What do you think?
Rate this book
La stanga, unde-i inima
Michael Vierkant abandona muy pronto su lugar de origen, la pobreza de su familia, para perseguir un sueño: convertirse en artista. Autodidacta que considera los cafés su propia universidad, vivirá de lleno el nacimiento de un nuevo mundo en la bohemia del Múnich de principios del siglo xx, para luego arrojarse a los «locos años veinte» berlineses: cabarets, fiestas, conciertos, tertulias literarias… Pero a pesar de las luces y el brillo de la metrópolis, el ambiente político comienza a ser agónico, crepuscular. Esta sobresaliente novela, autobiográfica en gran parte, nos sumerge en unas décadas excepcionales, revelándonos todo un mundo fascinante: desde los ardores belicistas que anunciaron la Primera Guerra Mundial hasta las promesas de felicidad del periodo de entreguerras, desde la crisis económica hasta el ascenso del nazismo. Sin olvidar el exilio (todos los exilios de su protagonista), la Francia ocupada por los nazis, el trabajo de Vierkant en Hollywood como guionista… Tan cercanas a la sensibilidad de Thomas Mann, que fue amigo de Frank, como a la de Stefan Zweig, estas páginas, atentas al glamour y al oropel de algunas vidas, pero también comprometidas con los más desfavorecidos, describen toda una época a través de un recorrido vital apasionante. He aquí un autor extraordinariamente popular en su momento, que ahora comienza a ser redescubierto en toda Europa.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
2 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 3, 2023
It really is odd how the human brain works. Today while doing yard work, I was beginning to write a review in my head of a book I'm reading now and was trying to figure out the right English translation of "verkannt" which can be "misunderstood" or "unrecognized." And then it dawned on me, Frank's alter ego Michael Vierkant, the last name I always thought of as "four corners" or "square" is actually a play on the word "verkannt." Frank never got the credit he deserved, as is explained below. Now back to my reading.
Original Review
Links wo das Herz ist (Left, Where the Heart Is) is Leonhard Frank’s autobiographical “novel,” told in third person through the story of his alter ego, Michael Vierkant, a character reprised from his first novel Die Räuberbande . By the early 1930s, Frank was among the best-selling authors in Germany and respected by his peers for his stories of how average people struggled against larger social forces. His pacifism made him beloved by his readers and hated by the political right.
To me the most interesting part of the “novel” begins shortly after the Nazis assumed power in 1933. Frank was among the elite in German literature, as well-known as Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. He was a friend of Joseph Roth who, in the novel, informs Michael about his immediate plan to leave Germany for self-imposed exile in Paris over their last lunch together in Berlin. Shortly thereafter, Michael decides to go into an exile that took him from Zürich to England and, by the late 1930s to Paris, only to find himself interred in Brittany by the French government after Nazi Germany’s invasion in May 1940. By chance, Michael is able to escape the camp with two others only to find himself on the coast of the English Channel with no way to get across. They decide the only option left to them is to make their way to free France and Marseille.
The journey itself is worthy of a Hollywood film. They stay on the back roads, sleep in barns (using the manuscript of a novel sewn into the lining of his coat as a pillow) where scared but sympathetic farmers give them food and travel advice. They encounter Germans along way and bluff themselves through, eventually getting hold of bicycles to speed their way south until after more than three weeks, they reach Marseille. With the help of the American Emergency Rescue Committee (mostly for the benefit of scientists, artists and writers), he makes his way to Lisbon and gets passage on ship to New York. He arrives in New York with the clothes on his back, his manuscript, and thirteen dollars. The committee gets him a train ticket to Hollywood—on the way he notices how the same town seems to have been reproduced a few hundred times—and a studio writing job paying $100 a month.
Michael’s time in Hollywood is filled with despair and guilt. He never adjusts to the success-driven culture or, for that matter, the boring weather. His job is a token exercise in which no one takes him seriously and reports of war in Europe have him questioning his fortune for having escaped. His office is across from Heinrich Mann. He becomes friends with Thomas Mann and they often dine together reading excerpts of their writings. Mann reads from drafts of Dr. Faustus while he admires Michael’s readings from Deutsche Novelle and Matilde. He describes the death of a fellow émigré whose wife asks him to wait when the embalmer arrives—who was the basis of Evelyn Waugh’s character in The Loved One (and played by Rod Steiger in the underappreciated film classic of the same name)—only to be devastated when they both realize the body looks more alive in death than in life. It is a metaphor to him about the shallowness of Hollywood.
