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| European Literature Canon; as selected by 'Die Zeit' | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 1 2012, 03:56 PM (1,582 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Aug 1 2012, 03:56 PM Post #1 |
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'Die Zeit' collected a canon of European post war literature, 10 prose books per decade, mostly novels (the first decade running only from 45 to 49): 1945 Andric, The Bridge on the Drina 1947 Mann, Doctor Faustus 1947 Lowry, Under the Volcano 1947 Levi, Is this a Man 1947 Camus, The Plague 1949 Hamsun, On Overgrown Paths 1949 Orwell, 1984 1949 Malaparte, The Skin 1949 Jünger, Strahlungen (from the War Diaries) 1949 Pavese, The Fine Summer 1950 Seferis, Ionic Journey (from the Diaries) 1953 Beckett, The Unnamable 1954 Beauvoir, The Mandarins 1954 Golding, Lord of the Flies 1955 Borowski, Auschwitz Tales 1956 Doderer, The Demons 1957 Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago 1957 Butor, Second Thoughts (La Modification) 1958 Lampedusa, The Leopard 1959 Grass, The Tin Drum 1960 Green, Each man in his darkness 1961 Lem, Solaris 1961 Simon, The Flanders Road 1961 Ginzburg, Voices in the Evening 1962 Lessing, The Golden Notebook 1963 Böll, The Clown 1963 Hikmet, It's Great to be Alive Brother 1963 Gadda, Acquainted with Grief 1964 Sartre, The Words 1964 Frisch, Gantenbein 1971 Bachmann, Malina 1972 Calvino, Invisible Cities 1972 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams 1973 Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1974 Morante, History 1975 Kertesz, Fatelessness 1976 Kis, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich 1977 Semprun, Frederico Sanchez 1978 Hrabal, I Served the King of England 1979 Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World 1980 Eco, The Name of the Rose 1980 Tisma, The Use of Man 1981 Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1982 Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 1983 Johnson, Anniversaries 1983 Wolf, Cassandra 1984 Bernhard, Woodcutters 1984 Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1985 Duras, La Douleur (War: A Memoir) 1986 Kristof, The Notebook 1992 Marias, A Heart So White 1992 Sebald, The Emigrants 1992 Müller, Even Back Then, the Fox Was the Hunter 1992 Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven 1995 Jelinek, The Children of the Death 1995 Fosse, Melancholy 1997 Stasiuk, Dukla 1997 Kennedy, Original Bliss 1998 Houellebecq, Atomised 1998 Nooteboom, All Souls' Day 2000 Smith, White Teeth 2000 Esterhazy, Celestial Harmonies 2002 Pamuk, Snow 2003 Modiano, Accident Nocturne (no English translation yet?) 2004 Enquist, The Book about Blanche and Marie 2005 Kehlmann, Measuring the World 2005 Nadas, Parallel Stories 2008 Tokarczuk, Bieguni 2008 Tellkamp, The Tower 2009 NDiaye, Three Strong Women |
 
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| oneofmurphysbiscuits | Aug 1 2012, 04:13 PM Post #2 |
marmalade modernist
  ![]](http://z5.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)
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Each man in his darkness, is the English title i've heard of. I've never read Simon, always meant to |
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| alliknowis | Aug 1 2012, 06:50 PM Post #3 |
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Literary lunatic
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OK I'm going to do my own list, and it will blow these lists away. I encourage anyone else to do the same, because it's interesting to get snapshots like this.... So many things to complain about here, but I'll just note one: how it possible for The Skin to be here instead of Kaputt?!?! The books are similar in a lot ways -- except that Kaputt is much much better and more multifaceted. OK one more -- WHERE is Genet?!?! |
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| Deleted User | Aug 2 2012, 12:17 AM Post #4 |
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Yeah. God. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 2 2012, 01:49 AM Post #5 |
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I dunno, I just updated the list with the 70s and I think that this decade is quite good actually. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 2 2012, 02:18 AM Post #6 |
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surprisingly, not bad. However, the Handke choice is very odd. In a decade that saw Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter, Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied and Langsame Heimkehr, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams is a strange choice. And I have never been tempted by Morante, I think. And while I love Semprun, his inclusion here is I think more a sign of the enormous estimation he has among German critics than a reflection of the place of this novel. Then again, I haven't read this one yet. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 2 2012, 02:46 AM Post #7 |
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Yes, I know, but I think they decided to take only one work per author, which necessarily means that one has to make controversial decisions. I am already happy if they took a specific author at all even if the chosen novel might be disputable (e.g. Frisch's Gantenbein would never have been my choice). And there are only ten books per decade so I guess they have to compromise and there will be trade-offs between decades. Ah, and thanks Biscuit, I have put in the English title. And if anyone wants to invest the time and put up an alternative list I am very curious about your choices. 
