“The world is full of fools, and he who would not see it should live alone and smash his mirror.” Prologue The novel opens with Tyll Ulenspiegel as […]
German literature
Measuring the World
“The world was large, and yet it was measurable.” Chapter 1: The Prodigy and the Explorer The novel opens by introducing its two protagonists: Carl Friedrich Gauss, the […]
German literature
Look Who’s Back
“I opened my eyes. Unfamiliar ceiling. I sat up. Unfamiliar room. I stood up. Unfamiliar body.” Chapter 1: Awakening Adolf Hitler inexplicably wakes up in modern-day Berlin, disoriented […]
German literature
My Century
“Every year has its own voice, its own melody, and its own story to tell.” My Century by Günter Grass is a unique literary work that chronicles the […]
German literature
The Flounder
“I, the Flounder, was there when it began. And I was there when it ended.” The Flounder by Günter Grass is a sprawling, mythic novel that intertwines history, […]
German literature
Dog Years
“Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant that it is, it will have […]
German literature
The Tin Drum
“Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, […]
German literature
The Aesthetics of Resistance
“We had to learn to see differently, to think differently, to resist differently.” Volume 1: The Underground Struggle The novel opens in 1937 Berlin, where a group of […]
German literature
Olga
“She had always been alone, and she had always been strong.” Part One: Olga’s Childhood and Youth The novel begins with Olga’s early life in late 19th-century Prussia. […]
German literature
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.” Chapter 1: Birth of a Monster Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in 18th-century Paris under the foulest conditions—amid fish guts […]