This is what happens when you think about something for too long! I thought I had a plan for Caroline and Lizzy's German Literature Month, but you know how it goes and how moods change on a whim. Several whims ago, I had thought Ernst Lothar was my author of choice, but I have reconsidered. I still do want to read him, but as the book is pretty massive and my reading time seems limited (and then there is still the clean up list), I will try and choose a book that seems more reasonable in length that I can really manage to finish this month.
I have a story collection I want to at least dip into and then one of these books is surely calling my name.
The Ghost-Seer by Friedrich von Schiller - It's a classic, written in the 18th-century. Of course it is all in how you look at it. It's a German classic written in the 18th-century! Even with just over 100 pages it may be more challenging than I think seeing how it is a "fascinating, experimental and deliberately fragmentary work."
The Lord Chandos Letter and Other Writings by Hugo von Hofmannsthal is a collection of stories and this is one I will most definitely dip into.
The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun - Less than 200 pages and written in the 1930s it was hugely popular when it was published. It is a "rare portrait of the life of a young German woman at a time when the force of modernity in the Western world was at its most potent." It is a very strong contender!
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Boll - I have read Boll before and have meant to read more of his work. Just over 100 pages this sounds quite intriguing. "Turning the mystery story on its head, Heinrich Boll begins his novel with the confession of a crime, drawing the reader into a web of sensationalism, character assassination, and unstoppable violence."
Léon & Louise by Alex Capus - The story begins in 1918 about two lovers who get separated, each believing the other is dead. They reunite decades later but Léon has remarried. It seems to have gotten very good reviews.
The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller - She is a Nobel winner (as is Boll) who I have long meant to read. This sounds good but very heavy as it depicts the "landscape of the dispossessed". It is the story of a seventeen-year old boy who is deported to a Russian labor camp.
So, I'll start with the story collection and then ponder which novel to choose using the always scientific method of reading the first page or two and seeing which one grabs me.
So many books, so many reading plans and now so few days left in the year. My how 2015 has flown by. I blinked and there it went!