Gottfried Keller (1819–1890)

Keller has long been a favorite of mine and is a giant of Swiss (and German-language) literature. (If you want to get a sense of his importance, compare the length of the English Wikipedia entry to the length of the German-language one.] One of the works for which he is best known is a series of novellas called The People from Seldwyla (Die Leute von Seldwyla). Some of those stories were my introduction to him and these are two more from that collection. By now, I imagine I’ve read about half of what has been translated from his prodigious output into English (including his massive, semi-autobiographical 700-page novel, Green Henry (reviewed here a few years ago) and I wish there were more. But I will confess that these two didn’t overwhelm me. The first tells of a mismatched couple and a tragicomedy of errors; the second deals with Mrs. Amrain’s attachment to her youngest son. German realism at its height; the former is much better than the latter but I think he wrote many other better pieces. (An excellent introduction for English-speakers, for those who might be interest, is the Keller volume in “The German Library” published by Continuum—indeed, every volume I have from that series is excellent. It includes half a dozen stories from each of Keller’s most famous collections.)… (més)

Meine Mutter hat mir eine kleine Sammlung an Inselbüchern hinterlassen. Ich habe mir vorgenommen, diese nach und nach zu lesen.

Gottfried Kellers Briefe ist nun das erste, das ich absichtslos aus dem Regal gezogen habe. Mir war bis dato nicht bewusst, wie bedeutend Keller für die deutsche Literatur gewesen sein muss oder vielleicht noch ist. Jedenfalls gibt die kleine Auswahl an Briefen doch einen interessanten Einblick in das zu Beginn so gar nicht einfache, am Ende aber sehr erfolgreiche Leben des weltgewandten Zürichers Gottfried Keller.

Romane wie "Der grüne Heinrich" oder die Novellensammlung "Die Leute von Seldwyla" kannte ich bislang auch nur von der Nennung ihrer Titel. Sie kommen auf meine Leseliste.… (més)

It's a lovely, little fairytale about a cat, which is nearly starving to death when this guy comes arround, some kind of wizard or alchimist, and making him a evil deal. He will feeed the cat, but after a time he is allowed to kill her and use her fat for his magic.
The really short book is read in few hours (or less), but it's really excited and it manages to introduce the characters, so that you either love or hate them. It has everything, it needs, and is a lovely story for a busride or journey, or when you are bored, but don't want to start a big book.
Sadly I don't know if it's published in english. The german is quite old, so I wouldn't recommend it to a not native speaker or english learner.… (més)