To be quite honest, even once I was already studying German at university I still didn’t like either the language or the literature. I didn’t see what people saw in Kafka. I also thought it was impossible to use such an ugly language for making poetry. All in all, I thought it had the gloominess of Russian literature but lacked the passionate faith that the other literature has in abundance.
I’ve since changed my mind. Russian literature is still my favourite, but I’ve been finding plenty to enjoy among the Germans’ literary offerings too. And at university I’ve also been introduced to the wonderful work of German thinkers, who are a cut above their Russian counterparts in most regards. These things balance out.
“German” here refers to the German-speaking peoples, who until recently have mostly all considered themselves to be Germans.
German Literature
Goethe is the great German writer. I misunderstood Werther here.
Heinrich von Kleist was a wild and extremely talented writer of prose and plays. I wrote on some of his stories here.
Theodor Storm is the author of many examples of German literature’s signature form – the novella. I’ve written about his novella, Aquis Submersus, and the genre more broadly, here. I’ve also produced a summary and analysis of his most famous novella, Immensee, here. Finally, I’ve translated a few of his short poems about death and love.
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer is another author of German novellas. I’ve written about the interesting treatment of the idea of truth that he gives in his novella, “The Marriage of the Monk“, over here.
Joseph von Eichendorff was a German poet of the Romantic era who also wrote a famous novella, From the Life of a Good-for-nothing. I didn’t like it.
Theodor Fontane was a great German bourgeois realist in the same vein as Turgenev in Russia and Flaubert in France – indeed, he corresponded with both of them. His rather depressing novel, Effi Briest, I write about here. His novel about trying to turn back the clock, Irretrievable, I’ve written on here. Finally, his novel about relationships between the classes, On Tangled Paths, I’ve written on here.
Thomas Mann, the great successor to Fontane as curmudgeon-in-chief of the German bourgeois novel, also wrote some short stories. I’ve written my thoughts on Gladius Dei here. I’ve also written two more novellas – Mario and the Magician and Disorder and Early Sorrow – and on his Buddenbrooks.
Another writer of depressing bourgeois novels was Eduard von Keyserling, whose short novel Waves I looked at.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, apart from having a name I keep misspelling, was also a Wunderkind and a masterful poet in his youth. I’ve translated a few of his poems here and written about his politics.
Georg Trakl was a writer of incomprehensible but beautiful poems of gloom and despair. I’ve translated, badly, a few.
Stefan Zweig wrote a lot of things, but I’ve written on his short story, Sommernovellette, or The Fowler Snared, which is quite interesting in terms of form.
Alfred Döblin was one of the major German modernists. I’ve written on his early short story collection, The Murder of a Buttercup.
Joseph Roth was a writer with Jewish heritage, something he celebrated in his lovely novel Job. He also wrote a novel, The Radetzky March, about the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Arthuer Schnitzler was another major modernist. I’ve written on his novella, Fraulein Else.
Robert Musil is most famous for his gigantic novel, The Man Without Qualities. But since I don’t have the time for that work just yet, I’ve read and written on The Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, and on the short stories of Three Women.
Franz Kafka is really awesome and I’m glad I eventually began to “get” his stories, even if I don’t quite understand them. I’ve translated a short parable of his, Before the Law, here.
Günter Grass was a major writer of the postwar period. I’ve written on his short novel, Cat and Mouse.
Another person who spent a lot of time thinking about guilt was W.G. Sebald, whose collection of stories The Emigrants I wrote about here.
Bernhard Schlink wrote a rather mediocre novel lots of us are forced to read, called The Reader.
Finally, for those who enjoy a bit of biting levity, there’s Thomas Bernhard, whose novel Woodcutters I found surprisingly entertaining.
German Thought
Walter Benjamin does a lovely piece on the nature of storytelling, which I’ve written a summary of here.
Theodor Adorno, meanwhile, writes about the ways, both healthy and unhealthy, that we deal with our country’s past, especially in connection with fascism. I’ve provided a summary here.
I wrote on some Kant that I didn’t understand here.