Herr Lehmann
Herr Lehmann is the debut novel by the German writer Sven Regener. The novel tells about the life of Frank Lehmann in Berlin in 1989...
Continue Reading
I’m Not Stiller
I’m Not Stiller (1954) is a novel about a man who does not want to be himself. The novel is written in a non-traditional manner. There is no sustained actions, it is like there is no minimal order. I’m Not Stiller is written in a form of notes (like some other novels of Max Frisch), the author likes to write this way, since a person can be completely honest only with himself. Life, according to Frisch, is a clash of a man with his own role and resistance to it. In a quiet and peaceful bourgeois Switzerland, there is a scandal – a man missing a few years ago refuses to admit that he is a he, despite all the clear evidence and testimonies of acquaintances. Not just of a baker from the next street, no. The evidence of his friends, brother, wife – those who knew him, knows him, knows his every gesture. Can all these people be wrong? Or is the defendant lying to them, inventing stories, one more absurd than the other? Who is he? The missing Shtiller? Or not Shtiller, of what is he trying to convince everyone? Here it is, the main intrigue, the main storyline of the novel, reflected in the...
Continue Reading
The Night in Lisbon
The Night in Lisbon is one of the last works of E. M. Remarque. In the novel there are the main motives of his work – love and pacifism. They are connected in the tragic fate of the protagonist – an escapee from Nazi Germany, who loses his country, his beloved woman and his hope for the future. Throughout the novel there is a thought about the illusory nature of happiness, characteristic of the writer’s creative work. The Night in Lisbon is a sincere, emotional and very deep novel, which tells the story of two emigrants who spend one night together. The novel is a intimate conversation between two completely strangers, who were united by similar problems. One tells, the other listens. On the example of Schwarz, we can see what human being can do only to be listened to. Loneliness is always looking for companions and never pays attention to who they are. The story told by Schwarz is a long and thorny path, the path of a wanderer who found happiness and at the end he lost it. It is a story about a strong sense of love. It is a complex novel, raising a huge number of issues: personal, social, global ones … In the novel it...
Continue Reading
Lila, Lila
Leela, Leela is a novel inside a novel. In the anotation to this book is said that Leela, Leela “is a book about love, loyalty, betrayal and death, the book is touching and human. And really, everything is true, there are love and loyalty and betrayal, but a little death, it is not needed here. The book is about a young man who finds a manuscript of a novel and says that it is his own. But one have to pay for his actions, and the price can be high. It can therefore be concluded that in the relations of loving people there is no place for deception. The writer managed, in my opinion, to evoke the reader’s love for the protagonist, although he does not deserve this. He works in a restaurant, but he dreams of more, luck turns to him and further the narrative of the book revolves around the publication of the book, and also it is told about the love of the main hero to the girl. From the middle of the book an intriguing moment appears that awakens the reader who has already fallen asleep after the first part of the book. Personally, when I read this work I made certain conclusions for myself, of...
Continue Reading
The Clown
The whole novel describes a day in the life of the 27-year-old clown Hans Schnier, who recalled the previous seven years of his turbulent life.
Continue Reading
Three Comrades
Remarque is truthful. Remarque leaves no illusions. It is a heartfelt, sincere novel about friendship and love.
Continue Reading
Flotsam
It is very interesting and intriguing book. A book that you need to read to remember once again about simple things that we often do not appreciate. Since it was written by Remarque, this book is about lost people. About people who do not have a place in this world, but they still live. And they do not just live, they dare to have friendship and love, to help another people. And who do not even lose faith in good. And they help others. And they keep trusting people, because if you do not trust anyone at all, it’s better not to live. However, there are also those who have completely lost interest in life and prefer to end it at once. Is it possible to blame them? When a person has no home, no family, no close people, when he does not have anything at all and every day he lives only with the thought “will they catch me or not, what will I eat today and where will I spend the night”, a life in a prison already seems to be not so bad option – you will have food, drink and a roof over your head – what can make such a person continue...
