What other central european authors do you read?

[R.P.Dwyer]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

Thanks, Mr. Dwyer for your comments on Durrenmatt. Durrenmatt is relatively unknown in English-speaking countries and if book publishers ever decide to bring out his untranslated works, it will be thanks to readers like yourself. Are you aware of "The Pledge"? Like "Traps" it's a major work and easily available thanks to the Penn movie of a few years back. Mark Samuels did me a real kindness and sent me a copy from London of Durrenmatt's one act play, "Conversation at Night with a Despised Character". It was televised on the BBC in 1969 with Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. It's the story of a writer's encounter with the assassin sent to kill him by the State. (Earlier, D. had taken aim at the Black fascists with "Suspicion"; this time he had the Red fascists in his sights.) It's a brilliant work with the author at the peak of his powers. WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD The ending isn't a twist; it's a warm pretzel, nicely salted, and with spicy mustard. Any other writer would have the Author lecture and teach the Hangman a thing or two about basic humanity, perhaps even instill deep doubts about the 'rightness' of his profession. But this is Durrenmatt. Guess who teaches who how to "die humbly" and unconquered? I would have loved to have seen this with those two great actors.

Sorry for the late reply. I haven't read the others works you mentioned, and will seek it. I heard that the The Pledge is sort of a critique of the detective genre. I have some problems about that genre too.

I first heard of Durrenmatt through......Colin Wilson! Another writer that Colin Wilson thought highly of is David Lindsay. And I just recently found out that Colin Wilson was a big fan of Grabinski
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...d=104187931790

Durrenmat, David Lindsay, Grabinski. Colin Wilson had some excellent literary judgment.

[AndrewSFTSN]

I'm nowhere near well read as the average TLO forum member it seems but have enjoyed works by

Robert Walser
Witold Gombrowicz
Jaroslav Hasek
(Some) Stanislaw Lem
Skylark by Dezso Kosztolyani

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[xylokopos]

I finished this book a few hours ago on a flight back to the city where I live. It is a book about books and since all of us here are People of the Book, I recommend it without the slightest hesitation. Too loud a solitude also continues a grand European tradition of alienated narrators with intense inner lives, but deviates from the path trod by Dostoyevsky and Kafka and many others through its weirdly uplifting, almost slapstick scatology, and its even grimmer ending.

I fear I am not doing this book justice. Too loud a solitude is the story of a lonely man in a [slightly] alternative post-WWII Prague, where books are destroyed en masse; the narrator is employed as a compactor of books and wastepaper. He toils in a cellar, in front of a hydraulic press, which he feeds all sorts of paper, from reproductions of Van Gogh's paintings, to blooded wrapping paper from the city's butcheries to leatherbound volumes of Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant and Novalis. The hydraulic press compacts wastepaper and Hanta, the narrator, ties together gigantic bales which are then dispatched via lorries to the city's papermills, where the pulped paper is doused in alkalis and other chemicals and emerges virgin and blank again.

In the course of his travails in his rat-infested cellar next to mountains of paper and his hydraulic press, Hanta manages to save thousands of books from destruction and drags them to his room, where he sleeps under "two tons of them", a permanent Sword of Damocles hanging over his drunk sleep.

As he works and as he drinks beer he remembers stories spanning his thirty-five years as destroyer of books and creator of bales of compacted paper. I won't reveal the content of these stories except to write that they are a strange mix of love and cruelty and I won't reveal the ending except to write that it broke my heart, even though it was foretold in many ways. After all, we all become obsolete in the end, foreigners in our own lives, men overtaken by events beyond us; we always end up as depositories of memories that mean nothing to others but everything to us.

We all start out as books and end up as bales of wastepaper.

