... and I think it's the best of them. Like the others I've read, it was translated by the late Anthea Bell OBE (1936-2018) but you can read an online version by a different translator at this site. (There's no About Page to explain the copyright status of what's on the site, so I hope I haven't inadvertently encouraged piracy.)
At the surface level, Chess is the story of a battle between chessmasters while they are en route to exile in Buenos Aires. The unnamed narrator is excited to learn that the world champion Czentovic is aboard, and he sets up a match against Doctor B. for an avid audience of chess-playing passengers. It's a simple plot, which recounts how Czentovic is manipulated into wanting to play, and the story-within-the-story explains how Doctor B used his time in solitary confinement to learn the moves from great chess matches of the past. The game turns out to be dull because Czentovic takes so long between moves, but the unexpected results bring tension to the story because Czentovic is not a man to take defeat lightly.
Beneath the surface, however, lies complex symbolic characterisation.
Susan from ‘A Life in Books’ recommended The Tobacconist to me after I read Robert Seethaler’s debut novel A Whole Life. (See my review). I reserved iSusan from ‘A Life in Books’ recommended The Tobacconist to me after I read Robert Seethaler’s debut novel A Whole Life. (See my review). I reserved it at my library and it came in promptly – too promptly, in a way, (though I shouldn’t complain), because I didn’t really want to read another melancholy book about the impact of WW2 on ordinary people in Austria quite so soon. That might have coloured my perception of the book a little… Still, it’s a very fine book. Once again it features a country lad, born and raised far away from events that were shaking up Europe but affected by them all the same. But everything soon changes when his mother sends 17-year-old Franz to Vienna. The source of her funds disappears along with her lover into the local lake, and so Franz goes to work with a tobacconist called Otto Trsnyek, a one-legged veteran of the First World War. At first Franz’s priorities centre around girls, and love, and when he makes the acquaintance of Sigmund Freud, that is who he talks to about love because for Otto, love was over a long time ago and he has no advice to give. The mood of these early pages of the novel is like many a bildungsroman as Franz discovers the charms of a good-time-girl called Anezka, but before long it darkens – because the novel is set not long before the Anschluss of 13 March 1938, in which Nazi Germany annexed Austria. Soon there are indications that ‘life ain’t no fairytale’ and as Franz begins to revel in being thought a friend of the famous Freud, he becomes more aware of dangers which had seemed no more than talk.
Passion. It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot these days. People tell prospective employers that they’re passionate about their work; others say Passion. It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot these days. People tell prospective employers that they’re passionate about their work; others say that they are passionate about their hobbies, their sport or their gardens. But true passion, as Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) shows in this neat little novella, is a kind of madness. If you’ve been lucky enough to fall passionately in love, you know what I mean. Nobody would want an employee who really was passionate about accounting, or teaching, or driving a train.
Once again a small pensione is the setting for strangers to come together; this time it’s on the Riviera, where an unusual incident triggers a confessional narrative from a very old lady. On the spur of the moment an otherwise respectably married woman with children runs away with a very recently arrived handsome young man, and amongst the guests there is indignation and outrage. They are convinced she must have known him beforehand and had been having a covert affair. The narrator, irritated by their judgementalism, plays devil’s advocate, and provokes consternation by saying that he thought that such a hasty passion was possible. This is the catalyst for the old lady to take him into her confidence, unburdening herself of a secret that has tormented her for most of her life.