Michael leaves Hollywood for New York after the war, where is was monitored by the FBI for being "violently pacifist" in his beliefs. It was there that he wrote Die Jünger Jesu , mets a new love, another German émigré, before returning to Europe with her in 1950, whereafter they were married. After travelling from Le Havre and arriving in a bombed out Aachen in the middle of the night, he goes into town to a bookshop the next day he realizes that his books have disappeared. After a 17 year absence, he has been forgotten. He realizes that “German readers under 40 knew nothing about him. Hitler triumphed over Michael” („Die deutschen Leser bis zu vierzig Jahren kannten nichts von ihm. Über Michael hatte Hitler gesiegt.“). This observation alone gives this book a special place in my library.
Frank eventually made his way back to his hometown in Würzburg and decided to settle in Munich where he renewed his friendships with writers like Erich Kästner. He was still recognized and celebrated in East Germany, but the reactionary forces that strongly influenced life in West Germany under Adenauer kept his critical writings from reaching larger audiences. He died in Munich in 1961 never having regained the literary stature he had achieved from 1914-1933. Whatever exists of his legacy today is due in large part to the efforts of his widow.
Original Review
Links wo das Herz ist (Left, Where the Heart Is) is Leonhard Frank’s autobiographical “novel,” told in third person through the story of his alter ego, Michael Vierkant, a character reprised from his first novel Die Räuberbande . By the early 1930s, Frank was among the best-selling authors in Germany and respected by his peers for his stories of how average people struggled against larger social forces. His pacifism made him beloved by his readers and hated by the political right.
To me the most interesting part of the “novel” begins shortly after the Nazis assumed power in 1933. Frank was among the elite in German literature, as well-known as Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. He was a friend of Joseph Roth who, in the novel, informs Michael about his immediate plan to leave Germany for self-imposed exile in Paris over their last lunch together in Berlin. Shortly thereafter, Michael decides to go into an exile that took him from Zürich to England and, by the late 1930s to Paris, only to find himself interred in Brittany by the French government after Nazi Germany’s invasion in May 1940. By chance, Michael is able to escape the camp with two others only to find himself on the coast of the English Channel with no way to get across. They decide the only option left to them is to make their way to free France and Marseille.
The journey itself is worthy of a Hollywood film. They stay on the back roads, sleep in barns (using the manuscript of a novel sewn into the lining of his coat as a pillow) where scared but sympathetic farmers give them food and travel advice. They encounter Germans along way and bluff themselves through, eventually getting hold of bicycles to speed their way south until after more than three weeks, they reach Marseille. With the help of the American Emergency Rescue Committee (mostly for the benefit of scientists, artists and writers), he makes his way to Lisbon and gets passage on ship to New York. He arrives in New York with the clothes on his back, his manuscript, and thirteen dollars. The committee gets him a train ticket to Hollywood—on the way he notices how the same town seems to have been reproduced a few hundred times—and a studio writing job paying $100 a month.
Michael’s time in Hollywood is filled with despair and guilt. He never adjusts to the success-driven culture or, for that matter, the boring weather. His job is a token exercise in which no one takes him seriously and reports of war in Europe have him questioning his fortune for having escaped. His office is across from Heinrich Mann. He becomes friends with Thomas Mann and they often dine together reading excerpts of their writings. Mann reads from drafts of Dr. Faustus while he admires Michael’s readings from Deutsche Novelle and Matilde. He describes the death of a fellow émigré whose wife asks him to wait when the embalmer arrives—who was the basis of Evelyn Waugh’s character in The Loved One (and played by Rod Steiger in the underappreciated film classic of the same name)—only to be devastated when they both realize the body looks more alive in death than in life. It is a metaphor to him about the shallowness of Hollywood.