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by xylokopos

I finished this book a few hours ago on a flight back to the city where I live. It is a book about books and since all of us here are People of the Book, I recommend it without the slightest hesitation. Too loud a solitude also continues a grand European tradition of alienated narrators with intense inner lives, but deviates from the path trod by Dostoyevsky and Kafka and many others through its weirdly uplifting, almost slapstick scatology, and its even grimmer ending. I fear I am not doing this book justice. Too loud a solitude is the story of a lonely man in a [slightly] alternative post-WWII Prague, where books are destroyed en masse; the narrator is employed as a compactor of books and wastepaper. He toils in a cellar, in front of a hydraulic press, which he feeds all sorts of paper, from reproductions of Van Gogh's paintings, to blooded wrapping paper from the city's butcheries to leatherbound volumes of Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant and Novalis. The hydraulic press compacts wastepaper and Hanta, the narrator, ties together gigantic bales which are then dispatched via lorries to the city's papermills, where the pulped paper is doused in alkalis and other chemicals and emerges virgin and blank again. In the course of his travails in his rat-infested cellar next to mountains of paper and his hydraulic press, Hanta manages to save thousands of books from destruction and drags them to his room, where he sleeps under "two tons of them", a permanent Sword of Damocles hanging over his drunk sleep. As he works and as he drinks beer he remembers stories spanning his thirty-five years as destroyer of books and creator of bales of compacted paper. I won't reveal the content of these stories except to write that they are a strange mix of love and cruelty and I won't reveal the ending except to write that it broke my heart, even though it was foretold in many ways. After all, we all become obsolete in the end, foreigners in our own lives, men overtaken by events beyond us; we always end up as depositories of memories that mean nothing to others but everything to us. We all start out as books and end up as bales of wastepaper.

Book sounds great. And "slapstick scatology" LOL. So glad I dropped by TLO today.

On a second note, I think TLOers would really enjoy Kadare's Palace of Dreams and The Pyramid.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Chroale]

Josef Winkler (Austrian writer)

Graveyard of Bitter Oranges: Amazon.de: Josef Winkler, Adrian Nathan West: Fremdsprachige Bcher

 

Graveyard of Bitter Oranges: Amazon.de: Josef Winkler, Adrian Nathan West: Fremdsprachige Bcher

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Acutely decayed

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp I would also highly recommend Heinrich von Kleist. Some of his short stories (I have read one volume) are among the best I have read. I have been reading Kleist with enjoyment "Marquise of O and other stories" Greenberg translation - but just a note of warning if you are thinking of reading these - do not read the preface - even though it is by Thomas Mann first - also do not read the intro (save - these until afterward) they will describe the stories and detract from them.

What did you think of "The Foundling?"

[Hanswurst]

Quote Originally Posted by Chroale

Josef Winkler (Austrian writer) Graveyard of Bitter Oranges: Amazon.de: Josef Winkler, Adrian Nathan West: Fremdsprachige Bcher

Never heard of Josef Winkler before, thanks for the tip! There are actually a lot of dark and/or weird Austrian writers. Hans Lebert, Alfred Kubin and Fritz von Herzmanowsky-Orlando for example. The morbid poems of H.C. Artmann should be mentioned, too. But i'm not shure if there are good english translations of them available.

[bendk]

I recently read Heinrich von Kleist's novella, Michael Kohlhaas. I thought it was outstanding. Swindled by a debauched aristocracy that claims to rule by divine right, he rises up and metes out justice of his own. The ensuing slaughter is as entertaining as it is just.

It was recently filmed (2014) as Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas. It stars Mads Mikkelsen. I'll have to hunt that down.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by bendk

I recently read Heinrich von Kleist's novella, Michael Kohlhaas. I thought it was outstanding. It was recently filmed (2014) as Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas. It stars Mads Mikkelsen. I'll have to hunt that down.

Kleist is so wonderful! I'm so obsessed with his work that I've been trying to finish a particular story which is inspired by both "The Foundling" and "The Marquise of O."

[xylokopos]

Not sure if this belongs here, but since the author has been mentioned a couple of times on this thread and I think some of us are always on the lookout for this sort of thing:

I just ordered Hans Henny Jahnn's The Living are Few, the Dead Many from the Book Depository. It is 57% off right now. I have no idea how long these deals last.