Stacks of books were piled high all over the house – not just arranged in neat rows on bookshelves, the way other people kept them, oh no! The books in Mo and Meggie’s house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms. There were books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory. Books on the TV set, and in the wardrobe, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books, old and new. (Cornelia Funke, Inkheart)
So how does your house measure up? I reckon I can tick about 80% of those boxes. Although Mo and Meggie have missed a trick by not realising the value of under-bed storage space!

However, it has now reached a point where my reading couch has been invaded. This simply cannot go on.

So 2010 will be the year when I don’t buy a single book I realise a lifelong ambition – I’m going to convert one room into a bona fide library. Which room? That’s subject to negotiation at the moment – my first objective is to ensure that it isn’t the smallest room in the house.
But I digress.
Bookpiles may be cluttering and dust-collecting but they are always welcome. None more so than these.

2009 has been a bonus year for Germanophiles. Is that due to the very special celebration that tomorrow will bring? Or has the German Book Prize elevated interest in German literature in general? However, there is such a flood of Germany-related / translated from German titles now available that I wonder if it is now possible to do a German-literature degree without actually reading the language. Not that I am complaining. As you can see I am capitalising on this bounty.
I think a short tour is called for. We begin in the Oxford corner – the pile back left. Let’s start bottom-up because I know that you’re going to ask what The Oxford Companion to English Literature is doing in a post about the German counterpart. It’s simply because the scope of the 7th edition has been expanded, not only to cover the contemporary English literary scene, but also much translated fiction. So lots of illuminating entries about German literature. I found the entry on Wertherism very helpful during my recent rereading of Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther. The scale of this book contrasts with A Very Short Introduction to German Literature at the top of the pile. Not my favourite Oxford title to be fair. It’s scope being literature from the pens of authors from Germany. So no insights on my favourite Austrians, Schnitzler and Zweig, or the Swiss Keller to name a few. The middle of the pile is populated by a half-dozen recently-rejacketed Oxford Classics – gorgeous aren’t they? Glad to see a healthy looking virtual German bookshelf here. The books in my pile: Gottfried von Eschenbach, Parzival and Titurel; Friedrich Schiller Don Carlos and Mary Stuart; E.T.A Hoffman The Golden Pot and Other Stories; and 3 titles from Kafka, The Castle, The Trial, Metamorphosis and Other Stories. The final book in the pile is a recent historical study of Hindenburg. It’s always fascinating to read about the conditions that led to the rise of Nazism.
The pile back right has 3 recent publications from Pushkin Press. Wondrak and other Stories and Confusion by bloggers-favourite Stefan Zweig. (Needless to say I eagerly anticipate the arrival of his autobiography The World of Yester
day.) Books 3 and 4 from the top are from Haus Publishing: Alex Capus A Matter of Time, made irresistible by comparisons with Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World; Siegfried Lenz’s novella A Minute’s Silence arriving just in time for the November Novella Challenge. Second from bottom is the latest in Dennis Jackson’s fine translations of the works of Theodor Storm. I’ve had this for a while – saving it for a rainy day. There’s bound to be one or two of those any day now. Beneath that there’s another selection from the One World Classics German bookshelf, Goethe’s Elective Affinities. Self’s Murder, the bottom book is the final thriller in Bernhard Schlink’s (yes, he of The Reader fame) trilogy.
The book standing back centre is the eagerly anticipated new translation of Günther Grass’s The Tin Drum. A seminal work, a masterpiece. Would anyone be interested in a readalong?
We’ll discuss the front-centre bookpile tomorrow for two reasons: 1) this post is already long enough and 2) the books in it are relevant to the a city that will be partying a little more than it normally does … and Lizzy’s Literary Life may just party along. In any event there are going to be some giveaways.





