German Literature?

I've read Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. I saw the movie before reading the book, but I had heard about the book before that and thought that I'd like to read it. I liked the way it was written very much. It was really funny even though the story is quite tragic.

I have recently read a new German book called 'So fern wie der Himmel' by Julian Lees.

It is about a Russian family fleeing from the Russian revolution and making their way to Shanghai, China.

I would say this is one of the best books I have read in a long time

Does anybody know who said/wrote "Wildganse sind nicht Zimmer rein!"?

Cheers in advance,

Doobuzz

Only read german books by Michael Ende and Patrick Süskind, I think. :)

I've read The Radetzky March from the ukrainian author Joseph Roth. One of my favourite books of all time. Well, it shouldn't be classed as german litterature, but The Radetzky March is set in Austria and largely focuses on the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

I have read most of Schiller's plays, and some books by Hesse, Mann, and Kafka's "The Tower", and "The Trial". I really love German Literature.

The more recent Germans I've read as novellas and short stories, but the classics I've only been exposed to as drama. I read the first part of Faust. It didn't grab me but from what I read, I'd definitely place him in the ranks alongside of great writers like Milton. Schiller's William Tell was well written, but it kept reminding me of Marlowe's Tamerlane: a powerful hero marches from victory to victory without ever suffering serious reversals. I know he is put in chains and his life is in danger, but he gets out of that in about a minute. He's led away and then boom he's free in the next scene. I didn't feel a lot of dramatic conflict in that one. Then I read Lessing's Minna Von Barnhelm. It was supposed to be a comedy, but I only laughed at one page.

Luckily, around that time I had just bought a copy of Kleist's Penthesilia and a translation of the complete works of Buchner. Buchner is fantastic, one of the best dramatists I've ever read. I can see why post-modern's like his Woyzeck, but as I'm a fan of literature that is actually finished, I much prefer his Danton's Death. Kleist looked promising, but after the good opening I couldn't get into his work. However, I believe I read one of his short stories about a Prussian Officer sticking around in a conquered city to finish his coffee as the French army closes in, and that was alright.

I was a big fan of Hesse's in high school. I loved Steppenwolf. I liked Beneath the Wheel very much. I started Demian but never got far into it. In college I had to read Mann's Death in Venice, and Tonio Kroger. I can't say I enjoyed them. Kafka's Metamorphoses didn't impress me either, but I found The Hunger Artist and some other stories of his fascinating. He's one of the best writers I've ever read.

Brecht. I don't know what to do about Brecht. I did not enjoy reading his Mother Courage and Her Children, but I loved the 1931 Pabst film production of Threepenny Opera. Good ol' Mack the Knife.

I liked Goethe's Faust... but then I read it at the same time as Marlowe's and was interested in the subject...

I LOVE German literature, think it's one of the greatest (what with composers, what a great country!). I started with Hesse and Zweig during my teenage years, and read lots of theirs, although unknown ones (to me) by them keep popping up now and then. I went on with Mann's Death in Venice, which I consider to be one of the most beautiful short novels I've ever read! I read The Magic Mountain later on, and enjoyed it as well. I found The Buddenbrooks boring though, like Joseph and his Brothers, sorry. But I liked Lotte in Weimar a lot! I read a book by his son, Klaus Mann, as well, and liked it too! Another author I discovered during my teens was Schnitzler! and he doesn't seem to be extremely well-known - undeservedly...and Koestler! and Canetti! and Fallada (not very well known either)! and Remarque!!! I love him as well!! and Peter Handke... I read one or two novels by him, they were good. And I enjoyed what I read by Suskind as well.

I tried Gunther Grass, but didn't manage to like him... Kafka I have trouble with as well, although I managed to get through a few of his stories and the Castle! But haven't tried the Trial yet.

Among the poets, I loved Novalis (his Hymns to the night and his novel, Henry von Ofterdingen.. Richte I've read as well, but not extensively. I'm not well acquainted with that many German poets, actually, having merely read poems here in there, mostly in anthologies...

I'd like to read Hoffmann's tales, they're next on my list, as well as Tieck and Achim von Arnim.

A wonderful, beautiful work of literary criticism which bears mostly upon German Romantic authors, by the way, is Albert Béguin's L'âme romantique et le rêve (loosely translated as The Romantic Soul and Dreams); if anyone is interested in that period, I warmly recommend it.

Quick question regarding All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Which is the best translation?

1. A W. Wheen's old translation
2. Brian Murdoch's new translation

Thanks in advance!

I read German lit. in college: those you listed +a writer named Wolfgang Borchert, who died in 1947, best known for the short story collection, Draussen vor der Tür. When I spent some time in Hamburg, >40 years ago, Ulrich Plentzdorf's Die Neuen Leiden des Jungen Werthers was popular with the young folks & I read that. I also read Der Fänger im Roggen, the German translation of The Catcher in the Rye, which a friend had. I am still working my way through Joseph Roth's Radetzky Marsch. I still read Mann, especially his Zauberberg (both volumes!).

When I was studying German at nightschool, I read translations of Alice in Wonderland and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in German. Then I had a go at Das Boot, but I had to give up. It was too full of German dialect, profanity and submarine terminology.

Having read a good deal of German writing, including the usual suspects: Goethe, Mann, Hesse, Zweig, Roth etc. I also have eight volumes of the Arthur Schnitzler's works. Published by Fischer Verlag, this Austrian writer is no longer fashionable among German readers but was a key figure in Viennese literary circles at the turn of the last century and was widely read in Austria and Germany. I would recommend him to anyone who enjoys reading in German.