Around the World in 80 Books: the sixth leg

Last night, my visiting mother raised a perfect French brow and asked me, "Zo... you 'ave not put up a blerg* since June, non?"** I realised, with horror, that she was right, and set out immediately to rectify this terrible fact. Since there's only fifty-six-ish days left to complete my journey around the world, I reasoned that enough procrastination was enough, and it was time to dust off my passport and leave Austria for less... sadomasochistic climes.

So here I am, in merry, merry Germany!

Sixth stop: Germany

Book: The Complete Tales, by The Brothers Grimm

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This is a wonderful book, for hundreds of reasons that have doubtless been written about almost exhaustively by better men than I. But reading to myself from the big hardback marbled edition that I had as a child, and reading the stories aloud to my daughter, I was struck again by the bleakness and warmth, the completeness and the sketchiness, the horror and the comedy of each story. I will always, always love the many variations of the brothers turned into birds with only their youngest sibling to save them, or the wisdom of the girls who defeat witches to save their lover, or the brave young women who live as bears to avoid the cruelty and idiocy of their families (believe me, if bears were in my neighbourhood, I would have been on that bearskin train many, many times over the years). I love that the moon is cold and smells 'manflesh' when approached, or that the stars sit kindly on little stools; I love that a mouse, a bird and a sausage set up house together (very successfully, I'll have you know); I love that being the last-born tended to mean either a glorious long life or a brutal early death (not that death meant the end of communication with the living, of course, especially not if you were a headless infant). I'm still delighted by the imagination of these tales, that almost entirely formed my world view and still influence my reading tastes.

Conclusions as a traveller:

Don't marry a woman who's already been married. Sorry. Or at the very least, keep her away from your kids. Orrrr... take your children to the local palace? They'll probably fare pretty well with the king (as long as he doesn't have a mean servant). Oh, and if an old lady asks for your help, do it. She'll almost certainly give you a table that's always full of food/a donkey that vomits gold/a dress made of stars. Either that or she'll try to eat you.

 

Sam the Copywriter

*blerg = French for 'blog'

**accent may owe more to 'Allo 'Allo than actual speaking mannerisms

Comments

[Gilbert]

I went to Germany once

[Ákos]

Dear Sam,

I was a bit disappointed when I saw that you took the wrong turn and went from Austria to Germany instead of my native Hungary. Should you decide to stop by later, I can recommend Tibor Fischer's 'Under the frog' (available on the Penguin list) or 'Life is a Dream' by Gyula Krudy (forthcoming in Penguin).

The latter is a true Hungarian classic while the former is a personal (fictional) account of post-war Hungary and the 1956 revolution from the pen of a semi-outsider (originally written in English).

Keep up the good work,

[John]

What's this blogging business all about then? It's pretty kerazy if you ask me. Like, people, who, like, write stuff about stuff they want to write about. What's the game? If I wrote a blog I would write a blog about my gob. My gob is so big I could fit a rubber brick in it. Wanna bet?

[Rudolf Ledermensch]

Gesundheit. I am liking the blog of thischen booken called unt the Grimms Tales whisch I am reading to my childrens Hans and Gubelbubelschnubel. But I am not understandinglisch the 'bleakness' you ich blogging about 'Sam the Copywriter'. Vot isch this? Bleak knees? Black ness? Isch black ness monsterunsch?