Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks is also recommended.Originally Posted by kiki1982
Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks is also recommended.
Buddenbrooks is more than recommended, it's one of the greatest novels written in any language.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
What of his works would you recommend to start reading him? I have seen people who loves him and some who hates him, so I don't really know what to think about him.
I'll try reading him first, but I really would like some suggestions to start with a clean mind
I'll try to find that one thank you
A good Kakfa starter is usually his novella Metamorphosis or his short stories like A Hunger Artist, and The Great Wall of China, .
"So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
"This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
Feed the Hungry!
I would agree with Mortalterror. Just to get used to his style which is singular.
After that you can move on to his larger ones.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
I agree - start with this and then try "The Magic Mountain"
If you want to read something "topical" then try "The Weekend: A Novel" by Bernhard Schlink, translated by Shaun Whiteside.
It's a very quick and fascinating read - about a Bader-Meinhoff type terrorist released from prison after several decades. Schlink, of course, is Germany's hottest novelist at the moment, after "The Reader" (which I haven't read, but is now top of my "modern German must read" list...)
As regards Kafka I would recommend plunging headfirst into The Process. That is the one novel everyone who read Kafka seems to like, there's something in there for everyone, and it's not very long. For many Metamorphosis is just "mehh" and The Castle is a frustrating goddamn mess that leads nowhere (i haven't read The Castle yet, though).
But The Process is magnificent. Read it if you want not only a great piece of literature, but also one of the most insightfull observations of the soul of the 20th (and even the 21st) century.
And there's a beautiful film adaptation by Orson Welles, with Anthony Perkins as Josef K., which s highly recommended.
All aboard. All souls at half-mast. Aye-Aye. -Samuel Beckett, More Pricks Than Kicks
I have translated that 'god damn mess' (no hard feelings) and I can't agree. The thing is weirdly entertaining and hilarious by moments. I cried reading some of it, though the construction is very clever. It all looks very strange and bland, dark and cold and irresolute (mainly the end that is not there and it just being half a sentence) but it has such a tremendous subtle basis that it is marvellous.
When the 'boss' of the land surveyor is in bed with gout and just plainly admits that they have no need for a land surveyor nor is there any work for one and how his wife and the assistants (useless creatures anyway, but very willing, bless them) try to look up the document where the post of land surveyor is created...
Where one of the civil servants Momus has to record the complaint of the hostess against the land surveyor and crumbles a pretzel all over the document, staining it with greasy marks (are those documents of any important at all?).
When Momus too explains how a little hard grain has got into the mill which is now grinding to a halt, thus exposing its weaknesses, (this is a very worrying thing for them all, because in the whole mill moving lies their existance...), but the land surveyor doesn't notice it because he is asleep.
The scene in the school is also hilarious by moments.
You see, the construction I believe is somewhat based on I think a satirical play (?) by Suetonius (?) with Momus (the God of mockery and satire) as the secretary and the gods moaning about the fact whether half gods should be allowed on Olympus (essentially a pun on contemporary immigration law in Athens). The second thing is I believe Dante's Divina Commedia and the whole idea of a single person one worships and on whom everything depends (Klamm). When one asks for the person and is sceptical (the land surveyor) it turns out that no-one actually knows how he is, where he is and what he even wants. They only think he likes everything written down, but does he read it? Not a soul knows. The ultimate question is, is he actually there? They all claim he is, but no-one has ever seen him. You can extrapolate that to the eagle which is referred to somewhere as the heraldic symbol of the Habsburg dynasty which no-one had evidently seen for real, but who 'ruled' the place, although did they? Was it not rather overzealous assistants who did everything and the Kaiser (symbolised in Klamm) who was blamed for everything, but actually just had to go along with the system, or even worse did not even care?
Kafka would turn in his grave, me talking like this, but I thought I had to defend the quality of it.
I grant you that there are boring bits in it, but they are made up for by the incredibly good bits.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Sounds like The Apocolocyntosis (or The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius) by Seneca the Younger to me. Emperor Claudius being basically the George W. Bush of his era, and the Romans having a habit of deifying dead emperors, the Olympian gods hold a council to decide if he should be admitted into their ranks. After some deliberation, they came to the conclusion that he'd make a better pumpkin than a god, hence the title. It's actually very well written and funny. I especially liked this part:
The last words he was heard to speak in this world were these. When he had made a great noise with that end of him which talked easiest, he cried out, "Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of myself." Whether he did or no, I cannot say, but certain it is he always did make a mess of everything.
"So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
"This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
Feed the Hungry!
Haha, it was too long ago to really remember and, lazy me was too lazy (duh) to go and look it up in my translation.
It was Lucian's Assembly of the Gods. it is quite hilarious. And if you then consider Momus's appearance as the name of this somewhat jolly civil servant... I just couldn't stop laughing...
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Can anyone suggest some contemporary German writers, please? Any that are translated into English would be appreciated as I don't think my very rusty schoolgirl German is up to reading a whole book!
No one seems to have mentioned Mann's Death in Venice which I enjoyed when I read it some years ago.
You misunderstood me. I haven't read The Castle, what I said is just what some people say of it. I'm even completely sure that it's incredible and that I will love it, it sounds like just my sort of literature: beautiful, seemingly chaotic, absurd, metaphysical, philosophical.Kafka would turn in his grave, me talking like this, but I thought I had to defend the quality of it.
All aboard. All souls at half-mast. Aye-Aye. -Samuel Beckett, More Pricks Than Kicks
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