18 books like Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
Anton Reiser
xv, 456 p. ; 23 cm
Shares: German literature, Continental european fiction, Social life and customs
Narziss und Goldmund
First published in 1930, Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of two diametrically opposite men: one, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and the other, a romantic youth hungry for worldly experience. Hesse was a great writer in precisely the modern sense: complex, subtle, allusive: alive to the importance of play. Narcissus and Goldmund is his very best. What makes this short book…
Shares: German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction
The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen
This travel story is shot through with the Elizabeth von Arnim's special self-deprecating wit and character sketches. In 1901, the "real" Elizabeth holidayed on the Baltic island of Rugen with just her maid, a coachman, a carriage piled with luggage, and a woman friend. But from such unpromising beginnings Elizabeth weaves a captivating farrago round her encounters. There's the bishop's wife and…
Shares: Germany, Travel
Der Zauberberg
One of the most influential and celebrated German works of the 20th century has been newly rendered in English by Woods, twice winner of the PEN Translation Prize. First published in 1929, Mann's novel tells the story of Hans Castorp, a modern everyman who spends seven years in an Alpine sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, finally leaving to become a soldier in World War I. Isolated from the…
Shares: German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction
Demian
A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual…
Shares: German fiction, Germany, Young men, Continental european fiction
Im Westen nichts Neues
This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the hatred that meaninglessly pits young men of the…
Shares: German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction
The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse
Although some of the most distinguished German novels written since about 1770 are generally considered to be Bildungsromane, the term Bildungsroman is all too frequently used in English without an awareness of the tradition from which it arose. Professor Swales concentrates on the roles of plot, characterization, and narrative commentary in novels by Wieland, Goethe, Stifter, Keller, Mann, and…
Shares: German literature, German fiction
La chartreuse de Parme
Headstrong and naive, the young Italian aristocrat Fabrizio del Dongo is determined to defy the wrath of his right-wing father and go to war to fight for Napoleon. He stumbles on the Battle of Waterloo, ill-prepared, yet filled with enthusiasm for war and glory. Finally heeding advice, Fabrizio sneaks back to Milan, only to become embroiled in a series of amorous exploits, fuelled by his…
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men, Social life and customs
金閣寺
The son of a poor rural priest becomes an acolyte at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mizoguchi had built up an image of ideal beauty in his mind based on this Golden Pavilion; this ideal image causes him to feel disappointed in any supposed form of beauty, even the actual physical Golden Pavilion. He comes under the influence of Kashiwagi, a fellow student with a very bitter view of life.
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men
Sons and Lovers
Sons and Lovers, a story of working-class England, is D. H. Lawrence’s third novel. It went through various drafts, and was titled “Paul Morel” until the final draft, before being published and met with an indifferent reaction from contemporary critics. Modern critics now consider it to be D. H. Lawrence’s masterpiece, with the Modern Library placing it ninth in its “100 Best English-Language…
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men, Social life and customs
Reisebilder
Die in diesem Band enthaltenen Texte der Reisebilder des Dichters Heinrich Heine werden in diesem Buch mit vielen passenden Bildern neu aufgelegt. Seine Wanderung von Göttingen in den Harz und auf den Brocken sowie seine Reise über die Alpen nach Italien werden ausführlich geschildert. Außerdem äußert sich Heine eingehend über die Engländer und die Polen.
Rezension zur maritimen gelben Reihe: Ich…
Shares: Germany, Travel, Poetry
Twilight in Italy
In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty. "Twilight in Italy" is a vibrant account of Lawrence's stay among the people of Lake Garda, whose decaying lemon gardens bear witness to the twilight of a way of life centuries old.
Shares: Germany, Travel, Social life and customs
Effi Briest
Unworldly young Effi Briest is married off to Baron von Innstetten, an austere and ambitious civil servant twice her age, who has little time for his new wife. Isolated and bored, Effi finds comfort and distraction in a brief liaison with Major Crampas, a married man with a dangerous reputation. But years later, when Effi has almost forgotten her affair, the secret returns to haunt her - with…
Shares: German fiction, Continental european fiction, Poetry, Social life and customs
The turmoil, a novel
Booth Tarkington grew up in Indianapolis, and attended Princeton University. He set much of his fiction in Indiana. Tarkington was one of the more popular novelists of his time, and in 1921 booksellers rated him in a poll as the most significant contemporary American author.
-Wikipedia entry for Tarkington
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men
The green years
This is a precursor of Shannon's Way , detailing the struggles of the orphaned Robert Shannon to obtain education with the ultimate aim of becoming a medical researcher. A little long for a rather slight plot
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men
Die Blechtrommel
Die Blechtrommel ist ein Roman von Günter Grass. Er erschien 1959 als Auftakt der Danziger Trilogie und gehört zu den meistgelesenen Romanen der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur. Der Roman lässt sich als historischer Roman, Zeitroman, Schelmenroman und Entwicklungsroman charakterisieren.
----------
Set against the backcloth of National Socialism, [this novel] is told in the first person by the…
Shares: German literature, German fiction
Portnoy's Complaint
Though is caused outrage and controversy at the time of its publication Roth’s comic novel of sexual obsession and frustration is now widely regarded as one of the best novels of the twentieth century.
Shares: Young men in fiction, Young men
The Lady of Shalott: Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem
An illustrated version of the poem about the fate of the beautiful Lady of Shalott.
Shares: Unrequited love, Poetry