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

[jochen stremmel]

""Geht in Ordnung - sowieso - genau" may well be the best novel written in
Germany after the war."

I won't say, You can't be serious, but I wonder what you will say when you
read that bold statement (after mentioning the names of Koeppen and
Schmidt) again, say, ten years from now.

2015-04-20 14:03 GMT+02:00 Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>:

> 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
>
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