
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Triumph of Death. Detail
Und was ist der Name des Baumes rechts von ihm? Wieder muss ich passen. Räderpfahl, daran die Geräderten aufgerichtet und zur Schau gestellt werden, sagt Vater. Dazu werden mit Flugblättern Leute aus nah und fern angelockt, zur Abschreckung, heißt es, die Leute haben aber oftmals ein großes Vergnügen an diesem Schauspiel, das delectare geht also über das prodesse. Mein Vater ist ein gelehrter Mann, wenn es grausam wird, flüchtet er gerne in die Welt der Fremdwörter.
Michael Lentz, Schattenfroh
If your German is at least intermediate and you want to read Schattenfroh together with me, join The Untranslated Book Club on my Patreon. (You can read more about the Club here). Our group read starts on August 8, 2022. I suggest joining between August 2 and August 8 because if you do it earlier you will be additionally charged by the platform. As usual, you can expect weekly instalments of the Reader’s Guide with a glossary, notes, questions for discussion, and a short summary of the passage we have covered. In addition, every month we are going to have Discord meet-ups to discuss the portion of the book we have read in the past four weeks. It will take us about four and a half months to get through the book at the pace of 50 pages per week. If you like Northern Renaissance, Surrealism, word games, the 4th dimension, Hegel, Bach, Werner Tübke, Laurence Sterne, Cervantes, Lewis Caroll, grimacing chairs, and golems, come aboard! And while you are waiting here’s a brief list of the books that might be helpful for a better understanding of Michael Lentz’s magnum opus:
1. Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem
2. Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist (tr. Michael Hofmann)
3. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić (tr. Lovett F. Edwards)
4. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault (tr. Alan Sheridan)
5. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Loved The Bridge on the Drina. I also read it in Esperanto. And will read it soon in BCS.
Yes, great book. I actually read it after Schattenfroh, in Russian translation.
It is one of those books that really losses a lot in translation. The major issuse is translating the huge number or Turcisms, and still maintaining an “oriental” vibe. Also to me, as someone how is from the area, it is quite odd to see that the book is fairly wide read.