Great German Short Stories

by Evan Bates (Editor), Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann

The unique boundaries of the short story have attracted a majority of the prominent writers in the German language since the genre attained its modern form and became widely read around the turn of the 19th century.
This collection, featuring stories by eight of the form's most successful practitioners, includes Arthur Schnitzler's "Lieutenant Gustl," considered to be the first purely interior monologue in European literature; Heinrich von Kleist's "Earthquake in Chile," a highly charged narrative in which nature and public opinion precipitate acts of incredible violence; as well as important works by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Clemens Brentano.
Required reading for students of world literature, this volume will be a welcome addition to the collection of any literary connoisseur.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, German Literature, Classics

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2003

Reviews

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eclectic set of short stories and novella by German writers of the 1800s and early 1900s. This is not a great collection but does contain a couple of better known works. For a collection it strangely has no introduction, theme or any information other than the works themselves which are:
- Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
- Flagman Thiel by Gerhaut Hauptman
- In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
- The Golden Pot by E.T.A Hoffman
- How old Timofei Died with a Song by Rainer Maria Rilke
- The Earthquake in Chile by Heinrich von Kleist
- Lieutenant Gustl by Arthur Schnitzler
- The Story of the Just Casper and Fair Annie by Clemens Brentano

[RANGER · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hundred years of German culture and literature; a mixed bag of classic German short stories
I purchased "Great German Short Stories" edited by Evan Bates primarily so I could read "Lieutenant Gustl" by Arthur Schnitzler. I was not disappointed as this collection is inexpensive, has several other interesting stories in it, and I really enjoyed "Lieutenant Gustl." Alas, I cannot give this book more than four stars because I did not particularly care for all of the other stories. Like most short story collections, you get a mixed bag. And these stories lean more toward novella or novelette in length so these are not exactly light reads. If you are interested in German culture, especially during a rather broad timeframe (1807-1919), then you know you can't do much better than the short story format for capturing the whole "feel" of nineteenth century pan-Germanic society. This book captures the morality, lifestyle, tone, religious ethos, superstitions, and popular beliefs of the German speaking race through the eyes of its best social commenters -- from the staid, overly-romanticized ideas of honor and idealism found in "The Story of the Just Casper and Fair Annie" by Clemons Brentano (1817) to the obsessive-compulsive, highly-intellectualized, homo-eroticism of Thomas Mann's semi-autobiographical "Death in Venice" (1912). So as a cultural snapshot of a dynamic era, "Great German Short Stories" is difficult to beat. The writing, especially in the most modern of the stories, is superb. The older, highly-romanticized stuff sounds tinny to the post-modern ear. But much of this is just great, descriptive prose, the kind that creates the perfect atmosphere for a story's tensions and unexpected plot twists. A lot of this is just plain weird. But it's a weirdness that was perfectly acceptable to the nineteenth century German mind, apparently. And by German we include the German speaking people of Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and other places the German tongue called home in that era of fluid national boundaries. "Lieutenant Gustl" remained my favorite story as I prefer books with a certain psychological edge and am fascinated by military subjects in general. It gave me good insight into a historical era little studied by modern American military historians -- the closing years of the old Austro-Hungarian empire with its ludicrous and ultimately self-defeating honor code.
Recommended for all the reasons I alluded to above.
If you just want some lightweight short fiction full of action, romance, and a murder mystery or two to solve, however, this is NOT the book for you.

[Valerie Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories in general tend to be pretty dark, and this collection of German classics is very dark. It's a good variety of timeless fairy tales and more modern commentary.

[J S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler alert! someone dies in pretty much every story, a little intense but it was not bad.

[Yvonne · Rating 2 out of 5]

~ Set in Germany.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This selection of eight public domain translations of famous German short stories from as early as 1807 and as late as 1919, is unified by little more than the nationality of the authors, and perhaps a grim, doomed perspective that may come from a culture headed for revolution and disaster.

In Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" Aschenbach is a proto-Humbert Humbert. Mann has created an intensely romantic vision of obsession, soaked in summer fog, smelling of ammonia and the stench of the canals.

Gerhart Hauptmann's "Flagman Thiel" uses the naturalism of a Chekhov story dealing with routine and death, but in a world heartbreaking in its proximity to wonder and fulfillment.

Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" contains so many ethical questions about routine, authority and punishment, but suffers from what most of Kafka's work does, blandness and forced surreality.

E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Golden Pot" starts with the potential to create some believable magic, with the snakes and the elderbush in the park, but devolves into a long-winded drunken comedy of no real consequence or humor.

In Rilke's "How Old Timofei Died With a Song" we feel the danger of losing our histories, our folk expressions, but are redeemed by the son's singing.

Heinrich von Kleist's "The Earthquake in Chile" somewhat exoticizes fervent Catholicism in the new world, and the mob mentality of religion, in a horrifying, tragic way.

Arthur Schnitzler's "Lieutenant Gustl" is an intimate, completely interior monologue, probably the first in fiction, that exposes the petty thoughts and worries of the military class, in which Graz and pre-WWI Austria are given life.

Clemens Brentano's "The Story of the Just Casper and Fair Annie" is a soap opera tale, bawdy and melodramatic in the manner of Chaucer, but restrained and less fun, more German.

[Reenie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately (although not surprisingly, I guess, for a random anthology), I wouldn't call all of these short stories 'great'. [German language would also be more accurate, since a bunch are Austrian, and the distinction is important, as anyone in the smaller of a pair of supposedly similar countries (e.g. Canada vs US, NZ vs Australia) can tell you:].

A couple, for me, genuinely were great - Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony' was creepily matter-of-fact and twisted and surreal, and 'The Golden Pot' was fantastical in a cool way that snuck in and grew on me the longer it went on, partly because it knew it was ridiculous and had fun with it.

Some of the others, though, reminded me of why I hated short stories in high school, because the English teachers always used to make us dissect everything overly much for themes and symbols and so chose short stories that smacked you over the head with them. 'Flagman Thiel', I'm talking about you. Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' should have been good, except I couldn't help but keep comparing it to Henry James and finding it losing the comparison. But 'Lieutenant Gustl' was good fun.

Overall, I'm left with the impression that Germans and Austrians are obsessed with death and suicide (6/8 seem to be about some version of suicide or something relatively close to it, while a 7th is just about normal death), but maybe that's just the editor who chose them. Surely there are other things to write about though? Like salamanders and snake-daughters and witches and lily people (yay for the Golden Pot!) - can't go wrong with them...

[Gordon Torr · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels as though everyone needs to be punished for something; for being too strong or for being too weak, for loving too much or for not loving enough, for being too honourable, faithful or righteous; for being fickle or faithless, or for not being anything at all. Or as though the Brothers Grimm are watching from the wings to make sure that every tale is cautionary, the way Hitler praised them later for showing that only children with sound racial instincts would find racially pure marriage partners; or maybe because they’d already told every story there was to tell. Even Death in Venice, for all its ravaging brilliance, is reduced by association here to a folkish moral trope: flesh is disease. So the very paucity of the collection is illuminating, as if to prove that good philosophy makes bad art.

[William Shep · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice selection of German short stories, from the late 18th to the early 20th century, with stalwarts from Goethe and Hoffman to Kafka and Mann.

[Kevin Waggoner · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far I really enjoyed Hauptmann's "Flagman Thiel." Colorful, enlisting, I was enthralled.