Michael leaves Hollywood for New York after the war, where is was monitored by the FBI for being "violently pacifist" in his beliefs. It was there that he wrote Die Jünger Jesu , mets a new love, another German émigré, before returning to Europe with her in 1950, whereafter they were married. After travelling from Le Havre and arriving in a bombed out Aachen in the middle of the night, he goes into town to a bookshop the next day he realizes that his books have disappeared. After a 17 year absence, he has been forgotten. He realizes that “German readers under 40 knew nothing about him. Hitler triumphed over Michael” („Die deutschen Leser bis zu vierzig Jahren kannten nichts von ihm. Über Michael hatte Hitler gesiegt.“). This observation alone gives this book a special place in my library.
Frank eventually made his way back to his hometown in Würzburg and decided to settle in Munich where he renewed his friendships with writers like Erich Kästner. He was still recognized and celebrated in East Germany, but the reactionary forces that strongly influenced life in West Germany under Adenauer kept his critical writings from reaching larger audiences. He died in Munich in 1961 never having regained the literary stature he had achieved from 1914-1933. Whatever exists of his legacy today is due in large part to the efforts of his widow.
October 8, 2022
A fost o autobiografie ,dar dupa lanterna magica care o eclipseaza complet a fost foarte plictisitoare.pot sa zic ca doar ultimele 80 de pagini au fost mai interesante si ca ar fi trebuit sa se focuseze mai mult pe alea
A stat mult pe relatiile lui si dedica aceasta carte sotiei lui evident care e ultima si pe care intial a scris-o ca personajul feminin idealizat al lui si dupa o vede in viata reala si idk its weird
sa topuiesc totul cam da vibe de dicaprio fiind mosneag de 50 de ani si se uita la femeie de 25 si la asta zicea cand ajunge sa fie cu ea ca desi avea 38 arata ca ultima oare cand a vazut-o ..ok
A stat mult pe relatiile lui si dedica aceasta carte sotiei lui evident care e ultima si pe care intial a scris-o ca personajul feminin idealizat al lui si dupa o vede in viata reala si idk its weird
sa topuiesc totul cam da vibe de dicaprio fiind mosneag de 50 de ani si se uita la femeie de 25 si la asta zicea cand ajunge sa fie cu ea ca desi avea 38 arata ca ultima oare cand a vazut-o ..ok
March 18, 2022
Why are some writers popular and others are not? A fascinating question but even more fascinating why do some writers stay popular and others get obscure?
The name Leonhard Frank was vaguely familiar to me. One of the writers whose books went into the fire in 1933. But other than that I knew nothing.
On Goodreads he had 9 followers (I just became the 1oth). Which qualifies him as relatively obscure. Compare that to nearly 4000 followers of Thomas Mann and nearly 8000 of Stefan Zweig. Even Jakob Wassermann who was until now my favorite "unknown" Thomas Mann rival has 27.
So to get started. It is a novel but heavily autobiographical. We learn about a poor kid from Würzburg who drops out of school and tries to become a painter. Then switches ambition and becomes a writer instead. So he writes a novel and it is an immediate success. And if this is unlikely but possible his uneducated old working class mother writes a novel about her life and that gets published as well. This is actually true and all the books he mentions are the actual books written by Frank. I have not found one event or person in the book that seems fictional.
And now Frank tells us basically how he writes one book after the other how he marries why he had to emigrate during the first and late the second World War how wife dies how he marries again gets divorced and marries again. Not that exciting. And told in a very easy (or should one say accessible) language. But mesmerizing. He manages to get himself right into the top 10 of my favorite writers.
How successful had he been at the time? His novels were made into films his plays were, as he modestly says, performed in every city with a theater.
So why is he forgotten? Apparently mainly for being a pacifist. He was, for example not of the opinion that to sink the Lusitania was an admirable heroical action. Obviously we Germans could not accept that there were people who did the right thing. A scandal. (Probably even Thomas Mann is not famous today because he was against Hitler but in spite of it.)
I will definitely read other books by Frank. Maybe I will have to think again about the actual literal value of his works. But right now, I just have to say: Magnificent.
The name Leonhard Frank was vaguely familiar to me. One of the writers whose books went into the fire in 1933. But other than that I knew nothing.
On Goodreads he had 9 followers (I just became the 1oth). Which qualifies him as relatively obscure. Compare that to nearly 4000 followers of Thomas Mann and nearly 8000 of Stefan Zweig. Even Jakob Wassermann who was until now my favorite "unknown" Thomas Mann rival has 27.