Alexander Lernet-Holenia (1897-1976) was an award-winning Austrian poet, playwright, screenwriter and novelist who was a protégé of Rainer Maria RilkeAlexander Lernet-Holenia (1897-1976) was an award-winning Austrian poet, playwright, screenwriter and novelist who was a protégé of Rainer Maria Rilke. Despite this Bohemian connection and the publication of his 1941 novel The Blue Hour (Die Blaue Stunde) a.k.a. Mars in Aries (Mars im Widder) which was banned by the Nazis, he managed to keep a low profile for most of the war until removed from public position in 1944. He had, as a redrafted reservist, taken part in the invasion of Poland, and he also made propaganda films in the early years, but he was not considered a supporter of the regime and his profile in the literary community was accordingly restored after the war. In addition to awards received in the 1920s (the Kleist Prize and the Goethe Prize of the city of Bremen), he was also awarded the City of Vienna Prize for Literature (1951); Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1958), the Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature (1961), and posthumously, the Gold Medal of the capital Vienna (1967) and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1968). He was also a rather handsome fellow, as you can see from his portrait here. (Much nicer than the one in the front of the book). However, #DuckingForCover amusing as Mona Lisa is, it is not easy to see from reading it, why he is considered such a Big Deal. Mona Lisa was published in 1937. Like the other books I've bought from Pushkin Press (which are all novellas and short stories) it takes less than an hour to read, which when you factor in the cost of postage to Australia, is best considered an expensive gourmet treat rather than value for money. But these editions are beautifully produced: they are printed on premium paper and their covers have classy French flaps - and this one also has charming illustrations by Neil Gower. It is the kind of book that is perfect for gift-giving IMO. Set in 1502, the story is a comic invention that pokes fun at the fascination with the identity of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Louis XII despatches his marshal Louis de la Trémoille to Milan to raise an army for the relief of a couple of French governors fending off the Spaniards in Naples. La Trémoille has the King's blessing, and his authority to extract the Pope's blessing by force of arms if necessary, and he also has the King's expectation that the nobility, the clerics, and the good people of Amboise in Milan will all only too happily provide everything from manpower to ordnance, not to mention the money for the expedition. I suspect that the absurdity of these King's Orders owes something to the author's military service in WW1, where perhaps there too his superior officer also had fantasies about inexhaustible public enthusiasm for military folly...
[He] appeared to ponder whether he should offer La Trémoille dominion over the sun, the waters, the air and the ground they stood on, for the upkeep of which God himself was to be charged responsible (p.10)
I found Amok to be an intriguing story that offers much to think about. It’s the story of a doctor facing an existential crisis in what was, when ZweiI found Amok to be an intriguing story that offers much to think about. It’s the story of a doctor facing an existential crisis in what was, when Zweig wrote this story in 1922, the Dutch East Indies. A psychological study that shows the character confronted by a moral dilemma that becomes an irrational compulsion which destroys him, the novella is framed as a narrative within a narrative. A stranger meets this distraught doctor hiding himself away from everyone as their ship returns to Europe, and the doctor unburdens himself to the stranger in the dark of the night, even though, as the reader eventually learns, there is some risk to him in doing so.
The voice in the dark hesitated again. ‘I would like to ask you something … that’s to say, I’d like to tell you something. Oh, I know, I know very well how absurd it is to turn to the first man I meet, but … I’m … I’m in a terrible mental condition, I have reached a point where I absolutely must talk to someone, or it will be the end of me … You’ll understand that when I … well. if I tell you … I mean, I know you can’t help me, but this silence is almost making me ill, and a sick man always looks ridiculous to others.’ (p. 21)
Tension lingers throughout the story from the opening paragraph, in which the unnamed stranger tells us that
In March 1912 a strange accident occurred in Naples harbour during the unloading of a large ocean-going liner which was reported at length by the newspapers, although in extremely fanciful terms. Although I was a passenger on the Oceania, I did not myself witness this strange incident – nor did any of the others – since it happened while coal was being taken on board and cargo unloaded, and to escape the noise we had all gone ashore to pass the time in coffee-houses or theatres. It is my personal opinion, however, that a number of conjectures which I did not voice publicly at the time provide the true explanation of that sensational event, and I think that, at a distance of some years, I may now be permitted to give an account of a conversation I had in confidence immediately before the curious episode. (p.11)
So as we read, there is not only the confessional conversation between the doctor and the stranger to consider, but also our curiosity about what this odd incident might be - which of course is not revealed until the end of the novella. There’s also the distancing effect of the first-person narrator (the stranger) narrating another character’s first-person narrative, and we see that he too – at a distance of some years – feels the need to unburden himself of this secret that he hasn’t ‘voiced publicly’. The urge to confess is powerful indeed.
Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) has no less than six entries in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 edition), and now that I’ve read Concrete (1Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) has no less than six entries in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 edition), and now that I’ve read Concrete (1982) I am certainly going to read the others: Correction, Extinction, Old Masters , Wittgenstein’s Nephew and Yes. From what I read of his profile at Wikipedia the author is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era but was Austria’s Bad Boy, continually writing novels and plays that were hyper-critical of Austria and its sacred cows. But the picture I have of this author from a guest post by Andrej Nicoladis at Winston’s Dad is entirely different:
Bernhard writes about society in collapse: society rotten with dishonesty, corruption and deep-rooted lies. … The narrator of the story is caught up in a fundamental battle with that society … [but eventually realises that] his conflict with society is an externalization of an inner conflict: that his true enemy with whom he must fight to the death, is in fact his own existence.
