Five Great German Short Stories: A Dual-Language Book

by Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)

Five outstanding selections from noble tradition: Heinrich von Kleist's "The Earthquake in Chile," E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman," Arthur Schnitzler's "Lieutenant Gustl," Thomas Mann's "Tristan," and Franz Kafka's "The Judgment." For each selection the editor has supplied complete literal English translations on facing pages. Foreword. Introduction to each story.

Genres: German Literature, Language, Fiction, Literature, Short Stories, Reference

267 pages, Paperback

First published July 27, 1993

Reviews

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a sleeper of a book (to me). I was not expecting to give it 5 stars. I was not expecting to be engrossed in, for the most part, all five pieces which made up this book. Those who know my reviews will raise their eyebrows at 5 stars. What’s this?! Mr. Outlier-of-Many-Reviews now deigns to give a book 5 stars?? Well!!! 😮

What’s terrible is that only 53 people on Goodreads have read this collection and only 4 people reviewed it! 🙁

So, I guess I might be talking to a few people but that’s OK. I would really recommend if you have not read at least two of the works that you get this book. Appelbaum has 2-3-page introductions to each work and I found each one to be very interesting.

The publisher is Dover Publications and the premise of the book is to have the English translation of the German work next to each other. Right side of the page is English and left side is German. The translator, Stanley Appelbaum, makes comments about how others have translated these works and he has chosen to translate using this approach:
• The translations, prepared specially for the present volume, are absolutely complete and as literal as possible without denaturing the English. It is hoped that the English versions are readable in their own right, but close adherence to the German was a major consideration. Every attempt has been made to reflect the nuances of the author’s intentions.

It’s almost as if this book were not meant for me but were meant for people who are interested in the process and outcomes of translation — how does the English version compare to the German version and I guess where are liberties taken/what is lost in the translation. But what he did was to pick “…each story should be a recognized pinnacle in the oeuvre of an internationally venerated author”. And that is where I was able to benefit from this fantastic read. Whatever his purpose was, I was introduced to five authors I have not read, but I will now follow (at least two or three of them).

Here are my comments about the five works. I think I will make comments in other places on the GR site because each of these five works are presented separately on the site as well as in this collection. I will try and refrain from giving away the plot or the story line because that’s a good chunk of the fun of reading these, eh? What I did was write down some notes for each of them, so I will write down some of my notations here…

The Earthquake in Chile by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) [he killed himself after shooting an incurably ill female friend! See an interesting read on it: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2... ]
3.5 stars

• Catholics sure can be bloodthirsty.
• Young man who is a tutor for a rich family beds the daughter and they send her to a nunnery.
• Somehow the young man finds the girl at the convent and beds her again.
• She gives birth to a child….
• And a bunch more comments by me and last comment is as follows
• Story is not over by a long shot.
And oh yes, there is an earthquake and that figures into the story.

The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)
5 stars

Following is a smattering of comments…there were many more…I just don’t want to give stuff away…
• Amazing story.
• Nathaniel actually sees The Sandman who is a horrifying monster.
• Coppelius a lawyer is involved with Nathaniel’s father in alchemy.
• Then there’s Olimpian, an automaton created by Professor Spalanzani with help of Coppelius, and Nathaniel falls in love with her although all she says is “Ah, ah, ah”.
• Young men are advised before they take a woman as a wife to ask her at least several questions so that they are convinced she’s not an automaton.

I guess I would have to say this was one of the best short stories I have ever read. It has it all. Horror. Comedy. Macabre. Disasters. And the format of the story is so, so cool. It starts off with letters between Nathaniel and a friend Lothar but Lothar’s sister who is in love with Nathaniel reads one of them and knows Nathaniel loves her…and then the story eventually transitions to an unknown person who tells the “gentle reader” what happens to Nathaniel and others…
So at this point in the reading I was just gung-ho for this collection and kept on reading and the next story was as good as The Sandman! 😮 😮 😮 😊

Lieutenant Gustl by Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931)
5 stars
The reader is in the head of Lieutenant Gustl over the space of I would say 13 hours…say from 7 pm one evening to 8 am the next morning. When I say in the head I mean in the head. You are privy to every last thought that runs through this German officer’s head. Appelbaum says this work “is outstanding as perhaps the first important interior-monologue, or stream-of-consciousness, story in European literature, preceding precedes Ulysses by some 2 decades”. I just read “Dubliners” by Joyce and loved it and in my review, I said I was scared to read him because of Ulysses and that I would never understand Joyce. Good God, this was written so well I might consider reading Ulysses!!! 🙃

Just a few comments that I wrote down as I was reading…
• Lt. Gustl goes to a concert and wants his coat at the end and he gets in a dust-up with the baker and baker tells him if he doesn’t behave he’ll take his saber and break it.
• Baker calls him a fool.
• So Gustl is humiliated and wants to commit suicide.
• However he has a duel tomorrow.
• He seems like a hot-head!

Tristan by Thomas Mann (1875-1955) Tristan is named after the famous opera by Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’.
3.5 stars
I read this and liked it, but I didn’t get it. Well, after I read it, I read the intro by Appelbaum and he said, “Familiarity with the opera is almost a prerequisite for an exhaustive understanding of Mann’s purposes.” I don’t know the first thing about Wagner’s opera and so that is why I didn’t get a lot of it. Still, I really liked reading it…so if you know the plot line of the opera no doubt you will give it a higher rating than mine. I read the plot line in Wikipedia and know I would have appreciated this story more had I been aware of what the opera was about.

The Judgment by Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
3 stars (only because I don’t think I totally “got it”)
Again, same as above — I did not totally get it. And why the protagonist did what he did at the end. But as with Mann, Kafka is a master, and once again I enjoyed reading this. After I read the synopsis of this story, I understood it better. According to one site and this was echoed by Appelbaum: The Judgement by Franz Kafka is one of his most prominent works, also perceived as the closest to his autobiographical memoir – the relationship between a father and son – one that resembles closely to his own.

