Scan barcode
walrus123's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
juliwi's review against another edition
4.0
I have related the reason for this blog's name before, but somehow Pushkin Press continues to give me reasons to do so over and over again. So, I named this blog A Universe in Words because for me reading has always been about learning, discovering and exploring. I grew up reading books in three different languages and this set me on a path of continuously looking for books in other languages, realising there are whole worlds, universes even, out there waiting for me. And thankfully to publishers like Pushkin Press, who work hard to bring previously untranslated works into English, this blog and I can keep going. Which brings me to my latest translated read, The Last Bell, which is a delightful collection of short stories. Thanks to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Last Bell contains five stories, selected by David Burnett from a variety of collections written by Urzidil over time. Burnett himself, in his informative introduction, gets to the very point of what makes these stories so touching and what links them together:
'...these stories illustrate this very point: that no one can act or be in this world, without becoming guilty - a very unmodern, biblical notion in our ideal world of transparency and accountability.'
It might not sound very enticing, but I was fascinated by this concept of, perhaps, "guilt by association" which cropped up in each and every story. The collection's first, and eponymous, story 'The Last Bell' is perhaps the finest example. A Czech maid in Nazi-occupied Prague feels burdened by the things she is given or told by others. Whereas she herself hardly acts, except for once, her very presence in the story's situations makes her complicit, makes her guilty, and she does not know how to deal with the weight of this guilt. In 'The Duchess of Albanera' we see a man who cannot face the unintended consequences of a single, mindless thought, whereas the third story, 'Siegelmann's Journeys' gives us a man very aware of and dreading the consequences he will have to face. The final two stories, 'Borderland', probably my favourite in The Last Bell, and 'Where the Valley Ends', Urzidil himself appears in the stories as an unnamed outsider, an objective observer, who sees the unintended victims of other people's actions and beliefs. Although it is perhaps not the most optimistic of messages, it is a very true one. Perhaps in our world we should all be a little bit more aware that none of us are blameless, that we are all in some way guilty. Perhaps it will make us kinder if we learn this lesson.
Urzidil's writing is surprisingly fluid. This may sound like a backhanded compliment, but once Burnett's introduction made me aware of Urzidil's links to Kafka I was slightly concerned. Although Kafka is doubtlessly masterful, he is also highly complex. Urzidil's stories are compact and crafted in a way that gives hints but unravels at its own, perfect, pace. His writing, however, flows easily and evocatively. There are moments of absolute beauty in his stories, phrases that are just so true. Let me give you a little gem:
'History books know nothing about real life, least o all about the life of a woman.'
How true. Urzidil doesn't shy away from the darkness in life, but also lingers in those moments of beauty that life bestows upon us. Especially in 'Borderland' he describes Czech woodlands in such a beautiful way I want to book tickets to Prague right now. Burnett does a wonderful job at translating his work into English, capturing both the preciseness and tentativeness of Urzidil's language. I am incredibly grateful to Pushkin Press for casting light upon another author who deserves to be known. I will definitely be looking for his work in German as well, however.
Whereas usually I need a break between stories, Urzidil's The Last Bell flowed so easily from one story to the next that I couldn't help but be spellbound until I had finished the collection. His stories are odes to the Prague he left behind, but are also truly human stories. I'd recommend this to fans of short stories and European literature.
For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2017/07/review-last-bell-by-johannes-urzidil.html
The Last Bell contains five stories, selected by David Burnett from a variety of collections written by Urzidil over time. Burnett himself, in his informative introduction, gets to the very point of what makes these stories so touching and what links them together:
'...these stories illustrate this very point: that no one can act or be in this world, without becoming guilty - a very unmodern, biblical notion in our ideal world of transparency and accountability.'
It might not sound very enticing, but I was fascinated by this concept of, perhaps, "guilt by association" which cropped up in each and every story. The collection's first, and eponymous, story 'The Last Bell' is perhaps the finest example. A Czech maid in Nazi-occupied Prague feels burdened by the things she is given or told by others. Whereas she herself hardly acts, except for once, her very presence in the story's situations makes her complicit, makes her guilty, and she does not know how to deal with the weight of this guilt. In 'The Duchess of Albanera' we see a man who cannot face the unintended consequences of a single, mindless thought, whereas the third story, 'Siegelmann's Journeys' gives us a man very aware of and dreading the consequences he will have to face. The final two stories, 'Borderland', probably my favourite in The Last Bell, and 'Where the Valley Ends', Urzidil himself appears in the stories as an unnamed outsider, an objective observer, who sees the unintended victims of other people's actions and beliefs. Although it is perhaps not the most optimistic of messages, it is a very true one. Perhaps in our world we should all be a little bit more aware that none of us are blameless, that we are all in some way guilty. Perhaps it will make us kinder if we learn this lesson.