Miss Hargreaves is a different kettle of fish altogether. A crochety old dame, imperious at times. A 
Beautiful wooden banistered staircases entice visitors higher and higher. (There are 5 storeys.) Fortunately there are idiosyncratic reading chairs, strategically placed, for those needing to catch their breathe on the way. Lady Hargreaves chose to rest on a Rennie Mackintosh replica – even if it was a little past its heyday. A chair fraying at the seams, dependent on the goodwill of others for its survival, like the lady herself, although I don’t think the chair will share the tragic demise of its fictional visitor.
When 
Starting in Scotland with the King of Crime, Ian Rankin. A Cool Head is what it proclaims on the cover – a quick read. I picked it up for reading on the bus and it served its purpose. A fast paced thriller but the prose is much simpler than that used in the Rebus novels. Possibly deliberately so. Looking at the Quick Reads website, it appears that the raison d’etre of this series is to encourage those with reading difficulties to improve their literacy skills. New titles are published annually on World Books Day offering a menu of short sharp entertainment and in the first four years of the project, 1.25 million copies have been sold. That’s no mean feat. Come to think of it, I read Minette Walter’s Chickenfeed a few years ago. Based on a true murder case, I remember it as a rivetting read. One I would happily revisit.
Alice Thompson, who also chooses to write in spare prose, has created an altogether more complex read in her creepy Pharos. Well, it is subtitled A Ghost Story. A shipwrecked woman is found on the beach and for some reason, the lighthousekeeper and his assistant choose not to return her to the mainland. She has no idea why as she is suffering from amnesia. Eventually the trio are joined by the lighthousekeeper’s sister … and a fifth being, a wild girl child who appears in strange places at strange times. Why though does no-one wish the shipwrecked one to recover her memory and how much of what she tells can we believe? What is certain, however, is that nothing good can come of her being on the island, setting herself against the established pattern of things. It’s testament to Thompson’s skill with language that she has all the time in the world to rachet up the tension, notch by notch, until …. well, that would be telling! (Note: at 179 pages this is probably better classified as a short novel rather than a novella. But who’s counting?)
And finally not one but three novellas in one Premio Cocito Monta d’Alba prizewinning volume. Pietro Grossi’s Fists concerns itself with the transition to adulthood – the painful moment in a young man’s life when a future-determining choice must be made. The first story is set in the world of amateur boxing and it is the most autobiographical of the three. The second set in the countryside concerns two brothers who are given horses by their father. The lessons they learn from caring for the animals and the decisions they ultimately make show the differences that personality can make on outcomes. The third story is surreal with Kafkaesque undertones. What would you do if your best friend decided to become a monkey? Really – to act and behave like a monkey and completely renege on the responsibilities of being a human. It may sound funny but this story has profound meanings locked within the superficial comedy of the premise. Even though the masculine focus is necessarily predominant in these tales, they remain very readable. Smoothly translated by Howard Curtis, I was absorbed, reading them one after the other without pausing. Kudos to Pushkin Press for bringing another gem of European literature to our shores and a few more kudos for packaging them in such a lovely dustjacket.





Clever, clever, clever man. I just had to read more.
So what has happened in the 30 years since I first met Werther? Well, I have mellowed …. honestly! Life has a knack of blending in the shades of grey and, more importantly for Werther, I understand the language of heartbreak. (All say awwww!) I am now, and this is only to be hoped for, given all the hours I have practiced, a more sensitive reader appreciating the skilful use of imagery, leitmotif, structure and a well-placed literary reference. All of which abound within Goethe’s first novel, a seminal example of the Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress) literary movement. Sturm and Drang - a revolt against highly sophisticated literary conventions, a celebration of the cult of genius, a veneration of Shakespeare, a “return to nature” and the expression of extreme emotion. A challenge to the rational control of the Enlightenment and a precursor to Romanticism. (Footnote 1).
I am also a bit of a cheat. Because, while I enjoyed this reread of Goethe’s classic more than anticipated, I enjoyed the lengthy and informative afterword in this Norton edition more. I’m not sure who wrote it – possibly the translator, Harry Steinhauer, himself as there is no other accreditation. It is a fine piece, putting Werther into its literary context, explaining how Werther’s fascination with Charlotte is only one of his psychological traumas and clarifying the brilliance of the young Goethe in portraying the totality of Werther’s breakdown not only via plot and language but also through structure. With the information provided in this afterword, it becomes clear that the ending, which appeared contrived and melodramatic to a certain unappreciative 19-year old student, is, in reality, a supremely constructed climax.


































Der Struwwelpeter auf Englisch - Translated by Mark Twain



















Mystic Pig - Richard Katrovas

























The Latin American Challenge

1. The Blue Fox