To close off my long review (sorry!) I liked this collection so much I am going to order it so I can have a copy for my library. The version I had I got from my local library. Maybe yours has it too! 😊

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Story 1: Guy has bad luck, natural disaster strikes and everything turns out perfectly. Of course no 'great' story can have a happy ending, so everyone is murdered.

Story 2: Guy goes bat-shit crazy. No really, absolutely nuts. It was a long time in the making. He dies.

Story 3: Internal monologue of guy sitting through boring concert. While I can withstand my own internal monologue, his I couldn't handle more than a couple pages. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he dies in some tragic, utterly ridiculous and nonsensical way.

Sorry stories 4 and 5 - couldn't quite make it.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five Great German Short Stories is edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum, who also worked on Ausgewählte Märchen. Unbeknownst to me for a while -- but it feels right. I don't know. Denser, more "normal" prose seems much harder for me to track bilingually, even just in flighty and occasionally dipped attempts; but I can tell for the most part it's solid and careful. That's what I say every time. I guess I'll just stick to verse or fancy little folk tales or airy monuments to philosophy. Y'know?

1. "Das Erdbeben in Chili" ("The Earthquake in Chile") von Heinrich von Kleist is 32 pages.

I don't like it. Too outdoorsy and eh overall.

2. "Der Sandman" ("The Sandman") von E. T. A. Hoffman is 70 pages.

"schnell" is translated "in a trice" -- why not "quickly", I have no idea, but believe me, I dig the word "trice"! It's cool. More elaborate and multifaceted than the single word "quickly," and much sexier too. "frostig" is translated "glacial" -- why not "frosty", I have no idea, but believe me, I dig the word "glacial"! etc. etc.

A sentence concluded "aber daß er Kinder haßte, das brachte in Euch Kindern wahren Abscheu gegen ihn hervor" (52) becomes "but it was his hatred of children that caused you children to have such a real aversion to him" (53). I would say that "children" awkwardly repeated so close renders the English a bad translation, but that might mislead one into assuming I have any notion of the finer points of German at all, let alone the mastery to break a tricky idea like "hatred" causing "aversion," or whatever the heck. It's completely beyond me. I have no business inside a paragraph like this. Let me out of here. I'm so sorry.

"wie das kindische Kind über die goldgleißende Frucht, in deren Innern tödliches Gift verborgen" (54) is "like the innocent child who rejoices over the glittering golden fruit inside of which deadly poison is concealed" (55). Ok, groovy. You know, the drama is basically like a darker genre thing colliding with family discomfort. Cinematically, I guess it's Lubitsch's Doll meeting Hitchcock's Vertigo.

3. "Leutnant Gustl" ("Lieutenant Gustl") von Arthur Schnitzler is 60 pages.

More my speed, definitely. Well before modernism, well before Joyce or Woolf, Schnitzler paints a funny little picture of one guy's interior monologue. "Gustl" is Austrian and very rich with peculiar little place names and details.

4. "Tristan" von Thomas Mann is 80 pages.

If you'll excuse me, dividing language into syntax and diction just as easily/flatly as between German and English, what's up with all the endless sentences, fussy and intricate even as it's just piling up descriptive clauses? You know. I'm down with the diction that's silly and close-to-home, guesting and medical and whatnot, but I don't care for syntax like this. Radically different between Schnitzler and Mann for sure.

"als seien seine Zähne der Zunge im Wege" (182) is "as if his teeth were in the way of his tongue" (183). Curious expression, even aside from the pile of Ss and Zs.

"kleine niggersongs" -- I won't even ask about the lower-case noun -- is "little minstrel songs"? Cool. Fine enough.

5. "Das Urteil" ("The Judgment") von Franz Kafka is 23 pages.

It's Kafka, man.

Even in only titles, I'm entertained by some of the translated words: the country is spelled Chili here like the food, "lieutenant" gets a sweet shortening. I don't even know. Are you serious about this? I'm no polyglot maven or anything.

[Gastjäle · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books are a godsend for language learners: you get very matter-of-fact translations for excellent literary works. In this edition, you get

1) a Romantic work by Kleist, one whose roughness can lead you astray, yet whose vigour and sudden sparks of expressiveness form an enjoyable whole;
2) a psychological tale by Hoffmann—miles ahead of Der Nussknacker—that combines several perspectives and psychological aptitude with themes that, quite surprisingly, resonate with us even more due to the advent of deepfakes;
3) Schnitzler's pioneering work in the stream-of-consciousness technique, where a splendidly unlikeable womaniser of a soldier runs the mental gauntlet of shame and vengefulness, teetering on the brink of brash suicide (the ending serving as a source of delicious ambivalence on the part of the reader);
4) a rather challenging but fulfilling and symbol-laden work by Mann which serves as a mundane-yet-by-no-means-banal pendant to Wagner's Tristan, providing both down-to-earth social comedy and a haunting call of the Beyond and showcasing the grievous effects that the world of efficacy can have on sensitive, naive and egotistical artists; and
5) the masterwork of the bunch, Kafka's Das Urteil, whose subtle narrative tricks and a sense of impending doom in the heart of a man whose facade is crumbling should leave no one cold. This is a true portrait of guilt of a stunted adult, a story whose mental claustrophobia Kafka would expand on later with his most well-known works, and though his other works can be even more gut-wrenching, here we have a rare form of conciseness that should not be overlooked.

Eine ausgezeichnete Sammlung, ohne Zweifel!

[Mark A.]

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[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved the Hoffmann and Kafka stories. Dual language books are great because they help you learn.

[Andras Fabian]

ok