The story of K and his arrival in a village where he is never accepted, and his relentless, unavailing struggle with authority in order to gain entrance to the castle that seems to rule it. K's isolation and perplexity, his begging for the approval of elu
This collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works that he himself thought worthy of publication. It includes Metamorphosis, his most famous work, an exploration of horrific transformation and alienation; Meditation, a collection of his earlier studies; The Judgement, written in a single night of frenzied creativity; The Stoker, the first chapter of a novel set in America and a fascinating occasional piece, and The Aeroplanes at Brescia, Kafka's eyewitness account of an air display in 1909. Together, these stories reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought.
Normalerweise gehen Kontrabässe unter im Orchester, es gibt keine Soloparts, höchstens Duos. Im Leben des Musikers ist der Kontrabaß Geliebte, Freund, Feind und Verhinderer des eigenbestimmten Weges. Soziale Analyse, Slapstick und Milieukomik und ein fest gespannter Bogen, der monologisch und entschlossen den Schwingungen des menschlichen Zusammenspiel(en)s nachstreicht.
Flights of Love sees Bernhard Schlink build on the success of his international bestselling debut novel, The Reader , with a clutch of short stories that tell of the variety of love, distilled into seven splinters of narrative. The pick of the seven, the opening "Girl with Lizard," depicts a remote male character who fixates on a painting of his father's, which he is to discover, like his father, has a familiarly unsavory past, and which he is impelled to exorcise. In the book's centerpiece, "Sugar Peas," architect and amateur painter Thomas finds that his trio of lovers avenge themselves on his profligacy after he is left wheelchair-bound by an accident. "The Other Man" presents a widower corresponding with his dead wife's unwitting lover, and finding comfort through acquaintance. Less successfully, "The Circumcision" sees the pretext of a German man and his New York Jewish girlfriend to ponder huge, chewy rhetoric on the problems of reconciling the past, almost absentmindedly concocting an improbable denouement. Schlink too often presents scenarios rather than scenes, more intent on dislocated dilemma than language. In keeping with his legal training, he discerns lines of attack more suited to a drama, or perhaps a courtroom drama, than fiction. There can be no doubting Schlink's storytelling acumen or his undertaking to tackle the complicated identity of modern Germany. What is increasingly exposed, though, are the supporting mechanisms that too frequently serve to reinforce, rather than challenge, our assumptions with their didactic contrivance. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk
Comment les amours naissent et finissent, quels détours elles empruntent pour s'abuser et se désabuser, se tromper et se détromper, voilà ce qu'éprouvent les sept protagonistes masculins de ces récits, souvent face à des femmes plus lucides et plus courageuses. Ces sept histoires sont de véritables romans, dont chacun met en jeu une vie entière.