Recommended reading in German (was: Günter Grass: the man who broke the silence)

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Off the top of my head:

I do not remember much of Handke's "The Goalie's Anxiety 
at the Penalty Kick" but always felt that the title gets 
it wrong: Why should the goalie be afraid? He has nothing 
to lose.

Musil's "The Man without Qualities" and more or less 
everything Thomas Mann has written (but particularly 
"Buddenbrooks", "The Magic Mountain" and "Doctor Faustus") 
are essential reading. So is Kafka, of course.

Heinrich Böll was not the most gifted of novelists but his 
novels give a good impression of German society after the 
war/during the 60s and 70s (as do the books of Wolfgang 
Koeppen und Arno Schmidt who have the added bonus of being 
good to great writers).

I find Hesse generally overrated and particularly dislike 
"Steppenwolf".

Unfortunately, "Berlin, Alexanderplatz" is the only Döblin 
novel I am familiar with. "Berge Meere und Giganten" is on 
my reading list.

It seems that Eckhard Henscheid's "Trilogy of Permanent 
Moronism" ('Trilogie des laufenden Schwachsinns') has not 
been translated into English. Which is a pity, because 
"Geht in Ordnung - sowieso - genau" may well be the best 
novel written in Germany after the war.

Do read "Young Werther", by all means, but as far as 
Goethe's novels are concerned my vote goes to "Elective 
Affinities" which is a cold, brilliant and surprisingly 
modern masterpiece.

A-and Thomas Bernhard, of course. I am particularly fond 
of "Frost" and "Extinction."





On Sun, 19 Apr 2015 16:17:45 -0500
  Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> If y'all wanna send me some recommended reading ... 
>STILL haven't read
> my copy of the (relatively, now) recent retranslation of 
>The Tin Drum,
> have only read The Clown (?) by Boll, + The Goalie's 
>Anxiety at the
> Penalty Kick (Peter Handke, in the wake of finally 
>getting a [VHS]
> copy of the Wim Wenders adaptation thereof), so ... 
>Musil's the Man
> without Qualities, Mann's the Magic Mountain, Doblin's 
>Berlin
> Alexanderplatz (sort of; also, the film adaptation [sort 
>of]; wish
> someone'd translate his Tatsachenphantasie into English 
>[see link
> below--!!!]), Hesse's Steppenwolf, uh, Goethe's  The 
>Sorrows of Young
> Werther (can't recall if I started, much less finished, 
>Elective
> Affinities, but it keeps coming up for me, so ...), have 
>Fontane's
> Effi Briest (saw the adaptation, heard it was afvaorite 
>of Beckett's
> [?!; also, Mann), The Tales of Hoffman (also, the 
>Pressburger./Powell
> film, + the BFI book thereupon, but ....) ...
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Lz_PaPZXZZIC&pg=PA226#v=onepage&q&f=false
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l