1001 Books tells me that Concrete is ‘perhaps Bernhard’s most accessible novel and his best example of self-parody.’ It is the tale of Rudolf, a Viennese musicologist who is supposed to be writing his masterwork, a book about Mendelssohn. He’s been planning it for ten years, and if this account of his procrastinations is anything to go by, it will be double that amount of time before he so much as takes the lid off his pen…
Naturally this misanthrope has to have someone to blame for his failure, preferably a woman, and indeed he has three. First of all there is his ‘monstrous’ sister, who, attempting to make him face up to the fact that he ought to get a grip on himself, is (he says) annihilating him, his work, and his ambitions. Then there is his cleaning lady, who (he says) requires his constant supervision in order to prevent the house from becoming a quagmire of filth. And finally there is the hapless Anna in Majorca, who has destroyed his peace of mind with her tragic widowhood so that he can’t write any more.
Germans may be considered to be more severe, but the works of the best-known Austrian authors available in English make the Austrians seem even less jGermans may be considered to be more severe, but the works of the best-known Austrian authors available in English make the Austrians seem even less jolly. Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) at least does display a wicked sense of humour in much of his fiction, but he, Peter Handke (b.1942) and Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek (b.1946) show a lot of angry intensity, tempered only by some melancholy, especially in Hendke's later works. (The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction, by Michael Orthofer, Columbia University Press, 2016.) Well, I can vouch for that. Despite his recent Nobel, I am not inclined to read Handke, but my experience with Jelinek is that once was enough. And now that I've read two by Thomas Bernhard, that might be enough of that angry intensity too.
(Though Joe from Rough Ghosts enjoyed Wittgenstein's Nephew so I remain open to trying that one too. After a bit of time to recover.)
I enjoyed Concrete. It amused me. But as Orthofer says, Bernhard is master of the extended rant, and 250-odd pages of extended rant in Correction is A Lot.
[image]1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 Edition) tells me that...Correction is Bernhard's most sustained expression of his fascination with Wittgenstein. While I am open to howls of derision when I say so, I reckon he was playfully channelling Wittgenstein in the logic of his thought, 'atomising' facts and systematically taking them apart to their logical conclusion. Yes, I'm well aware that I'm reading a translation, but I'm thinking of recent discussions about the art of translation so I regard Sophie Wilkins' translation as a collaboration with Bernhard and therefore close to his intention.
(As I confess at Goodreads) while I make no claim to have understood it, I have actually read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. (All of it.) If (ignoring the layout) you follow the train of thought in T L-P, it's not unlike Bernhard's relentless logic.
1* The world is all that is the case. 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case. 1.13 The facts in logical space are the world. 1.2 The world divides into facts. 1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same. (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Routledge Classics, 2001, first published in 1921)
(The layout of Correction, BTW is two long continuous paragraphs, separated into Parts 1 and 2.)
Bear with me...
The unnamed narrator tells us in Part I that he is the literary executor of Roithamer — who has some correspondences with the real-life Wittgenstein, except that Roithamer has committed suicide, and Wittgenstein did not. This narrator is obsessed with Roithamer and is angst-ridden about the possible posthumous publication of Roithamer's papers, especially his study of Altensam, which was his childhood home and a place that he loathed. (Along with the rest of Austria).
Roithamer finished this paper in a great burst of energy after his sister died, but soon afterward...
...destroyed it again by starting to make corrections in it and correcting it over and over again until in the end he destroyed it entirely by his incessant corrections, during his stay in Hoeller's garret after his sister's death, he felt he had corrected it to death and so destroyed it, but as I know now, as I have ascertained in the shortest possible time of my stay here in Hoeller's garret, he did not really destroy it by his utterly ruthless, hence utterly perfect corrections, but turned it into an entirely new work, because the destruction of his work by his own hand, by his keen mind which dealt most ruthlessly with his work was, after all, merely synonymous with the creation of an entirely new piece of work, he had gone on correcting his work until his work was not, as he thought, destroyed but rather a wholly new piece of work had been created. (p.55)
Got that? How many times did you have to read it to make sense of it? QED*, just like Wittgenstein... (only more loquacious.)
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