German Literature Month – How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog by Johann Peter Hebel (Translated by John Hibberd and Nicholas Jacobs)

I discovered Johann Peter Hebel’s book during one of my recent visits to the bookshop. It was part of a new series called ‘Little Black Classics’ brought out by Penguin. The books in this series are around fifty pages long and are collections of short stories (sometimes one short story), essays, poems and sometimes excerpts from longer works. They are of the right size and can be put in one’s pocket or purse and can be taken out to be dipped into while commuting to work or while waiting – an excellent way of introducing classics to the reader of the modern era with a waning attention span. I thought I will read it for German Literature Month.

Johann Hebel was from Basel and lived during the late 18^th century and the early 19^th century. He published this book in 1811.

Johann Hebel’s book is a collection of short stories. Or rather fables. Most of them are one or two pages long and the occasional one is just a passage long or three or more pages long. Some of them have explicit morals or implied morals. Many of them have surprise twists in the end.

I enjoyed reading Hebel’s book of fables. Hebel reveals himself as a master of the short-short story form – he shows what delightful magic can be woven in just a couple of pages. Some of the stories have a historical backdrop and it is amazing how much Hebel squeezes into one story – the historical backdrop, a sketch of the characters, moving the action at a reasonable pace, the surprising twist in the end. And all this in two pages. The stories are peopled by an interesting cast of characters and sometimes the good guys don’t necessarily have a happy ending. I read most of the book while having dinner at a restaurant and after reading some of the stories I was laughing out loud and some of the other guests looked at me strangely. I thought to myself – don’t blame me, blame Hebel 🙂

The only problem I had with the collection was the title. I wouldn’t have chosen such an unwieldy title. Trust Penguin’s English editors to come up with an unwieldy title like that. I would have gone with the title of a couple of other short stories – like ‘The Lightest Death Sentence’ or ‘Unexpected Reunion’.

I had many favourite stories from the collection. Here are two of them. The first one is the shortest story in the collection. Both of them made me laugh aloud.

A Short Stage

The postmaster told a Jew who drove up to his relay station with two horses, ‘From here on you’ll have to take three! It’s a hard pull uphill and the surface is still soft. But that way you’ll be there in three hours.’ The Jew asked, ‘When will I get there if I take four?’ ‘In two hours.’ ‘And if I take six?’ ‘In one hour.’ ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said the Jew after a while, ‘Harness up eight. That way I shan’t have to set off at all!’

 

Patience Rewarded

One day a Frenchman rode up on to a bridge over a stream, and it was so narrow there was scarcely room for two horses at once. An Englishman was riding up from the other side, and when they met in the middle neither of them would give way. ‘An Englishman does not make way for a Frenchman!’ said the Englishman. ‘Pardieu,’ said the Frenchman, ‘My horse has an English pedigree too! It’s a pity I can’t turn him round and let you have a good look at his backside in retreat! But you could atleast let that English fellow you’re riding step aside for this English mount of mine. In any case yours seems to be the junior; mine served under Louis XIV in the battle of Kieferholz, 1702!’

But the Englishman was not greatly impressed. ‘I have all the time in the world!’ he said. ‘This gives me a chance to read today’s paper until you are pleased to make way.’ So with the coolness the English are famed for he took a newspaper from his pocket and opened it up and sat on his horse on the bridge and read for an hour, and the sun didn’t look as if it would shine on this pair of fools for ever, it was going down quickly towards the mountains. An hour later when he had finished reading and was about to fold up the newspaper again he looked at the Frenchman and said, ‘Eh bien?’ But the Frenchman had kept his head too and replied, ‘Englishman, kindly lend me your paper a while, so that I can read it too until you are pleased to make way.’ Now, when the Englishman saw that his adversary was a patient man, he said, ‘Do you know what, Frenchman? Come on, I’ll make way for you!’ So the Englishman made way for the Frenchman.

Have you read Hebel’s collection of fables? What do you think about it?

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Book Review – Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter

I discovered ‘Indian Summer’ by Adalbert Stifter through Jonathan’s review of it. But ‘Indian Summer’ was hard to get. And Jonathan said that his favourite Stifter novel was ‘Rock Crystal’. As I was able to get a copy of ‘Rock Crystal’, I read it first. Here is what I think.

‘Rock Crystal’ is a short novella. Or a long short story, depending on how you look at it. It describes the adventures of a brother (Conrad) and his sister (Sanna) in the mountains. First some background. There is a village called Gschaid in the valley. It is surrounded by mountains. The highest mountains are snowcapped throughout the year and have a glacier which melts during summer which fills the stream which is the source of water for the village. The people in the valley keep to themselves and rarely venture outside. They marry within themselves, love each other, have their quarrels and live their quiet lives there. There lives a shoemaker there. He falls in love with a girl who lives in the town called Millsdorf on the other side of the mountain. The girl’s father resists the shoemaker’s advances. But the shoemaker woos her persistently, and after a while the girl’s father agrees to their marriage. After they get married, the girl comes to live with the shoemaker. They have a couple of children, a boy called Conrad and girl called Sanna. The children’s grandparents love them very much, especially the grandmother. She frequently comes to visit them, eventhough it means taking the mountain path and coming to the other side. But after a few years, it becomes hard for her to make that long trip. Fortunately, in Gschaid, children are encouraged to travel on their own and soon when Conrad and Sanna become old enough, they travel on their own and visit their grandmother. Once during Christmas Eve, they visit their grandmother. Their grandmother makes delicious treats for them, packs presents in their bags and sends them back early. On the way back, it starts snowing. In the beginning, the snow is light and so the children enjoy the snow. But after a while, the snow becomes heavy, and the children are travelling through their well-worn route more out of habit, as they are not able to see anything more than a few feet away. After a while, the snow lays a white carpet over everything – the forest floor, the path, the trees – and the children discover that they are not able to see any familiar landmarks. Before they know their paths have become steeper and they are climbing higher and higher up the mountain. Then they reach a place which is filled with big rocks and they discover that these are made of ice. It looks like they have reached somewhere near the top of the mountain and everywhere they look there is ice. It is the glacier. They are trapped and they can’t move in any direction.

So, what do they do? Are Conrad and Sanna trapped in the glacier? Are they able to find their way down? I am going to leave you on a cliffhanger here. To find out how the story ends, you should read the rest of the book.

‘Rock Crystal’ started off quite slowly. There was a lot of description about the village, the nearby town, the people and their culture and their attitudes. It was slow reading. But once the events of the story start moving and especially when we start following Conrad and Sanna on their return from their grandmother’s place and it starts snowing, we know that the slow pace of the story is going to change and things are going to get scary. The way Adalbert Stifter captures the beauty of the snow, the white carpet it weaves over everything, the way he makes us readers realize that the children have lost their way even before they realize it, and the stunning realization that happens (to both the children and us readers) when they reach the top of the mountain and encounter the glacier – all these are masterfully done. I found myself praying hard for the children and hoping that they would be able to come back down safely to the warmth of their home and I found my heart beating fast every time they got into more and more complicated situations. There is a scene where they wait out the night and get up in the morning hoping that during the day they can find their way back and when it is daylight, they look around and find that all around them there are high, majestic snowy peaks, brilliantly reflecting the sunshine with a kaleidoscope of colours, endlessly stretching away in all directions – a stunning scene which is beautiful and majestic and intimidating all at the same time, that our hearts beat hard, not being able to take in the beauty, and a deep pain seeps in as we are fearful for the safety of the children. It is one of the great scenes in the book.

 

I loved ‘Rock Crystal’. It was simple, beautiful and gripping. I emotionally invested in the characters, cared for them, prayed for them. There is nothing more that one could ask for in a book. I would love to read more of Stifter’s works. 

Have you read ‘Rock Crystal’? What do you think about it?

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Book Review – Immensee by Theodor Storm

My German Literature Month this year hasn’t gone well so far. I have been able to read just one book till now. Today, I thought I will try to do something about it. I thought I will read one of my old favourites and hope that it will bring back my reading mojo. So, I read ‘Immensee’ by Theodor Storm. 

‘Immensee’ is around forty pages long. So, it is closer to a long short story or a short novella. The story starts with an old man getting back from a long walk to the place that he is staying. He goes into his room, sits on a chair and rests. After a brief while he looks at an old picture of a beautiful woman and says ‘Elisabeth’. His mind goes back to his younger days. The story then takes us back to the past when the old man was a boy of ten called Reinhard and his best friend and sweetheart was a girl called Elisabeth who is five. They are always together, he tells stories to her, they play at the forest near their homes, they go on picnics together with other children and pick strawberries. Unfortunately, the time comes when the boy has to go to a bigger town to study. He promises the girl that he will write to her regularly and will come back soon. The boy writes down all the stories that he used to tell the girl – her favourite ones – and keeps sending them to her. He also keeps a notebook in which he writes poems about the girl, about all the experiences they have gone through. Both of them are very much in love, though they don’t articulate that explicitly. But as in all the best love stories, things don’t go according to plan. The physical distance creates a barrier between a boy and the girl and they try bridging it every time they meet, but it becomes harder and harder. What happens to Reinhard and Elisabeth? Does the story have a happy ending? I can go on and tell you what happens next, but I think you should read the story to find out. After all, it is only forty pages long 🙂

I first read ‘Immensee’ three years back and loved it at that time. So, I was a bit worried when I read it again, because I was afraid of what will happen if my re-reading experience was not as good as the original one. Well, I needn’t have worried. The book was beautiful during my re-read too. It was beautiful in a different way though. I noticed things that I didn’t notice the first time – for example a gypsy singer who comes at the beginning of the story makes an appearance in the end, singing her favourite song which intensifies the poignant mood of the story. I also loved Theodor Storm’s beautiful descriptions of nature – the trees and the forest and the bees and the larks and the linnet and the canary and the river and the early morning and the mist and the dew and the first rays of the morning sun – it was vintage Storm. The story was worth reading for this beautiful evocation of nature alone. Nature was there even in the title – a footnote said that ‘Immensee’ stood for ‘Lake of the Bees’ (though some readers have a problem with this translation). Theodor Storm’s prose also gives an atmospheric, melancholic feel to the story, which makes one’s heart ache. Not the heartbreaking kind, but the mild, melancholic ache, which refuses to go away.

 

I also spotted a reference to India in the story, which made me smile. It went like this : 

Elisabeth : Are there no lions either?

Reinhard : Lions? Are there lions? In India, yes. The heathen priests harness them to their carriages, and drive about the desert with them. When I’m big, I mean to go out there myself. It is thousands of times more beautiful in that country than it is here at home; there’s no winter at all there.

One part of that dialogue is totally true. There is no winter in India. One of my college professors used to joke that there were only three seasons in India : hot, hotter and hottest!

There were many songs and poems scattered throughout the book like pearls. They were all beautiful. My favourites were the song which the gypsy girl sings in a tavern during Christmas Eve (it ends with ‘I must die alone’) and the poem which Reinhard and Elisabeth read towards the end of the story, ‘By my mother’s hard decree’. I think the poems and the songs must be more beautiful in the original German.

I also loved the fact that many of the important things in the story are implied but not explicitly stated. It doesn’t mean that they are ambiguous and left to the reader’s interpretation – they are clear enough but implied. Theodor Storm does that masterfully. In the last scene a new character makes an appearance in one sentence and we can’t help asking ourselves what that meant – is there a twist in the story here? Who is this Bridget? Is there something here that Storm implies? Isn’t this a straightforward story but one in which a lot of stuff happens in the gap between the last and the last-but-one chapters? I would love to hear your thoughts on it, if you have read the story 

 

I will leave you with one of my favourite passages from the book.

 

Elisabeth : And who, pray, made all these pretty songs?.

Eric : Oh, you can tell that by listening to the rubbishy things – tailors’ apprentices and barbers and suchlike merry folk.

Reinhard : They are not made; they grow, they drop from the clouds, they float over the land like gossamer, hither and thither, and are sung in a thousand places at the same time. We discover in these songs our very inmost activities and sufferings : it is as if we all had helped to write them.

 

I am glad I re-read ‘Immensee’. I fell in love with it all over again, with the beautiful Elisabeth and the wonderful Reinhard and the kind Eric and the beautiful landscape that Theodor Storm creates. I think I will be reading it again. Maybe after a few years.

Have you read ‘Immensee’? What do you think about it?

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 5 : Part 2 – Two novellas and a short story

As the last read for German Literature Month hosted by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life, in November, I thought I will read two novellas and a short story. This is what I read.

 

The Sandman by E.T.A.Hoffmann

 

 

‘The Sandman’ was first recommended to me by Bina from ‘If You Can Read This’. I finally got a chance to read it today. It is about a young man called Nathaniel, who has lived his childhood fearing someone called ‘The Sandman’. When it is bedtime, his mother tells him that he should go to sleep as otherwise the Sandman will come and take him away. At one point, Nathaniel hears footsteps coming into their house and his mother hurriedly takes him away to his bedroom. Nathaniel thinks it is the actual Sandman entering their home. One day he wants to see the Sandman with his own eyes. So he hides inside his father’s room and waits for this mysterious person. During the appropriate time of the night, the mysterious stranger arrives. He is an old acquaintance of the family whom no one likes. But interestingly, this stranger and Nathaniel’s father get to work on something which looks like sorcery or an alchemical experiment. He screams and faints and is in delirium for weeks. This mysterious person stops coming to their house. A year passes. Then suddenly this mysterious stranger comes back, something happens inside his father’s room, there is an explosion and the father dies. The image of the Sandman is forever seared inside Nathaniel’s heart. Later, after many years, when he is a student at the university, he meets someone who sells barometers and he looks like the mysterious stranger who used to visit his father. Nathaniel gets scared and worried and depressed. An unknown fear possesses him. He writes about this to his fiancée and her brother, who is also his friend. Then strange things start happening in his life. The surprising and tragic turns that Nathaniel’s life takes form the rest of the story.

