause a black mark to appear and she is touched by the devil this Christine .So there is now a pact between the village and the devil that leads to years and years of godless behaviour ,when at some point this falls apart a plague of spiders swarms around the village  and they now need god to come back and save them .That is the barest bones of this tale it is a real quest between good and evil between god and the devil in tit many faces .

Next to the church was the inn , for these two institutions so often stand close to one another , sharing joy and suffering together , and what is more , in all honour .

But are they hand in hand

Well that is it in part this book has a really twisted narrative style one could almost say it has an old testament feel to it selling pone soul to the devil and it having a bad outcome all sounds like the wrathful god of the old testament  .This at times seems like a Sunday sermon that he may have told round Halloween to scare the kids and adults into god fearing Christians ,But that said Robert Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil and he did make some great music ,.But we also get a feel of traditional Germanic folk tales with figure like the hunter and a knight appearing in the story ,also the selling of a soul to a devil has been a recurring motif in a lot of German fiction around this time and before even Faust for Example .Then there is also the way Gotthelf describes the village the church and the inn next to one another has a slight feel of temperance movement and is the godless behaviour connected to the drink .This has been a great read for Halloween one for a dark evening and a quick check to see if there isn’t a spider about to jump on me like Robert smith in the video .I read the Oneworld classic copy of this book with a 1958 translation ,I know NYRB classics has just issued a new translation which I hope to read and compare as I felt the choice of words and way the story unfold was a little stayed at times .

Have you a favourite Halloween read ?

 

German lit month 2013

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I was so pleased when yesterday Caroline and Lizzy announced German lit month 2013 .this year there is a change with male and female weeks .I have been saving all my German translations since last year so have a good number built up ready for review more than I thought as I grabbed books for pictures I have nine of the books pictured already read . So here are the female books I’m hoping to review

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As you see it’s a broad mix of books and as with the last two years I’m reviewing a Herta Muller .I’ve also a Christa Wolf on order from the library and hope in next few days hope to add a few more female names as Lizzy and Caroline noted last year saw more male German writers reviewed than Female I maybe didn’t help as I am more drawn to male voices and writers in my book choices as the picture of what male German books I have show

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I wanted to include two by German language writers this time I haven’t review before they are Uwe Timm although not so well known in English is a huge writer in German and Peter Handke who I’m still shocked I’ve not reviewed before as his books I have always enjoyed since he wrote parts for one of my favourite films wings of desire .
What book have you in mind for German lit month 2013 ?

Thomas Bernhard in Person

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Well in the run up to Thomas Bernhard week I decide to watch a couple of things on You tube .I always love to place and see the writer as a person .So with my basic schoolboy German I watch these .First is a documentary with Bernhard talking about why he writes .

The next piece was a staging of Letter Bernhard had written over the years to his German Publisher Siegfried Unseld .I beleive these are in process of being translated into in english .

The German paper Die Zeit had this to say about this book

 

»Great cinema, a publisher and his pugnacious author write one another. And themselves. Correspondence as Fight Club.« Florian Illies, Die Zeit

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Seven Years by Peter Stamm

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seven years peter stamm

Seven Years by Peter Stamm

Swiss fiction

Translator – Michael Hofmann

Original title – Sieben Jahre

Source – Library

Well Peter Stamm is one of those writers that has been on the edge of my radar and wish list for a for a few years now and after reading this has jumped to writers I want to complete .So Peter Stamm studied various subjects as diverse as English ,business information (?) ,psychology and Psychopathology ,He had worked in a psychiatric ward as and intern after this  .Before becoming a freelance Journalist and then on into writing in his early thirties .He has won number of prizes in Switzerland ,Seven years is his tenth novel and the seventh to be translated to English .

Meet Ivona ,said Ferdy .She’s from Poland .This is Rudiger ,and this -is Alexander .He was standing behind me ,I had to almost vertically look up at him .Have a seat said Ferdy .The women put her glass down on the table and next to it her tissues and her book ,which was a romance novel showing a man and a women on horseback .

Their first meeting and maybe a subtle hint at what is coming .

So Seven years is a spin on the old seven-year itch story ,a phrase that has been coined by Psychologist as the time a couple that has had a monogamous relationship is likely to stray and to  have an affair .So the couple in this book are Alex and Sonia ,they are described as a sort of trendy  hip middle-aged couple into the hip things  and image they are both Architects ,on the hip edge of this Sonia loves the works of the Franco /Swiss architect and urbanist Le Corbusier .So we she her going her and there to see his buildings .  So it is a shock when the third part of what becomes a love triangle in this book is Ivona she is a rather dull plain women from Poland that had come into Alex’s life a number of years before he started the affair with her then and we are being told how it happened  .What develops is a very strange and almost awful relationship Alex like the fact that Ivona is the total opposite to his wife and when she tries to make her self more appeal he makes her stay the same ,she top him appears as an object a thing he has to use not often as a person .Whilst his wife is going on about a new house and this and that .This happened in the past and is told with a cold tone at times giving an insight into Alex as maybe an emotional devoid man.

