A Happy Man and Other Stories, Or/Oder, Der Gl'uckliche Und Andere Erz'ahlungen

4.33 based on 3 reviews.

Media:

Hardcover Book

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Product Description

Fiction. Translated from the German by Marianne Thormahlen. Introduction by Judith Freeman. A HAPPY MAN AND OTHER STORIES OR/ODER DER GLUCKLICHE UND ANDERE ERZAHLUNGEN draws together nine small fictions by German author Axel Thormahlen. Jochen, the titles story's hero, is a man content in the face of others' discontent and their foolish fear of mortality. Like Jochen, many of Thormahlen's characters live in deceptively simple, but impossibly profound movements, accepting the happy limits of life. Judith Freeman asks in her introduction, "though we are drained, hunted to death, and out of breath, is Jochen] not still, are we not all, happy men?" Thormahlen's great achievement is that his stories move as much toward the answer as the question, but in the end leave both untouched and unrelenting. A HAPPY MAN AND OTHER STORIES is published as part of the TrenchArt Parapet series, officially translated by Marianne Thormahlen, with an introduction by Judith Freeman and visual art by Danielle Adair.

Product Details

  • Media: Hardcover Book, 101 pages
  • Publisher: Les Figues Press ()
  • ISBN-10: 1934254045
  • ISBN-13: 9781934254042

Customer Reviews

  • Book Rating 3 out of 5
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    by Tania from Israel | Aug 5, 2009

    "This is a curious collection of nine stories that engage with their dry humor and absurdist play, but also distance with their tendency toward abstraction, and the absence of a fully inhabited physical, sensual world. They often read less as stories, and more as a mixture of parable and philosophical tract and comic monologue—all poured into a soup pot and stirred by the likes of Calvino or Kafka or Bruno Schulz. Distinctively designed by the boutique Los Angeles Press Les Figues, the book even looks like a pamphlet. Each page is split, with the English translation above and the original German below. "...

    Read the rest of the review by Scott Doyle on The Short Review.



  • Book Rating 5 out of 5
    Read Reviews on Goodreads

    by Les from The United States | Feb 19, 2010

  • Book Rating 5 out of 5
    Read Reviews on Goodreads

    by Amina from Los Angeles, CA | Aug 16, 2008

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