 

‘The Sandman’ was eerie and scary. I can imagine why it is such a popular classic. We don’t know whether the fears of Nathaniel are based on reality or are a product of his own imagination. At one point Nathaniel’s fiancée writes this to him :

 

“If there is a dark and hostile power, laying its treacherous toils within us, by which it holds us fast and draws us along the path of peril and destruction, which we should not otherwise have trod; if, I say there is such a power, it must form itself inside us and out of ourselves, indeed; it must become identical with ourselves. For it is only in this condition that we can believe in it, and grant it the room which it requires to accomplish its secret work. Now, if we have a mind which is sufficiently firm, sufficiently strengthened by the joy of life, always to recognize this strange enemy as such, and calmly to follow the path of our own inclination and calling, then the dark power will fail in its attempt to gain a form that shall be a reflection of ourselves. Lothaire adds that if we have willingly yielded ourselves up to the dark powers, they are known often to impress upon our minds any strange, unfamiliar shape which the external world has thrown in our way; so that we ourselves kindle the spirit, which we in our strange delusion believe to be speaking to us. It is the phantom of our own selves, the close relationship with which, and its deep operation on our mind, casts us into hell or transports us into heaven.”

 

I found that passage quite powerful. The story also asks some questions on what is possible with science and technology – whether human-like machines can be created. It is interesting that Hoffmann thought about this in the early 19^th century.

 

Another passage I liked in the novella was where the narrator of the story wonders how he can start a story. It goes like this :

 

“I was puzzled how to begin Nathaniel’s story in a manner as inspiring, original and striking as possible. ‘Once upon a time,’ the beautiful beginning of every tale, was too tame. ‘In the little provincial town of S____ lived’ – was somewhat better, as it at least prepared for the climax. Or should I dart at once, medias in res, with “‘Go to the devil,” cried the student Nathaniel with rage and horror in his wild looks, when the barometer-dealer, Giuseppe Coppola . . .?'”

 

Interesting analysis of how to start a story, isn’t it? It made me remember Kleist, who includes an unexpected event in the first sentence of his stories and grabs the reader’s attention.

 

I want to read more stories by Hoffmann now. If you would like to read ‘The Sandman’ online, you can find it here.

 

You can find other reviews of this novella, here :

 

Caroline’s Review

Nymeth’s Review

 

The Jews’ Beech by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

 

 

‘The Jews’ Beech’ was recommended by Caroline in her ’14 German Women Writers You Shouldn’t Miss’ post. As it was short, I thought I will read it. I also found the writer’s name interesting – she must be the writer with the longest name whose work I have read J It is about the life and times of a boy called Friedrich Mergel. The story starts in 1738 and ends towards the end of the 18^th century. How this boy grows up to become a young man and the experience he goes through and the strange happenings in the village where he lives form the story. There are thieves who come to the forest near the village and cut trees without permission. The rangers try to catch them but the thieves repeatedly evade them. During this time, one of the rangers is killed. Nobody knows what happened. Some suspicion falls on Friedrich, but he has an alibi. Friedrich has an uncle who seems to have a mysterious background and there is another boy called Johannes who is, strangely, Friedrich’s lookalike. What happens across the years and how the fortunes of Friedrich turn out form the rest of the story.

 

One of the passages from the book, which I really liked, came on the first page of the story and went like this :

 

It is difficult to view that period impartially. Since its disappearance, it has been either arrogantly criticised or absurdly praised, because those who experienced it are blinded by too many dear memories and those born later do not understand it.

 

I read two translations of ‘The Jews’ Beech’ online – here and here. The first one seemed to be closer to the original as it had long sentences and traditional words and constructs. I started with that, but when I lost track of an important element of the story, I went and read the second translation, which had shorter sentences and modern words. However, there were some issues I had with the second translation – for example Friedrich’s mother’s name was anglicized from Margrethe to Margaret. And Johannes Neimand’s name to John Nobody. It made me wonder what is more important in a translation – whether the story has to be conveyed clearly to the reader or whether the style of the author in the original book should be preserved. It made me appreciate the difficulties and intricacies of translation and how one translated version could vary significantly from another.

 

The Beggar Woman of Locarno by Heinrich von Kleist

 

This is a short story by Kleist, which I found here. It is about a beggar woman who is taken into a Marquis’ castle and lives in one of the rooms. Unfortunately, one day the Marquis asks her roughly to move from her corner to near the stove and when the old woman is trying to do that she slips and falls and injures her spine and dies in agony. In later years, the Marquis is not doing well financially and wants to sell-off his castle. Unfortunately the beggar woman’s ghost haunts the room where she lived her last days and the impact this has on the Marquis and his wife forms the rest of the story.

 

I have read only longer short stories and novellas by Kleist till now. This was a ‘short short’ and was around two pages. So it was a breezy read. Kleist also didn’t have the space to squeeze in so many characters in the story, like he normally does J Even then he manages to sneak in four characters!

 

On German Literature Month

 

I had a wonderful time during German Literature Month. It was fun to read new writers and works that I haven’t read before. I discovered many wonderful new writers whose works I would like to explore in the future. I also won two Kleist novellas in a giveaway and I liked both of them very much. My only regret was that I wanted to read a couple of thick books – ‘Every Man Dies Alone’ by Hans Fallada and ‘Ink Heart’ by Cornelia Funke – but because I was away from blogging for a week, I couldn’t do that. I really wanted to read Fallada’s book. I hope to read it next month. When I look at the books I had read, I discovered that I had read lots of novellas and short stories – 7 novellas, 17 short stories. I also read three novels. I hope to read more novels next time.

 

Lots of thanks to Caroline and Lizzy for hosting German Literature Month. Congratulations to all the participants for participating and thanks for all the wonderful posts. I am already looking forward to ‘German Literature Month’ next year.

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 5 : Part 1 – Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist

I won ‘Michael Kohlhaas’ 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

 

‘Michael Kohlhaas’ is about a horse dealer of the same name who is honest and works hard and has a happy family. Once, when he is travelling to the market to sell horses, he is stopped on the way, near a castle, and the castellan asks him to pay the toll charge. He also harasses him asking him for documentation that he doesn’t have. Then, the castellan holds back two of his horses and asks him to come back with the documentation and collect them. When Michael Kohlhaas goes to the city, he asks his friends who work in the government whether any new documentation is required. He discovers that it is not required and that the castellan has just harassed him. He lets things be. After selling the other horses he had brought with him and completing his business he goes back and asks the castellan for his horses. The castellan asks him to take his horses from the stable. When Kohlhaas goes to the stable, he discovers that in his absence, his horses have been worked to death, and are unrecognizable. His groom, who he has left behind to take care of the horses, is missing. The castellan says that the groom didn’t behave himself and so was expelled. Kohlhaas is extremely annoyed, but lets things be. He goes back home and finds his groom, who has been beaten up by the castellan and others and is recovering from his injuries. After listening to the groom’s side of the story, Kohlhaas discovers that he has been taken for a ride. He files a case in a court of law against the owner of the castle, Junker Wenzel von Tronka, asking for his horses to be returned in their original condition. But von Tronka is a knight and has connections everywhere and so Kohlhaas’ case is dismissed. Kohlhaas tries repeatedly to get justice through normal means but his attempts are foiled. His wife tries to help him but it results in her death. Kohlhaas decides to defy the law and find justice for himself. What happens next forms the rest of the story.

 

‘Michael Kohlhaas’ is a vintage Kleist novella. It grips the reader from the first page. Normally the first line of a Kleist novella grabs the reader’s attention, but in this novel, it is the last line of the first page which does that. It goes like this – “But his sense of justice turned him into a brigand and a murderer.” I suspect that out of Kleist’s novellas, this must be the longest at 131 pages. Like a typical Kleist novella, it also has dozens of characters – it is amazing how many characters Kleist manages to squeeze in, in such a short space.

 

‘Michael Kohlhaas’ is the story of a normal man who finds it difficult to get justice on a small issue and ends up fighting the system – the courts, society, the government, the King. It is like an everyday man goes at war with the world. He is clearly the underdog. As readers, we know that the odds are stacked against him, but we root for him. We hope he wins in the end. We hope he is happy in the end and continues with his normal life. Michael Kohlhaas wins. But he opens a Pandora’s Box while doing that and this leads to not-so-good consequences for him.

