Jarmilla by Ernst Weiss
03 Nov 2011 14 Comments
in Austria, GERMAN LIT MONTH Tags: 2011, austria, german lit, pushkin press, TRANSLATIONS
Jarmilla A Love Story From Bohemia by Ernst Weiss
German Fiction
Translated by Rebecca Morrison and Petra Howard-wuerz
Ernst Weiss was a German jewish writer that was good friends with both Franz Kafka who edit some of his earlier works and Stefan Zweig This book Zweig considered Weiss best writing .Jarmilla is set in the 1930′s in a small rural Bohemian village The title character Jarmilla is a pretty young women described as the village beauty that married her sugar daddy a local feather merchant a rich man who keeps her in the way she has grown accustom too .But then a younger man a watch maker appears creating a love triangle ,Jarmilla is offer a new life by this man in America away from the feather merchant but also away from the money .we see the love affair blossom between the watch maker and Jarmilla he at one point compares her breasts to bohemian apples full of scent and skin like down .But as much as the is love in this affair Jarmilla is always held back by the life she has living with the rich feather merchant and in That is the crux of the book that decision it is about what is important in people’s lives love or money ,safety or danger . The book is very short only 80 odd pages long .It was also lost for a long time until a copy was found in Prague university in 1990 and published in 1998 and this translation published in 2004 by Pushkin press .
It was around the time that my mother died ,she wasn’t old but in a lot of pain .The funeral left me devastated Jarmilla slipped away to see me .This time her silvery hand didn’t hold any wretched watch which had been broken Deliberately ” I noticed how cautiously he pronounced the word silvery as though trespassing .
Jarmilla gets closer to the watch maker
I can see why Zweig so loved this story from his friend Weiss ,there are echos of his work in it that thing about crossing lines from rich to poor ,from old world europe to new world America .Similar feeling to the post office girl except in this one Jarmilla has control of what happens unlike Christine in the post office girl .As for Weiss his own story is very sad he fled Germany when Hitler rose to power to Paris and eventually killed himself as the german troops rolled into Paris in 1940 .
Have you read Weiss books ?
Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer
09 Feb 2011 11 Comments
in Austria Tags: austria, german lit, NEW VOICES, TRANSLATIONS
Source – review copy
Daniel Glattauer is an Austrian writer born in Vienna ,he studied education and art history ,he then began working in newspapers as a columnist ,his columns for the austrian paper Der standard were collected into a book called counting ants .I first heard of this book over a year ago from my German twitter friend Tati that raved about it
Well to Love Virtually what is it about ? ,well I pleased to say it does something I have wanted to see in Literary fiction for a long time and that is use modern tech as a drive or device for a book in this case it is e mails so he has also dragged the Epistolary novel in to the 21st century with much style and vigour ,like Samuel Richardson in the 18th century it is love that is the driving force of this novel .
SUBJECT : CANCELLING MY SUBSCRIPTION .
I would like to cancel my subscription .Can I do so by e-mail ?
best wishes,
E Rothner
Emmi’s first misdirected e-mail to Leo Leike ,not Like magazine .
Tha is how it starts a number of missent e-mails a chance encounter ,how often have you miss wrote a e-mail and got a postmaster notification ,well this one time Emmi a married women middle-aged women doesn’t she sends it to Leo Leike ,who replies ,she replies and so on ,as the e-mails unfold over what seems a small amount of time as you read but if you follow the timeline is weeks and months these to lonely souls ,er maybe not lonely maybe searchers would be a better term ,they look over the fence and see something the like and start to flirt ,a love affair of words unfolds ,he loves the size of her feet ? This is written with great panache ,you see how what you say unseen can sometimes be misinterpreted by the other person ,also the power of words to attract people to your personality ,but as we near the end there is a stumbling block should they meet ,this is where the virtual world and real world may be miles apart Leo has in this time meet Emmi’s friend and had drinks they did once sit in a cafe but didn’t really know who was who but have possibilities as the just drank at a set time and didn’t meet in a busy place on a weekend .
RE:
The thought of actual contact seems to fill you with panic ,Leo .We will see each other , and we’ll like each other, and we’ll talk to each other just as we always have ,but this time with our mouths .We’ll feel comfortable with each other from the word go, and after an hour we’ll no longer be able to conceive of what it would have been like had we never set eye on each other .
part of a E-mail as Emmi tries to tempt Leo into a meet .