I had known her body in all its details .The heavy Pendulous breasts ,the rolls of fat at her neck ,her naval ,the stray black hairs on her back ,and her many moles .I knew how she smelled and tasted .How her body responded to touch ,I knew it repertoire of familiar movements ,but when I saw Ivona sitting there ,I had to acknowledge that I din’t know the least thing about her , that she was a complete stranger to me .

Sonia was a conquered land in Alex’s eye and Ivona was a woman of mystery .

I was looking forward to this on a number of levels I had heard how easy Stamm is to read ,he is the book took me a day and a half to fly through but then kept me thinking about it for the next week or so which was the other thing I had heard was  that Stamm is a writer that lies with you long after you have put the book down ,and yes he does .The other thing I really like is the fact it is a Hofmann translation I have always found his translation to be top drawer clean and unfussy style  ,with real sense that it isn’t a translation .So Alex and Sonia what do I make of them they struck me as very much like a typical English couple in the age group and tastes something of the yes they’ve read the books , like the right films but at the heart of the couple is a real void all the things in the world can’t make up for the fact they are quite shallow and really uninteresting people at the heart of it  I was reminded very much of the women from the film of Nick Hornbys High fidelity Charlie played by Catherine Zeta Jones ,who John Cusacks character describe her and her friends as being some one you like to be with but when you there with them you realise  they are actually quite vacant people   .Where as Ivona the Christian book seller is described as dull woman  but the more the book goes on the more she leaps off  the page .A real tale of love ,lose and marriage told with a subtle and careful tone by Stamm.

Have you read this book ?

Which Stamm would you suggest next for me ?

Happy New Year -this is a new year that was the old year

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winston taken last new years day

Well it’s that time of year again New years day the time to make resolutions and plans for the coming year and also a chance  to look back and digest  how the last twelve months have gone  on the blog and reading wise for myself .

Last year was a strange one it felt for me  , I drifted in my blogging. But when I got my year-end report from wordpress I was surprised what I had done  and after reading Sue’s post .I thought well it was a busy year really and maybe I just relaxed as a blogger and gone with my natural flow .So highlights of last year was doing the two shadow juries the first was the man Asian one last January with Lisa in charge ,with matt ,sue ,mark and Fay .Then I took a leaf out Lisa’s book to start a shadow IFFP jury with Rob Lisa Mark Simon Tony and Gary .I loved doing both these and am at moment stuck in the middle of this years Shadow Man Asian jury .I also started Spanish Lit month with Richard to highlight Spanish language fiction from all round the world .That’s not to mention Henry Green week .I also loved joining Lizzie and Caroline in German lit month ,once again and the fact it brought a chance to  enjoyed a new chunk of Germanic literature .So in looking back on my year I did a lot really, made lots of new blogging friends and help promote fiction in translation which is the main aim of the blog these days.

So 2013 another year resolutions reading and blog wise ,I have debated doing a post a day and I know it be hard to keep up my job and life just isn’t able to support a post a day so my resolutions is to try to post a little more and maybe do 50 more post than last year which equates to a post every other day or so which seems achievable .I have previously tried to set reading totals but I m leaving them behind I feel my reading is at a constant level and pushing it to read more will a. spoil my enjoyment of books as I rush trough rather than saviour them ,b..do I really need to add load more books to the unreviewed pile (close to 60 books already on it ) .Another blog resolution is to try over next twelve months to clear pile of books I ve read but not covered on the blog so far ,hopefully doing a few more posts will even this out and cut the pile down .challenges I will be doing some more challenge of my own next year and joining in a few along the way I m sure I prefer month or week long  challenges to year-long ones hence I ve not signed up for any this time again .So my first challenge is Tony’s January in Japan I ve one book read and currently on my second book .

So a very happy new year to you one and all and may the year be a very bookish one for you .

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard my 300th review

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Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard

German title Holzfällen: Eine Erregung,

Austrian fiction

Translator – David McLintock

Source – library

Well after reading the corrections earlier this year ,I felt I need another fix of him before the year was out ,so when this had appeared in the library system I ordered it in .So I said a bit about him in my post earlier this month so I ll add this gobbit .In his last will ,he had banned all future productions and editions of his books within Austria for the remaining length of the copyright .This dislike of the system of arts and appreciation of arts within Austria is apt for this book .

While everyone was waiting for the actor ,who had promised to join the dinner party in the Gentzgasse after the premier of “The Wild Duck ” ,I observed the Auersbergers carefully from the same wing chair I had sat in nearly every day during the fifties , reflecting that it had been a grave mistake to accept their invitation .