 

An innocent man pitted against the might of the world is a theme which has been frequently exploited by writers and movie-makers. I didn’t know that the original version of this theme was first envisioned by Kleist in this novella. My favourite movie versions of this theme are ‘Payback’ (which has Mel Gibson) and the Tamil movie ‘Dhool’ (which has Vikram and Jyothika). Both of them have happy endings. ‘Payback’ seems to have been inspired by an older movie which was based on a novel and I think if we dig deeper we will end up at the footsteps of Kleist’s book.

 

I haven’t read Kleist’s ‘The Marquise of O-‘ yet, but till I get to it, I have to say that ‘Michael Kohlhaas’ is my favourite novella of his. I discovered that there is a 1969 German movie version of this book. I want to see that sometime.

 

Other Reviews

 

Tony’s Review

 

Have you read ‘Michael Kohlhaas’ or other novellas of Kleist? What do you think about this or other books of his?

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 4 : Part 1 – The Duel by Heinrich von Kleist

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

 

Caroline’s Review

 

Have you read any books by Heinrich von Kleist? What do you think about them?

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 3 : Part 2 – Effi Briest Readalong

This is the third and final week of the Effi Briest readalong. Here are my answers to the readalong questions for the third week.

 

 

Why do you think Effi kept Crampas’s letters?

 

It was quite interesting that Effi kept Crampas’ letters. Maybe she didn’t want to let go off her affair and she had those letters so that she can read them sometime and be reminded of the good times she had, though they might not have been socially acceptable.

 

Did Innstetten have a choice?

 

I think as an individual, Innstetten had a choice. But as he says sometimes society dictates how one lives and it is difficult to defy those norms. And if one defies those norms, then one might become an outcast. It takes a lot of courage to defy norms. This is true even today in the 21^st century. But the fact is that Innstetten stil had a choice. If he had wanted, he could have defied norms. Or he could have kept the affair quiet.

 

Are there any events in this final section that make you feel outraged?  Is that how Fontane wants you to feel?

 

I felt sad at the way the story took the turn it did. I was hoping that Innstetten would show some character and talk things over with his wife and calm things down. But he didn’t. I was hoping that Effi’s reunion with her daughter will go off well. But it didn’t. I was hoping that Effi will find joy in being an artist and will meet someone her age who is interesting and exciting. It didn’t happen. And the ending was so sad.

 

Is there a villain in this piece?

 

I don’t think there is a villain in the story. I think the strength of the novel is that it depicts people as complex, paradoxical, imperfect and realistic beings.

 

Discuss Effi’s reaction to her mother’s accusation “You brought it on yourself”.          

 

I felt sorry that Effi believed that she was wrong and her husband was right. I will put it down to 19^th century values, but there were circumstances which led Effi to do what she did and I think her husband could have been kinder and more sensitive to her and tried to understand her instead of pulling the trigger. Especially when, if the situation had been reversed, and if it had been Innstetten who had been having an affair, he wouldn’t have suffered the way Effi did. Things might have gone merrily for him. Unless he had a rival who challenged him to a duel and shot him like he did Crampas. But I guess this is me trying to impose 21^st century sensibilities into a 19^th century novel. The position of women in those days was, regrettably, not equal to that of men. Any amount of ranting by me is not going to change that. Fontane describes this aspect of his era quite realistically.

 

The lot of the real-life Effi, Elizabeth von Plotho, was a much happier one. Why do you think Fontane made the outcome for Effi much harder?

 

I was surprised to know that Effi’s character was based on the real-life Elizabeth von Plotho. When I read more about her, I could imagine how the story of Effi Briest must have emanated with readers of that era, because it was based on the life of a real person. I am not sure whether Elizabeth von Plotho’s story had a happy ending – because she seems to have suffered the same way as Effi did. But, fortunately, she got reconciled with her children and also outlived her husband by more than thirty years. But her sufferings while being ostracized from her family and community were probably very real. Fontane has probably depicted the life of Effi quite similarly except for the ending.

 

Were you surprised by the ending?

 

I was surprised and saddened. A more life affirmative ending would have been to build on Effi’s interest in art which could have resulted in her being a famous artist in the end. But probably a 19^th century audience wouldn’t have accepted that kind of ending – the redemption of an adulteress. It is amazing how reading taste and cultural values have changed so much in a century.

 

Where would you place Effi in the pantheon of C19th fictional adulteresses?

 

I haven’t read the other two novels with which ‘Effi Briest’ is compared – ‘Madame Bovary’ and ‘Anna Karenina’. So, it is difficult for me to answer this question. I would say that ‘Effi Briest’ probably gives a German perspective on this topic.