Continue Reading
Buddenbrooks
Happy ending, I really wanted them to be all right. The first generation, which we will meet personally, is Johann Buddenbrock and his wife Antoinette. They are a bit cynical, a bit strict, loving life and money. Johann made a fortune and turned the firm founded by his father into a well-run enterprise. He stood firmly on his feet, had unbreakable principles and his life was happy and full of good moments. The second generation is Johann, son of the previous Johann, and his wife Betsey. They are milder, but much more obsessed by religion than their parents. Tense work for the family and for the firm (which is the same for all Buddenbrokes) is given for this Johann costs much greater effort and nerves. Johann often doubts the correctness of his actions, troubles, which are still not so many, drive him to the grave much earlier than his father. The third generation is Johann’s children – Thomas, Christian, Antony and Clara. Most of the narrative is about them, with them we will be “from the cradle to the grave”. Clara is a late child, kind of keeps to herself and strict, not knowing how to have fun, she will find joy only in religion. Christian is complete opposite of her,...
Continue Reading
Tales of a Long Night
It is the final work in the work of one of the most interesting German writers. The work itself and especially its form are also intersting. There are no actions, except the ending. There are people, there are stories that they tell, which perfectly show their worldview. Let’s start with the main characters and the plot. It was the end of the Second World War. The main hero of the novel is a young guy who returned from the war disabled, without a leg that he lost during the war. Here you can immediately feel an unobtrusive motive of physical disability, passing through some works of Alfred Döblin (for example, Berlin Alexanderplatz), a symbol of renunciation of everything carnal. He, disabled, with a psychological trauma, comes to his home, where conflict is already taking place. And Edward acts as a catalyst. He inquisitively is looking for the truth, after finding which he is deeply disappointed. Once inside the walls of his home, he begins to notice that everything has changed for the worse (or everything was like that, but he did not notice). A father who does not need him, a mother who has not loved her father for a long time (and did she love?). Edward (the main character)...
Continue Reading
Beware of Pity
It is a book that makes the reader think seriously. Then close it and think again. And once more … and never reach a certain conclusion. Because it is impossible to say about described situation: it was necessary to do some things and it wasn’t necessary to do another ones. It is not the case when the reader, looking at the situation, clearly can see when something goes wrong and how everything could be fixed. No, Stefan Zweig plunges us into a story where, even knowing how it ends, you feel a certain helplessness and understand that there is no “right” desicion and couldn’t be the “right” one. There is only a choice that each of us will make at any particular moment. But sometimes this choice becomes fatal for someone else. Even if we do not want to. Even if we wanted the best. All the characters in this story aren’t perfect. But there are no bad people among them. They are just ordinary people, with their weaknesses. Continuing to talk about the main characters of the novel, I want to note that there are no good and bad people. All four are just ordinary people. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages. For example, Edith. At first glance, she is a capricious child....
Continue Reading
The Dream Room
I still cannot believe that this book was written by Remarque. It is different. It is not about a war, it is not about a lost generation. It is something lofty and unimaginable. Remarque was always able to convey to the reader some of his thoughts and reasonings in a simple and understandable language, whatever his thoughts were about. There are so many thoughts in this book that it is almost impossible to understand everything and to comprehend it. “The Dream Room” is an ode to love. To life, spring and happiness. Ode to faith in yourself, in others, in real feelings and in the desire to live. The main character is Fritz. But hi is not just an ordinary character. He is the person who represented a God for all guests of the The Dream Room. Thanks to him, everyone found himself. There is no need to describe in detail the behavior and life of the characters of the book. In the end, everyone became happy in his own way. And even when Fritz left theThe Dream Room, his soul remained with everyone. Depersting from the original idea, I can say that Fritz, despite he was self-denial and had a desire to make the people around him happy, he was a miserable person. The...
Continue Reading
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
I really like the self-titled movie, it’s gorgeous. But the book is a real masterpiece. It would seem that the entire story is already familiar to me and the book is unlikely to be anything that can surprise me, but it managed to do it. Especially I liked the author’s language, it is extraordinary, very colorful and bright. The writer harmoniously combines incompatible things and this is quite interesting. The main character of the novel is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He was born on the market square among slop and dead fish, he had little chance to survive, but he could. Grenouille was endowed with a special gift, he had an excellent sense of smell, which caught and kept in memory all the smells that had ever met. Initially, the circumstances in which the protagonist was born make us feel sympathize with this poor child, because no one knows that he will become a monster, which will kill to achieve his goal. The novel is exciting from the very beginning by an unpleasant description of the local market, which from the first lines dips the reader into the world of smells. The author tells how Paris smells, how people, rivers, houses smell...
Continue Reading