Homo Faber by Max Frisch
13 Nov 2011 7 Comments
in GERMAN LIT MONTH, Switzerland Tags: 2011, NEW VOICES, TRANSLATIONS
Homo Faber by Max Frisch
Translator – Michael Bullock
Swiss Fiction
Max Frisch was Swiss writer ,he worked for a early part of his career as a journalist ,then study architecture and became a architect .he was a member of gruppe Olten a group of post war swiss writer that meet in a old swiss rail cafe they beleived in a democratic socailist society .Homo Faber is the story of Walter Faber he is an engineer,we meet him as he is travleing roun the world on behalf of the united nations .He is onn a flight that crashes in Mexican desert .This leads Walter to confront his life firstly loooking back to an affair in europe when younger ,this in turns leads to a meeting with a daughter he never knew he had .all this has the feel of a Greek tragedy Walter is on a journey through hisd life and what has happened in his life first his love of Hannah who is now married to some one else ,he sits next to a man on the flight who is the brother of his old friend that married hannah ,this is all in what is the first section then in the second section after the crash and he returns to europe and takes a cruise on this cruise he meets a young women called Sabeth that he falls in love with mainly due to the fact she so reminds him of his first love Hannah ,is she her daughter ? well you’ll have to read Homo faber to find out so they spend the night together after watching a lunar eclipse ,at the same time Walter is having stomach trouble this leads to the fact when he arrives in athens he has to have an operation .this where the book ends or the reports end as Max Frisch use a report style to narrate the novel .
Sabeth was standing above and beside me .I could see her rope soled shoes ,then her bare calves ,her thighs ,which even when foreshortened very slender ,anmd her pelvis in the tight jeans she was standing with both hands in her trouser pockets
Walter is weight up Sabeth a younger women that may be his daughter
I so pleased for german lit month and it making me look up and down the library shelves for some new german language fiction tpo me this is one such ,although after some rersearch I ve a feeling I may have seen the film version of this book callerd voyager a number of years ago .Max Frisch is a clever writer this book has so many layers and twist and turns ,it links the modern world to that of Greek legend ,but also you can see his architects eye in the structure of the prose the abilty to see what has been and what will be and able to link them together like drawing up the plans for a modernist building .there are so many themes in this book forbidden love ,lost ,growing use of technology for man , feminism it is a book that will have you thinking for weeks after you put it down it did me oh and just for my friend rob Walter types his reports on a hermes baby typewriter .The translation was by Michael Bullock exiled for this is a ook that has so many turns and Bullock kept it a page turner .
Have you read this book ?
The wall jumper by Peter Schneider
12 Nov 2011 4 Comments
in GERMAN LIT MONTH, germany Tags: 2011, german lit, TRANSLATIONS
The wall jumper by Peter Schneider
Translator – Leigh Harfey
German Fiction
Peter Schneider is a German writer in the sixties he was very active on the German student movement ,he has written numerous novel ,short stories and film scripts ,he currently teaches at Georgetown in the USA .This book was originally published in the early Eighties and is about the Berlin wall we are introduced to an array of characters that have jump the Berlin wall and survived from east to west ,one such character is Robert an east Berliner who was attracted to the bright lights ,we meet him in a bar in Berlin and we find that he is finding it hard to adjust to his new life in the west .As he struggles he has descended into drink .Other stories are about people wanting to see western films .Lena an ex lover of the narrator of this book whose whole family are still stuck in the east side of germany .There is a lot of sorrow at times in these tales of the grass not being greener on the other side of the fence .
In conversations with Robert ,it has become clearer what I’m looking for :the story of a man who lose himself and starts turning into a nobody .By a chain of circumstances still unknown to me ,he become a boundary walker between the two german states .
the narrator weighing up Robert .
When I saw this on the library shelf I was quite looking forward to it as one of my favourite films is der himmel über berlin (wings of desire )which is set just before the Berlin wall fell and the wall is a large character in that film ,and it is in this book but some how I found Schneider writing very dry almost Journalistic in a way .The description of the people the narrator talks to all feel like the could have been drawn from the newspapers of the time ,you never get further than the story of how they got there and how they are coping ,we also get a lot of factual info that slow the narrative at a point .I m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book I did I just think if I d read it twenty years ago just as the wall was there or just after it has fallen I d called it the best book I d ever read but time has passed and it is a good book on the time and the power the wall had on the city not just as a barrier but also as a symbol for the cold war .I m sure in another twenty years this will be a must read for the generations that can’t remember the wall .The book was translated by Leigh Harfey a reasonable translation you get no clue to if the book was a s dry in the original german but I think it may have been .
Have your read this book ?
A perfect waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer
04 Nov 2011 12 Comments
in GERMAN LIT MONTH, Switzerland, Uncategorized Tags: NEW VOICES, swiss fiction, TRANSLATIONS
A perfect waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer
Swiss fiction
Translator – John Brownjohn
I went to library when the german lit month was first mention determined to try some new writers in German and this was one of them I got .I ,must admit the mention of magic mountain and the Downton abbey feel of Erneste the waiter on the front sold it to me when I mention I got it some one from germany said of that is a LGBF book ,that peaked my interest more it is hard enough getting a book translated but very few LGBF make out through from their original language to english .