 

Do you think you would ever reread Effi Briest?

 

I hope to read atleast some of my favourites passages again. One of my favourites was :

 

Everything that is to give us pleasure must come at the right time and in the right circumstances, for what delights us today may be valueless tomorrow. Innstetten felt this deeply, and as certainly as he had formerly laid store by honors and distinctions coming from his highest superiors, just so certainly was he now firmly convinced that the glittering appearance of things amounted to but little, and that what is called happiness, if it existed at all, is something other than this appearance. “Happiness, if I am right, lies in two things: being exactly where one belongs–but what official can say that of himself?–and, especially, performing comfortably the most commonplace functions, that is, getting enough sleep and not having new boots that pinch. When the 720 minutes of a twelve-hour day pass without any special annoyance that can be called a happy day.”

 

If I get to learn German sometime, maybe I will try to read this book in German.

 

You can find links to replies of other readalong participants here.

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 2 : Part 2 – Effi Briest Readalong

This is the second week of the Effi Briest readalong. I could’t post about it last week, because I joined the readalong quite late. Here are my answers to the readalong questions for the second week.

What strikes you most in this novel,  what do you like or dislike the most?

I like the descriptions of Effi’s house in the initial part of the book – about how Effi is a playful girl who is playing with her friends and how in less than an hour her life is going to change in a fundamental way. I also found it interesting that Fontane doesn’t describe the major events in the novel – for example, Effi’s wedding or the music session by Marietta Trippelli. (I don’t know whether this is the translator’s doing or whether Fontane himself shies away from describing these events. I assumed that Fontane was the one who did it.) For some reason Fontane shies away from describing these important events in the novel. Even the affair between Effi and Crampas, which is an important part of the novel, is implied rather than described. I found this quite interesting. It seemed like Fontane wanted the reader to read closely and work hard to follow the story. Or he seemed to imply that what we consider important and what we consider common place in our lives, are all the same in the long run. I don’t know what Fontane thought, but I found this aspect of the novel quite interesting.

Do you think Fontane likes Effi? Whose side is he on?

Effi is the heroine of the novel and Fontane takes a lot of space in describing the events surrounding her life. I am not sure whose side Fontane is on. I felt that he tried to describe nineteenth century German values quite realistically and beautifully in the book and tries to show the world of that era from different perspectives.

What do you make of the story of the Chinese and the haunted house. How would you interpret it? And what about Crampas’ interpretation?

The story of the Chinaman and the haunted house was quite interesting. It succeeded in providing an eerie and haunting atmosphere for part of the book. I don’t know whether this is a feature of nineteenth century German literature, because I am discovering haunting and eerie descriptions in novels by different nineteenth century German authors. The haunting of the upstairs room seems to be real from Effi’s perspective. But as readers, we are not sure whether this is just a dream or a hallucination of Effi as a result of her conversation with her husband and her maid on the Chinaman, or whether the haunting is real. Crampas’ interpretation of the haunted room is interesting. I didn’t like it when I read it, because it looked like a smooth guy’s way of poisoning a girl’s heart. But when I read the book further, I wasn’t sure. Because there seemed to be some element of truth in what Crampas said that her husband was using the haunted house description to make his wife think in a particular way.

Descriptions are an important part in Effi Briest. How do you like them and how important do you think they are for the novel?

I liked the descriptions in ‘Effi Briest’. The descriptions in the initial part of the book which describe Effi’s carefree life are a pleasure to read. One of my favourite descriptions in the book comes in the last chapter (so this is a spoiler). It goes like this :

The only one who remained calm during the welcoming scene was Rollo himself, who either had no appreciation of time or considered the separation as an irregularity which was now simply removed. The fact that he had grown old also had something to do with it, no doubt. He remained sparing with his demonstrations of affection as he had been with his evidences of joy, during the welcoming scene. But he had grown in fidelity, if such a thing were possible. He never left the side of his mistress. The hunting dog he treated benevolently, but as a being of a lower order. At night he lay on the rush mat before Effi’s door; in the morning, when breakfast was served out of doors by the sundial, he was always quiet, always sleepy, and only when Effi arose from the breakfast table and walked toward the hall to take her straw hat and umbrella from the rack, did his youth return. Then, without troubling himself about whether his strength was to be put to a hard or easy test, he ran up the village road and back again and did not calm down till they were out in the fields.

It struck me while I was reading this novel how Fontane pairs descriptions of cozy and scary. Did you notice this as well and if so, what did you make of this?