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| Deleted User | Aug 2 2012, 04:04 AM Post #8 |
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Spanish seems to be a bit underrepresented with only one book, as it is a German newspaper it is no surprise that German language books take a large part, so many Italian books is a surprise, English only 5: Italian, German 8 French 6 English 5 Russian, Polish 2 (45-79) |
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| oneofmurphysbiscuits | Aug 2 2012, 07:00 AM Post #9 |
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marmalade modernist
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@ alliknow, i thoought the inclusion of the Mandarins was risible enough, so spare your blood pressure; strange lists will always be with us it'll do for me that you know Genet for what he is
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| Deleted User | Aug 3 2012, 02:58 AM Post #10 |
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I just checked and, surprise, surprise, 'Kaputt' was published in 44 and therefore falls outside of the boundaries of this canon... (the same is true for for Anna Seghers for example with 'Das Siebte Kreuz' and 'Transit', otherwise one of them would have been included, I guess, didn't Reich-Ranicki count one of them among the best 20 novels of the German language?) From the German ones I dearly miss Koeppen. I hope that they will include Bernhard in the 80s, else I am gonna kick their asses... other 80s: Magris, Nadas, Saramago (or later in the 90s), Kundera (maybe), Rushdie (if he is counted as European?),... and there have to be more Polish writers, there are so many of them (Mysliwski for example)... and one of them Dutch (Mulisch, Nooteboom etc) I guess that if Goytisolo and Kadare have not been included at this point they will also not be taken into account later, but who knows... Krasznahorkai won't be there, I am 100% sure, if there will be another Hungarian besides Nadas it will be Esterhazy or Konrad, their reputation is much larger in Germany (in particular Esterhazy) |
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| oneofmurphysbiscuits | Aug 3 2012, 08:53 AM Post #11 |
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marmalade modernist
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not to include Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian"(1951?) is ridiculous; that book is an edifice of ingenuities and sympathies. But how many lists are only meaningful and interesting by reason of what they omit, or the choices from amongst "Lord of the Flies" being a good example. Golding is so much better in so many other books, it's just daft, obvious, like the potboiling de Beauvoir thing, It never does to ask why, cause you'll be here all day
Edited by oneofmurphysbiscuits, Aug 3 2012, 08:54 AM.
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| oneofmurphysbiscuits | Aug 3 2012, 09:47 AM Post #12 |
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marmalade modernist
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i meant to say yesterday that i'd bet on Iris Murdoch loving the Mandarins
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| alliknowis | Aug 3 2012, 03:45 PM Post #13 |
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Literary lunatic
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Have you read Prisoner of Love by the way? Hadn't read it until recently but it's jawdroppingly good. |
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| oneofmurphysbiscuits | Aug 3 2012, 06:43 PM Post #14 |
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marmalade modernist
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there's an nyrb edition, i think, no i've not read it, i havent read Genet in a very long time, but he's a constancy for me |
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| Deleted User | Aug 9 2012, 02:43 AM Post #15 |
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the 80s... see above Too many German language books. A EUROPEAN canon of the 80s without Danube? And also without Book of Memories? Goytisolo, Kadare still not in sight... what they say about the Kundera book:
so why take it in nonetheless? |
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| Deleted User | Aug 9 2012, 06:24 AM Post #16 |
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Well, I do agree that at least one Bernhard should be there and the Johnson is a great pick, as well. |
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| Deleted User | Aug 17 2012, 10:25 AM Post #17 |
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the 90s... ohh what a piece of crap selection... utter shite...  A European literature canon without Saramago, Kadare, Goytisolo, Genet, Magris, Nadas, Tabucchi, Perec... are you fucking kidding me... not that I would have expected them to choose writers like Krasznahorkai or Tokarczuk or Cartarescu etc... and I won't talk about the chosen works of some writers, jeez... |
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| Heteronym | Aug 17 2012, 02:13 PM Post #18 |
Literary lunatic
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Bah, I won't put much stock on a list compiled by people who think the '80s started in 1980. Poor Bede... |
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| Deleted User | Aug 23 2012, 01:15 AM Post #19 |
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the last installment with the 00s ... no comments... man, the German language books are such a weak choice, I mean they are ok and quite well readable, but the 10 most important novels of the 00s??? Are you fucking kidding me? |
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| Bjorn | Aug 23 2012, 01:55 AM Post #20 |
Forum junkie
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...Kehlmann? |
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