Urzidil's writing is surprisingly fluid. This may sound like a backhanded compliment, but once Burnett's introduction made me aware of Urzidil's links to Kafka I was slightly concerned. Although Kafka is doubtlessly masterful, he is also highly complex. Urzidil's stories are compact and crafted in a way that gives hints but unravels at its own, perfect, pace. His writing, however, flows easily and evocatively. There are moments of absolute beauty in his stories, phrases that are just so true. Let me give you a little gem:
'History books know nothing about real life, least o all about the life of a woman.'
How true. Urzidil doesn't shy away from the darkness in life, but also lingers in those moments of beauty that life bestows upon us. Especially in 'Borderland' he describes Czech woodlands in such a beautiful way I want to book tickets to Prague right now. Burnett does a wonderful job at translating his work into English, capturing both the preciseness and tentativeness of Urzidil's language. I am incredibly grateful to Pushkin Press for casting light upon another author who deserves to be known. I will definitely be looking for his work in German as well, however.
Whereas usually I need a break between stories, Urzidil's The Last Bell flowed so easily from one story to the next that I couldn't help but be spellbound until I had finished the collection. His stories are odes to the Prague he left behind, but are also truly human stories. I'd recommend this to fans of short stories and European literature.
For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2017/07/review-last-bell-by-johannes-urzidil.html
jen_ren's review against another edition
3.0
DNF
Enjoyed the first two stories in this collection - 'The Last Bell' and 'The Duchess of Albanera' - but the remaining three I couldn't get into.
Enjoyed the first two stories in this collection - 'The Last Bell' and 'The Duchess of Albanera' - but the remaining three I couldn't get into.
vsbedford's review against another edition
3.0
A lovingly (it appears) translated work from a celebrated Czech author. The stories are a little bleak, a little melancholy and rueful, and a little "here is what we left behind" but they read marvelously and smoothly. It is always a pleasure to be introduced to a masterful writer working in a medium of which he or she has full control as Mr.Urzidil is. Looking forward to more from Pushkin from this writer and translator.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
abookishtype's review against another edition
4.0
Pushkin Press continues to do sterling work by retranslating and republishing European fiction with Johannes Urzidil’s The Last Bell (translated by David Burnett). The Last Bell includes five stories by a mid-century Czech author who got lost in the shuffle of history. In these stories, Urzidil writes about life in Prague in the late 1930s (before he himself fled Europe) and in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.
joecam79's review against another edition
4.0
One does not escape from despair, hopelessness, suicide by demonstrating with great diligence and accuracy how nauseating, shallow, stale and fruitless all our actions are, but by trying to believe in life by virtue of the absurd
This extract, taken from an essay he wrote in 1965, is a good indication of the writing philosophy of Czech author Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970). In his introduction to this anthology of five short stories, translator David Burnett compares Urzidil's style with that of his friend Kafka, bringing out the contrast between Kafka's "quintessentially tortured soul" and Urzidil's writing, which "exudes a sense of certainty, the warmth of a well-ordered universe". Reading this comment, one might be forgiven for expecting this anthology to provide mere escapist fare. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the stories centres around outcasts - individuals whose decisions trigger disastrous consequences which they could never have predicted. And the personal woes of these characters are looked at squarely in the face and presented as a reflection of the wider human predicament - that messy thing called Life.
Take the narrator of "The Last Bell". She is a maid who has an unexpected windfall when her employers, a Jewish couple, flee the Nazi occupation, leaving her mistress of their apartment and all their worldly goods. Unsurprisingly, her joys are short-lived and her tragedy becomes symbolic of all the victims of Nazi barbarity. (Urzidil himself fled to England after the German occupation in 1939, eventually settling in the United States). In "The Duchess of Albanera", the protagonist is an introvert who, uncharacteristically acting upon an unexplained impulse, steals a portrait from a gallery, blissfully unaware (until too late) that this act of folly has torn the gallery guard's family asunder. What starts as a surreal romp ends with a philosophical meditation about a world peopled by the "guilty-innocent and the innocent-guilty".
So what is it that makes Urzidil's writing so life-affirming? For starters, there's the humour which always bubbles right beneath the surface. It is a humour which can also be dark and bleak, but is rarely cynical and never cruel. It is difficult to dislike Urzidil's mumbling, fumbling, bumbling protagonists - they might be figures of fun but their portrayal is always sympathetic. There's also a humanity to his characters - even the most heartless of them (for instance the Nazi officials of "The Last Bell") are never mere caricatures.