So we meet Erneste he is like the star waiter of a swiss hotel good at his job able to speak four languages he has it all going for him work wise ,so one of his perks for being the star waiter is he meets the passengers and new staff that arrive at the picturesque hotel by ferry .So one day he arrives and meet a new waiter a young German looking to expand his horizons Jakob and also two pretty young country girls as the book unfolds we see the two men grow closer but this is in 1935 and just over the border the dark shadow of the war is effecting the hotel as this happen the two men kiss and a new arrival an exiled German writer called Julius sends a spanner into the works for Ernste ,as he also has eyes for the young Jakob anyway Jakob goes back to Germany and then America and Erneste carries on as a waiter til one day a letter arrives in 1966 many years later this sparks of the whole story being told as it is from Jakob who now is living in the us and has fallen on hard times since they last meet just before the war .
He sometimes caught himself yearning for the authentic Jakob while the real one was lying beside him .Although he could feel the warmth of him ,he kept thinking of the Jakob who had left him behind on the platform in Basel and then ,far away in Koln ,dissolved into thin air .
Erneste dream of Jakob .
This book is a great insight into gay love just before the world war two but also what happens when lovers move apart and go on very different paths in their lives ,also it catches that dream world just before the war where life in some ways in a place like the hotel where they worked was just perfect .We also see how people’s lives can arc one goes one way and another twists off like Jacob of to the US .I loved Sulzer style this is a gentle story of what at the time was a frowned on love between two men told with sensitivity and honesty .I really want to read some of his other books I think I ve found a special writer in Sulzer .I m sure large part of this is due to John Brownjohn translation skills as well holding the gentle prose together of this book .
Have you read any translated LGBF ?
Who is your favourite Swiss writer ?
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 ?
The pigeon by Patrick Suskind
02 Nov 2011 18 Comments
in GERMAN LIT MONTH, germany Tags: 2011, german lit, TRANSLATIONS
The pigeon by Patrick Suskind
German fiction
translator – John E. Wood
Suskind is best known for his book Perfume and also the fact he doesn’t give any interview so very little is known about his life .This book is a very short fable like story of a man driven to the edge by a pigeon .er that sounds familiar a bit like the raven by Edgar Allen Poe yes this is sort of homage to that .
So we meet Jonathan Noel a french security guard this man likes order in his life in fact you could say he is a little to order and has borderline OCD .hiding himself from the world since his wife left him .So when one day a Pigeon decides to make his home in his apartment.
Now he saw the pigeon .It was sitting to his right a distance of about five feet ,at the very end of the hall crouched in one corner ,So light fell on the spot and Jonathan cast such a brief glance in that direction ,that he could not discern whether it was asleep or awake ,whether its eyes was open or closed .
Jonathan weighing up the pigeon .
I could imagine Jonathan being a reality tv star ,the man who hide for 30 years with a job that has minimal contact with people as that is what Jonathan thinks he wants little human contact and a small apartment in a large building where he can hide as he dash trying to be unseen for the communal bathroom .You feel Suskind is maybe using this as wider vision of modern man don’t we all live somewhat in bubbles these days ?This story has that strong German tradition of fables like Grimm the story can be read in many ways and although very short 77 pages in this edition from penguin with a largish font .is the pigeon a symbol of something Jonathan lost in his life and by trying to chase the pigeon he may find again ?The book owes much to the Poe poem for the inspiration of the bird to drive some one to the very edge and has what many would call a Kafkaesque edge to it in the fact that Jonathan is facing a unknown foe in the pigeon and also facing the world some what a new because of the pigeon .I liked perfume and was pleased this although different to perfume completely is still beautifully written tale .
Have you read this book ?
do you like fables ?
German Lit Month
08 Oct 2011 30 Comments
in GERMAN LIT MONTH Tags: 2011, austria, german lit, Swiss, TRANSLATIONS
I wasn’t overly keen to join the german lit challenge that has been organized by Marcel of Lizzy’s literary life and Caroline of beauty is a sleeping cat I read a lot of germanic literature as it is one of my favourite areas of translated fiction but I m notoriously bad a challenges but I ve pulled my socks up and got the planning head on as Worzel Gummidge would have said so here is what has been read ready and what is waiting to be read -
Read
So here are books read for german lit month so far -
Homo Faber by Max Frisch – one mans life summed up whilst he is stuck in the desert .
Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck – this was iffp shortlist was one I didn’t review at time have read since but not reviewed so will do next month a village told in fable like style .
Correction – Thomas Bernhard .Bernhard was the best post war german writer this is about a man building a cone in a woods but about more than it seems !
The wall jumper – Peter Schneider Set in time of berlin wall a journalistic style book about people who tried to cross the wall .
Jarmilla -Ernst Weiss Stefan Zweig’s best friend a love triangle in a rural town in bohemia in the 30′s
Maybe this time -Alois Hotsching tales of the unexpected ,weird going ons a very unusual short story collection .
not pictured but read
Nadirs – Herta Muller her debut collection ,family life and the horrors of communism
Robert Musil and Hans Fallada mini penguin classics from earlier this year .
To read
Auto de fe by Elias Canetti – The story of Peter Kien from the Nobel winner he was Bulgarian but wrote in german
The case of sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig – Classic WW1 story with a anti-war message .quote on front caught my eye from J B Priestley “the greatest novel on a war theme … from any country ” sounds great .
The pigeon by Patrick Suskind – the reclusive german writer isn’t new to me but having just read perfume this tale partly inspired by the raven by Poe sounds like a great second book to read a man driven mad by a pigeon .
A perfect waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer I thought I d read a couple Swiss novels but looked at blog and hadn’t so picked this up set in mid 1930′s about a waiter in a hotel looked like a great choice .
Well that’s it so far I hope to get to library again this month for a few more so can try to get a couple more ready have some on my shelves to either reread or not read as well .
What are you reading for german lit month ?
Have you read any of these ?
