The BURIED Book Club discussion

Only 57 ratings for all his books combined. But look at the high praise he gets by Ben Winch, Eddie Watkins, M. Sarki, people you trust! The Figure on the Boundary Line: Selected Prose

Ein Deutscher! Schoen. Danke.

Aw thanks Jimmy. Only just thought to drop in and try to unbury Meckel, and here I find you've already gone to work. Remember too that Christopher Middleton - the man who brought us Robert Walser - is behind the translating here, knew Meckel personally and collaborated with him. Also that Meckel is both writer and graphic artist. Middleton says this of him:

"It seems that the German public of the last twenty-five years has tended to prefer astute father-figure writers to incorrigible son-figures like Meckel... few have been able to detect in Meckel a sort of Dionysian puer aeternus, who combines a set of volatile visionary impulses , ranging from the apocalyptic to the whimsical, with 'technical' skills of his own invention - skills that are very diverse, but also unique, mature, and altogether masterful... The one epithet that could be applied to his work as a whole - and it is a consistent and coherent ouvre in every respect - is exuberant."

To me, discovering The Figure on the Boundary Line was roughly equivalent to discovering Middleton's translations of Robert Walser, back before anyone I knew had ever heard of Robert Walser. Only this time I had Eddie Watkins to guide me.

Further to a conversation with Mr. Winch, two BURIED English translations:
Image For Investigation: About My Father (1987), Hutton Press Ltd.
Snow Creatures and Other Stories (1990) Edwin Mellen Press

Unburied from VP: Image for Investigation: About my Father.

MJ wrote: "Unburied from VP: Image for Investigation: About my Father."

Always good to hear about another new Verbi.