Two of the stories featured in this anthology - "Borderland" and "Where the Valley Ends" - and part of a third - "Siegelmann's Journeys" - are set in the forests of Bohemia at an unspecified period prior to the two World Wars. It is a timeless, fairytale backdrop which owes much to German/Austrian Romanticism. Indeed, Urzidil himself makes explicit reference to the works of [a:Adalbert Stifter|13018|Adalbert Stifter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360683479p2/13018.jpg] and I was reminded of the mysterious, magical atmosphere of [b:The Jews' Beech|6106708|The Jews' Beech|Annette von Droste-Hülshoff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328707364s/6106708.jpg|1084231]. "Where the Valley Ends" is a cautionary tale about the theft of a cheesecake which brings about discord between the two small communities on either bank of the river. Typically, what appears a rather banal premise becomes an excuse for conceptual ruminations about justice and peace: Nothing makes a just man more sad than complete triumph, since he knows how convoluted justice and injustice are at bottom, and that even the most righteous person has only half a case before God... In "Borderland" - a story praised by [a:Hermann Hesse|1113469|Hermann Hesse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499981916p2/1113469.jpg] on its publication - Urzidil skirts the supernatural with a portrayal of a "magnetic" girl who seems to be able to commune with Nature, until the awakening of her sexuality. It is a universal, mythical theme - redolent of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, or Enkidu's loss of innocence in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story will haunt me for a long time.
A final thought - English is often hailed as a modern-day lingua franca, a language which acts as a bridge across the globe. Yet, there are deserving authors who seem to fall through the cracks. It is sobering to discover that Urzidil's stories have been translated from German into Czech, Spanish, French and Italian but this is the first-ever collection of his work to be published in English. So kudos to translator David Burnett and Pushkin Press for bringing these little gems to a wider public, and in such an attractive edition to boot.
4.5*
This extract, taken from an essay he wrote in 1965, is a good indication of the writing philosophy of Czech author Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970). In his introduction to this anthology of five short stories, translator David Burnett compares Urzidil's style with that of his friend Kafka, bringing out the contrast between Kafka's "quintessentially tortured soul" and Urzidil's writing, which "exudes a sense of certainty, the warmth of a well-ordered universe". Reading this comment, one might be forgiven for expecting this anthology to provide mere escapist fare. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the stories centres around outcasts - individuals whose decisions trigger disastrous consequences which they could never have predicted. And the personal woes of these characters are looked at squarely in the face and presented as a reflection of the wider human predicament - that messy thing called Life.
Take the narrator of "The Last Bell". She is a maid who has an unexpected windfall when her employers, a Jewish couple, flee the Nazi occupation, leaving her mistress of their apartment and all their worldly goods. Unsurprisingly, her joys are short-lived and her tragedy becomes symbolic of all the victims of Nazi barbarity. (Urzidil himself fled to England after the German occupation in 1939, eventually settling in the United States). In "The Duchess of Albanera", the protagonist is an introvert who, uncharacteristically acting upon an unexplained impulse, steals a portrait from a gallery, blissfully unaware (until too late) that this act of folly has torn the gallery guard's family asunder. What starts as a surreal romp ends with a philosophical meditation about a world peopled by the "guilty-innocent and the innocent-guilty".
So what is it that makes Urzidil's writing so life-affirming? For starters, there's the humour which always bubbles right beneath the surface. It is a humour which can also be dark and bleak, but is rarely cynical and never cruel. It is difficult to dislike Urzidil's mumbling, fumbling, bumbling protagonists - they might be figures of fun but their portrayal is always sympathetic. There's also a humanity to his characters - even the most heartless of them (for instance the Nazi officials of "The Last Bell") are never mere caricatures.
Two of the stories featured in this anthology - "Borderland" and "Where the Valley Ends" - and part of a third - "Siegelmann's Journeys" - are set in the forests of Bohemia at an unspecified period prior to the two World Wars. It is a timeless, fairytale backdrop which owes much to German/Austrian Romanticism. Indeed, Urzidil himself makes explicit reference to the works of [a:Adalbert Stifter|13018|Adalbert Stifter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360683479p2/13018.jpg] and I was reminded of the mysterious, magical atmosphere of [b:The Jews' Beech|6106708|The Jews' Beech|Annette von Droste-Hülshoff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328707364s/6106708.jpg|1084231]. "Where the Valley Ends" is a cautionary tale about the theft of a cheesecake which brings about discord between the two small communities on either bank of the river. Typically, what appears a rather banal premise becomes an excuse for conceptual ruminations about justice and peace: Nothing makes a just man more sad than complete triumph, since he knows how convoluted justice and injustice are at bottom, and that even the most righteous person has only half a case before God... In "Borderland" - a story praised by [a:Hermann Hesse|1113469|Hermann Hesse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499981916p2/1113469.jpg] on its publication - Urzidil skirts the supernatural with a portrayal of a "magnetic" girl who seems to be able to commune with Nature, until the awakening of her sexuality. It is a universal, mythical theme - redolent of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, or Enkidu's loss of innocence in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story will haunt me for a long time.
