The unnamed narrator is staying at a small guest-house in the French Riviera and gets on well with the other guests of various nationalities. However, one day, a French lady, Madame Henriette, staying there, elopes with a man she had (presumably) known only for a couple of days. She leaves behind a distraught husband and … Continue reading #ClassicsClub: Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig (1927)
Tag: German Literature
#WIT #Classics Club: Feme/ Secret Sentence by Vicki Baum (1926)
In Vicki Baum's novel, we see post-WWI Germany facing economic decline. The upper class is slowly coming down, the working class is almost out on the streets. The novel opens in a house shared by two such families: the Burthes and the Schliepkes. Geheimart Burthe lives with his wife, his daughter Charlotte, and his son, … Continue reading #WIT #Classics Club: Feme/ Secret Sentence by Vicki Baum (1926)
Short Notes on Four Novels
...the futility and the fragility of all our hopes and desires... 2025 has begun with life becoming exceedingly busy. Cleaning, shifting home, travelling (which was fun), and new responsibilities. Reading and blogging have taken a backseat but as things become more stream-lined, here are brief notes on some of the books read: Homecoming by Bernhard … Continue reading Short Notes on Four Novels
#WIT #Classics Club: Men Never Know by Vicki Baum (1935)
We all die at some time in our lives without being buried. Our destiny has been fulfilled; we have received all that life had to give us, and we have given all that was in us to give. What succeeds no longer deserves the name of life. The world is full of people who are … Continue reading #WIT #Classics Club: Men Never Know by Vicki Baum (1935)
German Classic: Stud. Chem. Helene Willfuer by Vicki Baum (1928)
But that was the way with Life - now and again things went so well, that out of the deepest darkness sprang up happiness, unforeseen, profound and penetrating. The focus of German Literary Month this year was Austrian Authors. That gave me a chance to start reading Vicki Baum, an Austrian writer, who had been … Continue reading German Classic: Stud. Chem. Helene Willfuer by Vicki Baum (1928)
#GermanLitMonth: Pigeons on the Grass by Wolfgang Koeppen (1951)
Pigeons on the grass, that is how certain modern minds regarded people, while they strove to expose that which was senseless and apparently coincidental in human existence, to portray man as free of God, then to leave him fluttering about free in the void, senseless, valueless, free, and menaced by snares, prey to the butcher, … Continue reading #GermanLitMonth: Pigeons on the Grass by Wolfgang Koeppen (1951)
#GermanLitMonth: Eagles of the Reich by Will Berthold (1957)
An officer who is prepared to die first can demand total loyalty, only he can take his men into the jaws of death. They are Goering's golden boys, the pride of the Luftwaffe, Germany's crack paratroopers known as the Green Devils. When the novel opens, we find a unit rearing to go to their next … Continue reading #GermanLitMonth: Eagles of the Reich by Will Berthold (1957)
#GermanLitMonth: Three Crime Novels
The German Literature month has given me a wonderful opportunity to read three authors who had long been on my wishlist. Splinter by Sebastian Fitzek (2009) 'Back to the default position?' said Marc. 'A total reset?' Marc Lucas is a psychiatrist who has enough problems of his own. A few months prior to the beginning … Continue reading #GermanLitMonth: Three Crime Novels
FFB & #GermanLitMonth: My Father’s Keeper: The Children of Nazi Leaders – An Intimate History of Damage and Denial
Because sometimes there are stories -even in an atheistic world - that do not end with the passing of the protagonist. Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess... I think all of us have heard of these names. Then there were others whom I encountered for the first time: Hans Frank, Baldur von Schirach, Martin Bormann, … Continue reading FFB & #GermanLitMonth: My Father’s Keeper: The Children of Nazi Leaders – An Intimate History of Damage and Denial
#Germanlitmonth: Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher (2007)
He understood that there were different versions of the truth. Every police officer knew that, with each trial it was experienced afresh. The war is fresh in people's memory and mourning; the monarchy has been reduced to porn pin-ups; Hitler is "that strange bird with a Charlie Chaplin moustache"; Himmler and his dreaded SS are … Continue reading #Germanlitmonth: Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher (2007)
a hot cup of pleasure