Tematrio – Tre länder, ett språk

Today’s Tematrio is daunting, too, but in quite a different way from last week, because with the question being: «Berätta om tre tyskspråkiga romaner, novellsamlingar, grafiska romaner, barnböcker, lyriksamlingar etc du läst (eller har lust att läsa)!» (Tell us about three German language novels, short-story collections, graphic novels, children’s books, poetry collections etc you’ve read – or want to read) I might struggle to think of as many as three. I am frightfully apt to read only books where I can manage the original rather than a translation, which means I mostly stick to English, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. I have read books originally written in German, of course, especially at Uni, but how much do I remember?

And then I thought: But, hang on! Michael Ende wrote in German, didn’t he? So I’ll start with Die unendliche Geschichte: Von A bis Z which Wikipedia tells me is the original title of The Neverending Story. A fascinating book, where a neglected and lonely boy called Bastian starts reading a book called The Neverending Story and ends up inside it, where the land of Fantastica is being destroyed by Nothing, because people do not read stories anymore. The 1984 film is quite nice, but deviates quite a bit from the novel, and also deals with just the first part. I’d heartily recommend reading the book (in fact, writing about it has made me put it on the «need to reread» list. Sigh).

In fact, I’ll stick to Ende for another favourite: Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer or Jim Knapp og Lukas Lokmotivfører as I know it, and the second book Jim Knopf und die Wilde. As children’s tales of the to-be-read-aloud type these are really quite hard to beat. The main characters are perfectly charming and Jim balances on that fine line of self-sufficiency that a heroic protagonist needs and the dependency on being parented that befits a small boy (he is six, as far as I remember). Other than that the books have it all: Scary villains, a dragon and a princess as well as perfectly quirky details (one of my favourite images in books ever is the false giant who is in fact quite small but who looks larger the further away from him you get, who turns out to be the perfect lighthouse-substitute for the very small island Jim and Lukas hail from). In fact, I guess it’s about time I unearth my copies and test them on the lass.

I could go for Ende’s Momo as my last book, but I feel I need to prove that I’m aware there are other authors in the German language… Which means that perhaps it’s not exactly a good idea to go for Goethe’s Faust as it’s a bit like saying «Yeah, I’ve heard of this English author called Shakespeare», but whatever. Faust I read as part of literature studies at Uni, so a while ago, but it’s a fascinating play and one I think it worthwhile to look into if you’re interested in the literary and philosophical development in Europe – though it raises as many questions as it attempts to answer. I remember being particularly interested in the moral dilemma regarding God and the Devil making a bet (which ties into the book of Job nicely).