A final thought - English is often hailed as a modern-day lingua franca, a language which acts as a bridge across the globe. Yet, there are deserving authors who seem to fall through the cracks. It is sobering to discover that Urzidil's stories have been translated from German into Czech, Spanish, French and Italian but this is the first-ever collection of his work to be published in English. So kudos to translator David Burnett and Pushkin Press for bringing these little gems to a wider public, and in such an attractive edition to boot.
4.5*
balancinghistorybooks's review
4.0
I read Johannes Urzidil's The Last Bell for the Czech Republic (Czechia...?) stop on my Around the World in 80 Books challenge. I love stories of Old Bohemia, and purchased a couple of collections when I visited Prague a few years ago. The introduction to this volume is articulate and informative. When exposed to the quality and beauty of the chosen stories here, I was most surprised that Urzidil's work had not been translated into English before. I could hardly put The Last Bell down; the stories are varied and strange, but all are beguiling, and the translation is beautifully fluid. Urzidil's writing is intelligent and interestingly sculpted, and I very much look forward to reading more of his work in future.
vg2's review
3.0
I very much enjoyed the first, and title, story in this collection, but found the others rather more lacklustre.
joecam79's review
4.0
One does not escape from despair, hopelessness, suicide by demonstrating with great diligence and accuracy how nauseating, shallow, stale and fruitless all our actions are, but by trying to believe in life by virtue of the absurd
This extract, taken from an essay he wrote in 1965, is a good indication of the writing philosophy of Czech author Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970). In his introduction to this anthology of five short stories, translator David Burnett compares Urzidil's style with that of his friend Kafka, bringing out the contrast between Kafka's "quintessentially tortured soul" and Urzidil's writing, which "exudes a sense of certainty, the warmth of a well-ordered universe". Reading this comment, one might be forgiven for expecting this anthology to provide mere escapist fare. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the stories centres around outcasts - individuals whose decisions trigger disastrous consequences which they could never have predicted. And the personal woes of these characters are looked at squarely in the face and presented as a reflection of the wider human predicament - that messy thing called Life.
Take the narrator of "The Last Bell". She is a maid who has an unexpected windfall when her employers, a Jewish couple, flee the Nazi occupation, leaving her mistress of their apartment and all their worldly goods. Unsurprisingly, her joys are short-lived and her tragedy becomes symbolic of all the victims of Nazi barbarity. (Urzidil himself fled to England after the German occupation in 1939, eventually settling in the United States). In "The Duchess of Albanera", the protagonist is an introvert who, uncharacteristically acting upon an unexplained impulse, steals a portrait from a gallery, blissfully unaware (until too late) that this act of folly has torn the gallery guard's family asunder. What starts as a surreal romp ends with a philosophical meditation about a world peopled by the "guilty-innocent and the innocent-guilty".
So what is it that makes Urzidil's writing so life-affirming? For starters, there's the humour which always bubbles right beneath the surface. It is a humour which can also be dark and bleak, but is rarely cynical and never cruel. It is difficult to dislike Urzidil's mumbling, fumbling, bumbling protagonists - they might be figures of fun but their portrayal is always sympathetic. There's also a humanity to his characters - even the most heartless of them (for instance the Nazi officials of "The Last Bell") are never mere caricatures.
Two of the stories featured in this anthology - "Borderland" and "Where the Valley Ends" - and part of a third - "Siegelmann's Journeys" - are set in the forests of Bohemia at an unspecified period prior to the two World Wars. It is a timeless, fairytale backdrop which owes much to German/Austrian Romanticism. Indeed, Urzidil himself makes explicit reference to the works of [a:Adalbert Stifter|13018|Adalbert Stifter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360683479p2/13018.jpg] and I was reminded of the mysterious, magical atmosphere of [b:The Jews' Beech|6106708|The Jews' Beech|Annette von Droste-Hülshoff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328707364s/6106708.jpg|1084231]. "Where the Valley Ends" is a cautionary tale about the theft of a cheesecake which brings about discord between the two small communities on either bank of the river. Typically, what appears a rather banal premise becomes an excuse for conceptual ruminations about justice and peace: Nothing makes a just man more sad than complete triumph, since he knows how convoluted justice and injustice are at bottom, and that even the most righteous person has only half a case before God... In "Borderland" - a story praised by [a:Hermann Hesse|1113469|Hermann Hesse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499981916p2/1113469.jpg] on its publication - Urzidil skirts the supernatural with a portrayal of a "magnetic" girl who seems to be able to commune with Nature, until the awakening of her sexuality. It is a universal, mythical theme - redolent of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, or Enkidu's loss of innocence in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story will haunt me for a long time.