So to get started. It is a novel but heavily autobiographical. We learn about a poor kid from Würzburg who drops out of school and tries to become a painter. Then switches ambition and becomes a writer instead. So he writes a novel and it is an immediate success. And if this is unlikely but possible his uneducated old working class mother writes a novel about her life and that gets published as well. This is actually true and all the books he mentions are the actual books written by Frank. I have not found one event or person in the book that seems fictional.
And now Frank tells us basically how he writes one book after the other how he marries why he had to emigrate during the first and late the second World War how wife dies how he marries again gets divorced and marries again. Not that exciting. And told in a very easy (or should one say accessible) language. But mesmerizing. He manages to get himself right into the top 10 of my favorite writers.
How successful had he been at the time? His novels were made into films his plays were, as he modestly says, performed in every city with a theater.
So why is he forgotten? Apparently mainly for being a pacifist. He was, for example not of the opinion that to sink the Lusitania was an admirable heroical action. Obviously we Germans could not accept that there were people who did the right thing. A scandal. (Probably even Thomas Mann is not famous today because he was against Hitler but in spite of it.)
I will definitely read other books by Frank. Maybe I will have to think again about the actual literal value of his works. But right now, I just have to say: Magnificent.
April 6, 2022
kann man sich geben
August 22, 2019
El libro tiene dos momentos de calidades muy distintas para mi gusto. La primera mitad me resultó demasiado descriptiva, fría y con unas reflexiones acerca de la escritura y del rol del escritor que desencajaban del texto. La segunda parte suena más honesta, más emocional y querrías que se hubiera prolongado en esa línea. La razón de esa diferencia es evidente: es una novela, pero fuertemente vinculada a la biografía del autor. Son los recuerdos más antiguos los que están demasiado procesados, mientras los acontecimientos más recientes están cargados de sentimiento y se nota una escritura más urgente.
Read
April 5, 2024«Michael se dice que el ser humano, que ya dispone del medio para autodestruirse, daría pruebas al hacerlo de que desde el principio ha sido una criatura fallida, perversamente genial. No obstante, Michael cree en el ser humamo.»
February 1, 2019
Bella biografía de Leonhard Frank. Lo mejor es la descripción de los diferentes pasajes históricos.
March 10, 2016
Kā tur bija? "Par sevi raksta tie, kam pietrūkst iztēles rakstīt ko patiesi orģinālu"?
Ne grāmata bet dadžu puduris. Pacēlu no plaukta gan skaistās, poētiskās, brīžam ļoti trāpīgās valodas dēļ. Pavirši pārlapojot, tas ir viss, ko var redzēt. Bet kad ielasās, tad -- sievietes kā iegūstamas, atbalstāmas, atbastošas, nopeļamas par to, ko vīrietim nepārmestu, bez lemšanas tiesībām. Viņš viņas gribēja, viņš dabūja.
Īpašu dunku Franks no manis dabūtu par apiešanos ar Ilonu. Tā "O, es tevi glābšu no taviem dēmoniem (bet tikai tad, ja tie ir ērti, viegli piekaujami)" lieta man ir sāpīgs temats.
Un vēl tā komunisma ideoloģija "sastādītā"... Uj.
Viena zvaigzne par skaisto valodu un trāpīgumu.
Ne grāmata bet dadžu puduris. Pacēlu no plaukta gan skaistās, poētiskās, brīžam ļoti trāpīgās valodas dēļ. Pavirši pārlapojot, tas ir viss, ko var redzēt. Bet kad ielasās, tad -- sievietes kā iegūstamas, atbalstāmas, atbastošas, nopeļamas par to, ko vīrietim nepārmestu, bez lemšanas tiesībām. Viņš viņas gribēja, viņš dabūja.
Īpašu dunku Franks no manis dabūtu par apiešanos ar Ilonu. Tā "O, es tevi glābšu no taviem dēmoniem (bet tikai tad, ja tie ir ērti, viegli piekaujami)" lieta man ir sāpīgs temats.
Un vēl tā komunisma ideoloģija "sastādītā"... Uj.
Viena zvaigzne par skaisto valodu un trāpīgumu.
Read
March 20, 2011nach Seite 30 ungefähr endgültig abgebrochen - einfach nicht mein Fall...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews