I won ‘The Duel’ by Heinrich von Kleist in a giveaway hosted by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life, who are also the hosts of German Literature Month in November. I read it in one sitting. Here is what I think.
What I think
‘The Duel’ is a short novella. It is around fifty pages. It is smaller in size when compared to regular paperbacks. The edition I read was published by Melville Press and it has a distinctive, unique look. The paper was quite beautiful and the font was delightful. It was a pleasure to read. The first thing I thought of, while reading the book and after finishing it, was what would happen, when the whole world moves to e-readers and e-books and paper books become a thing of the past. Yes, we will save trees, which is a good thing. But the feeling of holding a beautiful book in one’s hand, turning over the pages, taking in the fragrance of the paper, taking pleasure in the touch and feel of the paper, revelling in the delight of a beautiful font – all this is going to be lost. Anne Fadiman says in her essay ‘Never do that to a book’ that to her and her family what mattered most were the words in a book and a book’s look and feel and whether the pages were dog-eared or had stains were not important. I am guessing Fadiman wouldn’t have any issues in moving to an e-reader and staying there. But I will miss all these if I start using an e-reader. I am not a Luddite. I love the kind of changes new devices bring. I love the fact that one can get a new book on an e-reader the day it gets released. And I also love the fact that one can change the font-size of an e-book to suit one’s needs. I also know that I can put my whole book collection inside an e-reader. But I will miss all the beauty and the delights that a paper book offers. Maybe I am an old-fashioned romantic.
Before I write about Kleist’s book, I wanted to write about something else. I discovered through the book that there are other books called ‘The Duel’. The others were written by Giacomo Casanova, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad and Alexander Kuprin. I have read the one by Casanova. I have the one by Anton Chekhov in a collection. I want to read that and the other two novellas too. Maybe I will do ‘The Duel reading festival’ J I have read one by Georgette Heyer called ‘The Duel’, but that is more a short story than a novella.
The simplified plot of ‘The Duel’ goes like this – a Duke is killed one day by an arrow and the Duchess gets his kingdom. The Duke has an estranged half-brother, Count Rotbart, who could have disputed the fact that the Duchess got the kingdom but he behaves gracefully. Things go well, till it is discovered that the arrow which killed the Duke came from his half-brother’s armoury. The half-brother protests against this and says that he is innocent and on the night the Duke was killed, he was in the company of a beautiful noblewoman called Littegarde. Rotbart shows evidence in support of his claim and which look convincing. Littegarde denies this, but she is not able to bring independent witnesses to support her denial. One of Littegarde’s admirers, a knight who was also the slain Duke’s chamberlain, tries to help her and save her honour. He challenges Count Rotbart to a duel. Interesting things take place during the duel and after surprising twists and turns the story reaches an interesting conclusion.
I liked ‘The Duel’ because it is a vintage von Kleist story. The themes and ideas that Kleist explores are all there – the unexpected surprising start, the way events unfold in people’s lives suddenly like a storm, how these events toss people to unexpected highs and lows and how it all ends in a surprising way. The first Kleist story I read was ‘The Earthquake in Chile’. It had a sad ending with a thin silver lining. ‘The Duel’ has a happy ending. Kleist must have been in a good mood when he wrote this story.
I can’t wait to read my next Kleist book. Which is ‘Michael Kohlhaas’. I am also going to check Melville House’s catalogue and buy all their books. They have a real awesome collection.
Other Reviews
Have you read any books by Heinrich von Kleist? What do you think about them?
What a wonderful post. I liked the part about books very much. I couldn’t agree more. I love the feel of a book, to see what paper they chose. Just think of the Persephone books, if you know them, the inner lining with these nicely chose patterns, a different one for each book. I’m very fond of this Art of the Novella collection. I’m tempted to buy some more and I was also thinking I’d like to read all their duel books. I already got the Conrad.
I thought the duel in Kleist was very well described, I think you can see he wrote for theater as well. He is very attentive to positions and movements.
Michael Kohlhaas is one of the longest, I hope you will like it as well. I still like The Marquise of O. best.
Glad to know that you liked the review, Caroline 🙂 Thanks for hosting the giveaway. I really liked this Kleist novella. I am reading ‘Michael Kohlhaas’ now and am loving it.
I haven’t read a Persephone novel yet. I can’t wait to read one after reading your description of it. I love books which are beautifully and carefully produced – it shows the love and affection that the publisher has for the art of bookmaking. Little things like the right font, the spacing between the lines, the surrounding space in the page and the feel of the paper make a huge difference to one’s reading experience. Melville Press has got it right on every front.
Glad to know that our giveaway books are finding good, appreciative homes. It’s important, isn’t it? 🙂
“I am also going to check Melville House’s catalogue and buy all their books. ” – Oh, Vishy. I have found a kindred spirit! The Art of the Novella series is a delight but I’m taking collecting it slowly. I now have about 15 …
Your giveawaya are awesome, Lizzy 🙂 Thanks for hosting this series of giveaways with Caroline. Thanks also for choosing Melville Press and OneWorld Classics, because both these editions are so beautiful!
Envy you for having collected 15 books from ‘The Art of the Novella’ series 🙂
I know just what you mean about appreciating books as physical objects. That was a beautiful paragraph!
I like the sound of this book, and many of the other ones the German Literature Month participants have been reading. I intended to participate by reading a Christa Wolf but it didn’t come in at the library on time. Oh well… never too late, right?
Books are such beautiful things, aren’t they?
Hope you get to read the Christa Wolf book soon. I have heard that she is a wonderful writer.
Hehe. Makes me smile that you managed to find a whole collection of books called “Duel.”
Yes, it was really interesting 🙂 Didn’t know that it was such a popular title.
[…] San Domingo /Michael Kohlhaas /The Beggar Woman of Locarno/The Broken Jug /The Duel (1) (2) (3) (4) /The Earthquake in Chile/The Art of Kleist/On Kleist’s Enigmatic Quality) Koestler […]