Books, Fiction

Chess Story

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For many years, I have been an admirer of Stefan Zweig without knowing it. One of my favorite films during my college days, Secret Burning, flowed out of his pen.  I learned this after I googled Zweig half way into his wonderful Chess Story. He reveals himself as a master of the psychological drama. This image [Read More]
Books, Non-Fiction

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

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One afternoon of my sophomore year in college my bicycle was stolen. For reasons I no longer can reconstruct, I decided not to buy another used bike, but henceforth to hitchhike to class. I met many interesting people this way: Professors, sex therapists, construction workers, mothers who wanted to recruit boyfriends for their daughters and image [Read More]
Books, Fiction

Disappointed Peter (Pan)

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I barely finished Peter Pan. The reader of my diary will remember that I was very excited about the first couple of pages of B. F. Berrie’s famous children’s story. The last few pages again were excellent. But in between lay for the adult reader one hundred forty painfully boring pages.  Even as a child image [Read More]
Books, Non-Fiction

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Love at first sight may be a romantic illusion. Wild excitement at first sight is certainly real. That’s what I experienced reading the first couple of pages of Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I quickly realized that this collection is a literary event not to be missed. When I was in college, I bought myself image [Read More]
Books, Fiction

The Tale of the 1002nd Night

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This tale is magnificient. Roth became famous for his novels Job and Radetzky March. For the contemporary reader Radetzky March is tedious. The slow decline of the Austrian Empire by itself can no longer hold our attention without connecting it to a larger, more universal story. The Tale of the 1002nd Night, in contrast, feels image [Read More]
Books, Fiction

Tonio Kroeger

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This autobiographical short piece of fiction is the best writing of Thomas Mann that I have laid eyes on. For me it was much more compelling than his famous first major novel The Buddenbrocks. At least one German writer (Martin Walser) claims to have learned the entire novella by heart so that he could readily image [Read More]
Books, Fiction

Confession of a Murderer

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Joseph Roth died in his Paris exile, leaving behind thirteen novels as well as many stories and essays. The Confession of a Murderer Told in One Night is after Job Roth’s most spellbinding novel that I have read to date. Roth had to flee from the Nazis in Germany. The book is a wonderful parable image [Read More]
Books, Non-Fiction

Reports from Berlin, 1920-33

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A couple of months ago (March 2003) I started reading Joseph Roth’s newpaper columns about life in Berlin in the 1920s.  He turns out to be a master of short essays on social life. I became so enamored with his powerfully perceptive prose that I started to read his novels. Savoy is a fine story image [Read More]
Books, Fiction

The Story of Job

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Roth has the ability to create suspense even though we are reading about the "Life of a Simple" man. The central theme of the novel is the role of destiny in human life that has become surrounded by the products of science and technology. The tale begins with a prophecy in prerevolutionary Russia and image [Read More]