Our narrator sat at the start of the book .

The arty types of Vienna have just been to the Burgtheater to see the latest production a version of the Henrik Ibsen play “the wild ducks “(Which opens as a dinner party is about to start rather like this book ) .So the arty folk all arrive at the Ausbergers house awaiting dinner and the chance to meet the star of the show .We meet our Narrator he is sat in a wing backed chair .we know this as it is frequently mentioned .The narrator is by his opinion an outsider of the group have recently returned to Vienna .So as the nights go on we see the actor ripped apart by the guests and the whole art scene in Vienna dissected piece by piece ,this is interrupted as the narrator adds his own feelings on this as well .The evening moves on and as the drink flows the arguments and observations grow stronger .

At this point the actor suddenly started recounting anecdotes ,the kind of theatrical anecdotes that always go down well in Vienna and provide life support for many a Viennese party that would otherwise be in danger of dying of paralysis .Most Viennese parties are able to survive for a few hours only because of these anecdotes .

Parties can dive into boredom our narrator tells us

Well this is what I love about Bernhard intense prose that just drag you in you feel as thou you are the narrator ,he is a writer but maybe not the best or maybe not as well thought of as he should be either way you feel this in some part this is Bernhard himself thinly veiled .It is in a lot of ways about how you view art to appreciate it or pull it apart at the seams and seemingly pull talented people apart because of minor flaws .I was reminded as I read this of one particular episode of Frasier where Niles and Frasier were meant to go to the theatre to see a famous actor but due to a mistake end up spending the show outside due to the own pretensions not letting them loose face and end up meeting and talking to the star even thou they missed the show completely .You feel in this book you are in a room of Austrian Nile’s and Frasier’s ,they would slide in so well with the crowd in the book .I think this is my favourite by him and maybe a good place to start with Bernhard as it isn’t overly long .Oh and fitting choice to be the 300th review on Winstonsdad

Have you read this book ?

The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink

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The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink

german title -Die Gordische Schleife

German Fiction

Translator – Peter Constantine

Well German lit month is drawing to a close again and I had hope to read this in time for Bernhard Schlink week ,but time went against me so I include it here .This is the third Schlink book I ve covered on the blog and the fifth I have read .I must say this is a change from the others ,Being his first novel is a radical shift in style it is a thriller ,written by him self he had earlier co written a novel .

“And to the nameless professor ,who tried to teach me how to cut through the Gordian knot ” he sat down “I reread the story about Alexander the great and the Gordian knot . it was just as the professor said many had tried to unravel the knot ,but Alexander simply cut through it with his sword .

The title is mention on the last page .

SO The Gordian Knot takes it title from a story of Greek mythology Involving a man who had became king and the gods gave him an impossible Knot to untie ,this was there to Alexander the great ,he cut the knot this giving to a phrase cutting the Gordian knot meaning thinking outside the box .Anyway back to the book it is a thriller we meet a translator Georg Polger ,he is struggling till a job turns up translating plans for a military helicopter .This all happens in the office of mr Bulnakov ,also in the office is Mr Bulnakov secretary Francoise .Well Georg and Francoise fall in love .But then he is shock to discover her one day copying the plans he has translated .Before he has time to confront her she has disappeared ,then a chance mention about a photo she had ,that he shows to friend he says is somewhere in europe he friend says no it is New york so he heads of to New York and find out who the women he fell in love with really is in real life .This is a novel about spies and people getting caught up in that world .

“It’s the cathedral in Warsaw where her parents were married ”

A short while later Georg’s friend asked to see the photograph again .

“it isn’t a particularly good one “Georg said .”She didn’t like being photographed ,so often took snapshots of her when she wasn’t looking .Though some pictures did turn out quite ….”

That’s not Warsaw .I know that church can’t think of its name it’s in New York.

First hint that Francoise isn’t quite what she seemed to Georg .

 

 

Well this was a real change from Schlink usual soul of the nation style fiction  .That said it was a page turner thou in the style of an airport thriller  or Holiday read ,well that isn’t quite  fair it is slightly better than them .In fact the two things in reading this I was most remind of was firstly Graham Greene Georg is a hapless guy caught up in a spy story but he doesn’t realise it ,rather like James Wormold in our man in Havana he is not the sharpest tool in the box .The other thing I was reminded of was the world of Alfred Hitchcock I felt Francoise is a classic femme fatale the sort women that frequently crops up in Hitchcock films and could have been played by Kim Novak or Eva Marie  Saint  .So this isn’t the most taxing or deep of Schlink books but it is a cracking read and great to see where it all started for him as a writer .Always nice see a publisher taking chance on an earlier book by a writer .

Have you read this book ?

Do you like to see writers earlier works translated ?