A final thought - English is often hailed as a modern-day lingua franca, a language which acts as a bridge across the globe. Yet, there are deserving authors who seem to fall through the cracks. It is sobering to discover that Urzidil's stories have been translated from German into Czech, Spanish, French and Italian but this is the first-ever collection of his work to be published in English. So kudos to translator David Burnett and Pushkin Press for bringing these little gems to a wider public, and in such an attractive edition to boot.
4.5*
This extract, taken from an essay he wrote in 1965, is a good indication of the writing philosophy of Czech author Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970). In his introduction to this anthology of five short stories, translator David Burnett compares Urzidil's style with that of his friend Kafka, bringing out the contrast between Kafka's "quintessentially tortured soul" and Urzidil's writing, which "exudes a sense of certainty, the warmth of a well-ordered universe". Reading this comment, one might be forgiven for expecting this anthology to provide mere escapist fare. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of the stories centres around outcasts - individuals whose decisions trigger disastrous consequences which they could never have predicted. And the personal woes of these characters are looked at squarely in the face and presented as a reflection of the wider human predicament - that messy thing called Life.
Take the narrator of "The Last Bell". She is a maid who has an unexpected windfall when her employers, a Jewish couple, flee the Nazi occupation, leaving her mistress of their apartment and all their worldly goods. Unsurprisingly, her joys are short-lived and her tragedy becomes symbolic of all the victims of Nazi barbarity. (Urzidil himself fled to England after the German occupation in 1939, eventually settling in the United States). In "The Duchess of Albanera", the protagonist is an introvert who, uncharacteristically acting upon an unexplained impulse, steals a portrait from a gallery, blissfully unaware (until too late) that this act of folly has torn the gallery guard's family asunder. What starts as a surreal romp ends with a philosophical meditation about a world peopled by the "guilty-innocent and the innocent-guilty".
So what is it that makes Urzidil's writing so life-affirming? For starters, there's the humour which always bubbles right beneath the surface. It is a humour which can also be dark and bleak, but is rarely cynical and never cruel. It is difficult to dislike Urzidil's mumbling, fumbling, bumbling protagonists - they might be figures of fun but their portrayal is always sympathetic. There's also a humanity to his characters - even the most heartless of them (for instance the Nazi officials of "The Last Bell") are never mere caricatures.
Two of the stories featured in this anthology - "Borderland" and "Where the Valley Ends" - and part of a third - "Siegelmann's Journeys" - are set in the forests of Bohemia at an unspecified period prior to the two World Wars. It is a timeless, fairytale backdrop which owes much to German/Austrian Romanticism. Indeed, Urzidil himself makes explicit reference to the works of [a:Adalbert Stifter|13018|Adalbert Stifter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360683479p2/13018.jpg] and I was reminded of the mysterious, magical atmosphere of [b:The Jews' Beech|6106708|The Jews' Beech|Annette von Droste-Hülshoff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328707364s/6106708.jpg|1084231]. "Where the Valley Ends" is a cautionary tale about the theft of a cheesecake which brings about discord between the two small communities on either bank of the river. Typically, what appears a rather banal premise becomes an excuse for conceptual ruminations about justice and peace: Nothing makes a just man more sad than complete triumph, since he knows how convoluted justice and injustice are at bottom, and that even the most righteous person has only half a case before God... In "Borderland" - a story praised by [a:Hermann Hesse|1113469|Hermann Hesse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499981916p2/1113469.jpg] on its publication - Urzidil skirts the supernatural with a portrayal of a "magnetic" girl who seems to be able to commune with Nature, until the awakening of her sexuality. It is a universal, mythical theme - redolent of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, or Enkidu's loss of innocence in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story will haunt me for a long time.
A final thought - English is often hailed as a modern-day lingua franca, a language which acts as a bridge across the globe. Yet, there are deserving authors who seem to fall through the cracks. It is sobering to discover that Urzidil's stories have been translated from German into Czech, Spanish, French and Italian but this is the first-ever collection of his work to be published in English. So kudos to translator David Burnett and Pushkin Press for bringing these little gems to a wider public, and in such an attractive edition to boot.
4.5*
More...