Now do they meet ,what happens well ,buy the book LOL you’ll love it I hope I did ,I am a romantic ,I meet my darling Amanda via a chat room and she made me the man I am now ,so this story really touched me I remember our texts and phone calls before we ever meet and the nervousness in meeting and I can say Glatteur has caught this perfectly ,also part of the modern condition maybe the way people interconnect you can and might meet have blurred in part to tech and travel .The husband and wife translation team of Jamie Bulloch and Katharina Bielenberg need a huge mention They took the male and female parts and I think it shows and maybe adds a slight advantage to the original as I feel Emmi has a definite female voice in her E-mails that maybe has been strengthened in translation by Kaharina doing her e -mails .the title was changed but after reading the book ,still not sure german title Gute Gegen Nordwind ,a rough translation good versus north wind or good against the north wind ,although this title works better in german .a follow-up every seventh wave is out next summer can’t wait here .
Winston’s score -
Brief encounter for a digital generation ,or anne hall for the blackberry kids ,
I see a film of this book Woody Allen would do a great job for the angst versus love mix that is this book
there is a twitter stream for this book
Dream story by Arthur schnitzler
29 Jul 2010 9 Comments
in Austria, books from Tags: austria
Schnitzler lived in turn of the century Austria He was good friends with Freud and was also a doctor like his friend he is probably best known for his play la ronde that caused a storm of controversy in its day and wasn’t performed to after he did .The book is a slim Novella just under a 100 pages long ,it follows a married couple in vienna over two days .The couple Albertine and Fridoline ,the story start when Albertine admits to her Husband an attraction to a young solider on the couples previous years holiday ,this leads to a swapping of sexual fantasy and a wanting to carry them out ,so over the space of two-day the couple experience the seedier side of vienna’s nightlife and the man y fetishes and kinks they can experience because of the time .This isn’t as good as they thought .
Albertine was the first to find the courage to make a frank confession ;and with a trembling voice she asked Fridolin if he remembered a young man the previous summer on the Danish coast who had been sitting with two officers at the table next to them on evening ,and who had promptly on receiving a telegram during the meal ,had promptly taken a hast leave of his two friends .
fridolean nodded ,what about him ? he asked .#
Albertine confesses to fridolean.
As you’d expect for a friend of Freud and a writer in the time of Viennese decadence this book is full on at times maybe not as shocking as in its day it can still open your eyes and holds a glass up toi a free society before the rise of hitler and post first world war ,the book was adapted in to a film by Stanley Kubrick ,a bit like the peirne books it took just over an evening to read and was clearly written and nicely translated by J M Q Davis ,the book maybe highlights the danger of indulging too much in your fantasy ,also how marriages work .
winstons score -
manga rabbit they are like rabbit in one way and fantasy like manga in another way .
THE POST OFFICE GIRL BY STEFAN ZWEIG
05 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
in Austria, EUROPEAN FICTION Tags: around the world 52, austria
STEFAN ZWEIG
Notes-
This was Zweig lost book so to speak not published in German until 1982 ,forty years after his death .Zweig in his day was the most widely translated writer ib the world ,but had fallen out of print in English til the late nineties when Pushkin press ,N.Y.R.B books and sort of books ,slowly started reissuing his work .Zweig was a pacifist and had to flee his native Austria when Hitler rose to power ,traveling to his eventual death in 1942 in Brazil .
The book -
The book follows Christine Hoeflehner a young Austrian women in the post world war one Austria ,her mother is an invalid as she lives in a provincial town and works hard in the post office ,not really enjoying her life .Then she gets a chance to travel to meet an aunt who has return to europe after making a fortune in America ,Christine ends up in the swiss alps living the high life in fine clothes and fine dining . But this comes to the end all of a sudden after a number of disagreement ,and Christine returns to Austria with her tail between her legs ,disappointed with her life Christine meets Ferdinand a kinder spirit and life brightens slightly.
One village post office in Austria is much like another ;seen one you’ve seen them all .Each with the meagre furnishings provided (or rather issued ,like uniforms )during Franz Josef ‘s rule ,all drawn from the same stock ,their sad look of administrative stinginess is the same every where .even in the most remote mountain villages of the Tyrol …..
the opening of the post office girl .
My view -
Zweig captures the hopelessness of the mundane life of Christine wonderfully ,his writing is poetic at times and fits nicely with that of his contemporary at the time Joseph Roth and Robert Musil ,I did feel the second part of the book dropped of a bit ,the scenes in Switzerland where wonderful .I will be getting some more Zweig probably the Pushkin ones that rob at robaroundbooks so likes .
STEFAN ZWEIG
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