The BURIED Book Club discussion

I first came across Mr Hofmann when I found a rather nice edition of Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl (good reads does not have the edition I have which is here: http://www.cbeditions.com/hofmann.html ) in a bookshop and, liking the look of it, had a red of the first page. The first page had me laughing enough for me to buy the book without hesitation, though I have still not read anything more of it.

I will reproduce the first paragraph here, as a little treat.

"Once, many years ago, Professor Lichtenberg pulled on his lecture coat and headed out. He wanted to see what the weather was doing. Because he was a vain fellow, he had silver buttons on his lecture coat. From time to time, he would lose one. Then he would go crawling around his apartment in the wing of the house on the Gortmarstrasse, crying: Where has it got to now? As he scrabble around among the chairlegs, one thing became clear: he had a hunchback! Quick, let's write about it!

The hunchback was enormous! "

If that's not a great opening, I don't know what is.

I have read two other books by Gerty since that first purchase, but only one I would recommend : The Parable Of The Blind. The other was a book of short stories, all of which centered on actual authors and all had the same tone of contempt and an ugly sheen. - Balzac's Horse and Other Stories


Certainly, he needs to be read more.

Yep.

[btw, adding book links via the functionality of "add book/author" located directly on top of this comment box will cause a link to be created on the page of that book/author leading back here to this here discussion. (I know it's more work, so lazy folks are always forgiven)]

Gert Hofmann
Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Yep.

[btw, adding book links via the functionality of "add book/author" located directly on top of this comment box will cause a link to be created on the page of that book/author leading back her..."

Not laziness, ignorance. It is less messy now, thank you.

Ned wrote: "Not laziness, ignorance. It is less messy now, thank you. "

thanks. apparently the discussions are not showing up for BOOKS, but the ones for AUTHORS do link back here. Point of it all is that these things, these books, resemble needles in haystacks and the more spotlights we can shine on them, the easier it will be for folks to find them.

Hmmm, now I'm wondering just how widely read Georg Christoph Lichtenberg is outside of the German-speaking world...

Larou wrote: "Hmmm, now I'm wondering just how widely read Georg Christoph Lichtenberg is outside of the German-speaking world..."

Only The Waste Books is read, and currently on goodreads the majority have read it in English (108 ratings). THAT book doesn't quite qualify his as BURIED, but you could justify his inclusion with something else from him, his other stuff scarcely touched in years. zB, Krokodile im Stadtgraben..

Actually, no... or maybe yes? As far as I remember, the Sudelbücher are actually pretty much all he ever wrote (except for a slim volume on Hogarth), and all the seemingly different books of his you see are just varying selections from that corpus of notebooks he kept during his life. Also, I'm afraid I already made the entry (feel free to simply delete if you deem it inappropriate).

Larou wrote: "Actually, no... or maybe yes? As far as I remember, the Sudelbücher are actually pretty much all he ever wrote (except for a slim volume on Hogarth), and all the seemingly different books of his yo..."

I was beginning to get that drift as I looked further at his goodreads page. I'm gunna let him stand, but my justifications for allowing his entry are merely a certain prejudice of mine which I would prefer to not disclose.

I will assume that said prejudice is a soft spot for book-perusing felines, then, and thank you.