I didn’t notice this when I read the book. But when I think about it now, I think it is true. Fontane’s pairing of contrasting situations – cozy and scary –  is quite interesting. He definitely plays with opposites to create an interesting effect.

What do you think of Crampas?

I didn’t like Crampas much. His character is not really explored in depth in the book, though it serves an important part in the central theme of the book. He starts out as a playboy kind of character, and I didn’t find that changing much. Though towards the end I found it sad to read about him.

Fontane chose to describe more than one Christmas in this novel, what do you think Christmas signifies?

Fontane describes the contrasting Christmas weeks during different times of the novel. They reveal the pulse of the current moment in the story – the initial happy days of Effi’s married life, the days leading to her affair with Crampas and the time when she spends Christmas alone, cutoff from the world. In one way, reading the description of Effi’s Christmas during these three times, we can discover the central theme and plot of the story and its ebbs and flows.

What kind of mother is Effi?

She loves her daughter and accepts her as she is. And later pines for her. And is disappointed with her reunion with her daughter.

Where will the novel go from here? What do you think will happen next?

At the end of Chapter 24, Effi has settled down in Berlin and the second phase of her life has started. We hope that it will be peaceful for her and her family and the uncomfortable events of the past are forgotten. But the past has a way of coming back into one’s life. So, it will be interesting to wait and see what happens.

You can find the link to other participants’ readalong posts here.

Read Full Post »

German Literature Month – Week 2 : Part 1

I know that the second week of German Literature Month is dedicated to German crime fiction. But I thought I will read more of one of the authors whom I discovered last week, first, before tackling some German crime fiction. I loved Theodor Storm’s ‘Immensee’ when I read it last week. So, this week I thought I will read Storm’s ‘The Rider on the White Horse’ which was recommended to me by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat, who is hosting German Literature Month with Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life. I got Storm’s book and read it today. I finished it sometime back. Here is what I think.

 

 

What I think

 

‘The Rider on the White Horse’ is a story set in a small North German village. It is told by a narrator, who seems to be the author, but we are not sure. The narrator says that he read this story half a century ago, in his great-grandmother’s place, in a newspaper. The story in the newspaper is told by another storyteller. This storytelling traveller is riding through a storm, despite his friend warning him to stay back in the warmth of the home, because he has some urgent business. On the way, he suddenly sees a ghostly white horse with a rider brushing past him in the opposite direction. The horse and the rider come back and pass him again. In a short while, the storyteller arrives at a village inn. He goes in and discovers that a few people – the dykemaster and a few dyke overseers – are having a conversation. He joins them. After a short while he tells them about the white horse and the strange horseman. Everyone becomes silent. When the traveller asks them about it, the dykemaster says that there is a story behind the white horse and its rider. The dykemaster asks the local village schoolmaster to tell the story. While the storm rages outside, the schoolmaster tells the story of Hauke Haien, how he was a lonely and an intelligent boy, how he got interested in mathematics, design and related topics, how he went to work at the place of the dykemaster of that time and how he fell in love with the dykemaster’s daughter Elke. The schoolmaster’s story goes on to tell the story of Hauke and Elke, how they get married and how Hauke becomes the dykemaster after many years, realizing his dream and how he planned a major project of building a new dyke, how it turned out to be a tremendous success but made a lot of people in the village suspicious of him and how a small flaw in the dyke and the violence of nature lead to disastrous consequences in the end.

 

‘The Rider on the White Horse’ evokes the haunting atmosphere of the North Frisian landscape, with its farms, dykes, storms and floods. I liked that aspect of the book very much. It also gives an interesting picture of North Frisian people and their culture. The book also contrasts reason with superstition – Hauke Haien wants to use logic while building a dyke, while the people of the village who are working with him are superstitious and suspect him. Many haunting visions appear throughout the story – the ghostly horse with its strange rider, a mermaid, strange creatures that Hauke sees near the dyke, when he is young, and which he sees again later, when he comes there as an adult with his young daughter. We are not sure whether these visions are optical illusions or whether they actually are what they seem to indicate. The reader is expected to form his / her own conclusions based on which side of the divide he / she is in. The story has a sad ending – how can it be otherwise, when it happens in the middle of a storm?

 

I liked ‘The Rider on the White Horse’ for the haunting images it evokes. I can’t wait to read more of Storm’s novellas.

 

If you would like to read ‘The Rider on the White Horse’ online, you can find it here.

 

Have you read ‘The Rider on the White Horse’? What do you think about it?

Read Full Post »