Stevie B
Current Member
The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers is on my to-read list, but I recently noticed that NYRB Classics will be republishing Transit in 2013. I'm assuming you've read both novels. If so, which one did you like better?
Nobel Screw Ups
- Thread starter waalkwriter
- Start date
The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers is on my to-read list, but I recently noticed that NYRB Classics will be republishing Transit in 2013. I'm assuming you've read both novels. If so, which one did you like better?
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
StevieB, I haven't read Transit yet. I've only read Die Toten bleiben jung, in Portuguese translation (Os mortos permanecem jovens) and Das siebte Kreuz, in Spanish translation (La septima cruz); funny fact about The Seventh Cross, published by a Jewish German woman in 1942, it was published first in Mexico, by El libro libre publishing house.
I've only gotten teary-eyed and stuff while reading three books in my whole life, first time was while reading D'Amicis' Cuore when I was a little kid; later in life, while reading the devastating endings of both Uhlman's Reunion and Seghers' The seventh cross. And the thing is, I knew before reading those last two books that their endings were supposed to be emotionally crushing, and they were.
I don't want to spoil The seventh cross for you by revealing the plot, but I think I can recommend that book.
Oddly enough I found better info about Seghers on this sci-fi page than on the Wikipedia entry about her:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/seghers.htm
Seghers wrote a ton of books, sadly very few of them have been translated. Me, I'd love to read her thoughts on Über Tolstoi. Über Dostojewski. I've also been trying for a while to get hold of pdf versions of Die Hochzeit von Haiti, and Karibische Geschichten , which includes Das Licht aus den Galge. Pdf files save the trouble of using a German dictionary and phrasal book, since I can quickly use the computer to do that. These books deal with slavery in the Caribbean, and that's a subject matter I 'm greatly interested in. By the way, Das Licht auf dem Galgen/The light on the gallows inspired Der Auftrag, a play by Heiner Müller, listed above as one of the 15 German language winners of our alternate Nobels.
One final recommendation of her work. In the early 90's Planeta Editorial published an 'Ideal Library' annotated list of works where they named the greatest works of each major lit. For the German language the list was:
Brecht's Poetry, Effi Briest, Faust, Heine's Poetry, Holderlin's Hyperion, Kafka's The Trial, The man without qualities, Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Rilke's Poetry, Bernhard's autobiography; and works by Boll, Broch, Canetti, Doblin, Grass, Hesse, Hoffman, Junger, Karl Kraus, Thomas Mann, Jean Paul Richter, Schnitzler, Theodor Storm, Max Frisch, Peter Handke, Uwe Johnson, Lichtenberg, von Rezzori , Joseph Roth, Botho Strauss, Robert Walser, Peter Weiss, Ernst Wiechert, Christa Wolf and Anna Seghers' The Seventh Cross.
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Stevie B
Current Member
The last time I read a book that had brought a male friend to tears was Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K. I, however, remained dry-eyed from cover to cover. Maybe that means I'm just a cold-hearted bastard. Nonetheless, I look forward to giving The Seventh Cross a go. I've heard nothing but good things about the novel, and I recall one WLF member lamenting that it is a book that is largely on its way to being forgotten in Europe.
Thanks for including the Seghers link as well as the Ideal Library list of German-language books. New names for me on this list were Karl Kraus, Jean Paul Richter, and Ernst Wiechert. As far as Walser is concerned, I'm embarrassed to admit that I've yet to read him. I started The Man without Qualities back in my student days and recall being intimidated by the book and quitting on it fairly quickly. As a much more seasoned reader now, I should give the book another chance though I'll probably read Young Torless first as I already have a copy on my bookshelf.
By the way, you mentioned your interest in slavery in the Caribbean. Has Maryse Conde ever written on the subject?
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Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
StevieB, you're right, one man's snappy tearjerker is another man's sappy treacle, so YMMV. I'm moved by things related to the Holocaust, so I may be biased on my judgment. Oh, and by the way, thank you for introducing me to Guadaloupean writer Maryse Conde: I think that she and I are going to have some good times together in the future.
I find very interesting the whole subject of the Congo-speakers Diaspora that became the greater Caribbean slave base: from New Orleans to Salvador de Bahia through the Antilles islands (great and lesser), and its cultural impact: Vodun, Santeria, Candomble, the African percussion and polyrhythmic beats of the music of the region. The places where the Diaspora originated: Togo, Benin, the Yoruba from Nigeria, etc.
A few examples. A certain kind of percussion-heavy music from the Caribbean: 'Palos' is just the drum line from the polyphonic funeral music from Benin (all that survived the transition to the Caribbean was the percussion; the winds, chorus, two vocal lines, etc were lost).
Jorge Amado wrote about the synchretistic religious cults of his Bahia (Yemanja: our lady of the waters, for example) in some of his novels. Carlos Esteban Deive's now almost impossible to find 'Vodun and Magic in the Caribbean' remains the classic reference about the highly synchretistic religions of the region and their origins in Africa.
I've been posting on the Pascal Quignard thread some of his gleanings from all over the world about the dead and the after life; here is a very interesting Congo one about the Biloko. From Wikipedia:
Eloko (pl, Biloko) is a term in a Mongo language referring to a kind of dwarf-like creature that lives in the forests. They are believed to be the spirits of ancestors of the people living there. Legend has it that they haunt the forest because they have some grudge to settle with the living and are generally quite vicious. The Biloko live in hollow trees and are dressed only in leaves. They have no hair; only moss grows on their bodies; they have piercing eyes, snouts with mouths that can be opened wide enough to admit a human body, alive or dead, and long, sharp claws. They possess little bells, which are believed to be able to cast a spell on passers-by.
One day a hunter took his wife, at her insistence, into the forest, where he had a hut with a palisade around it. When he went out to inspect his traps, he told her: "When you hear a bell, do not move. If you do, you will die!" Soon after he had left, she heard the charming sound of a little bell coming closer, for the Eloko has a good nose for feminine flesh. Finally, a gentle voice asked to be let in to his room. It was like the voice of a child. The woman opened the door and there was an Eloko, smelling like the forest, looking small and innocent. She offered him banana mash with fried fish but he refused: "We eat only human meat. I have not eaten for a long time. Give me a piece of your arm." At last the woman consented, totally under the spell of the Eloko. That night, the husband found her bones.
Shaw was born in Ireland and spent the first twenty years of his life there. That makes him Irish. How does where he wrote or where he lived later change his nationality?