Suhrkamp is re-issuing the great Arno Schmidt's translation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's What Will He Do with It ? ('Was wird er damit machen ?') !
Check out their publicity page, which includes the absolute best tag-line I've come across in ages:
All joking aside: how cool is it that an author would turn to translating obscure (but very wordy -- i.e. time-consuming) nineteenth-century fiction to recuperate from his fiction-writing adventures ? (Okay, yeah, also: how depressing, that he was doing this for the money -- that translation was a more dependable cash cow than fiction-writing .....)
Pre-order your copy at Amazon.de (hey, I'm tempted to, by the promise of the never-before-published Schmidtian marginalia !).
As longtime reader know, I'm not only a huge Schmidt fan, but also a Bulwer-Lytton-devotee (I've read pretty much everything he's written -- and that's a lot (over ten thousand pages)) -- but pretty much all of it before I started the site, so the only Bulwer-related titles under review are biographical ones, e.g. Leslie Mitchell's Bulwer Lytton.
Amazon lists many editions of What Will He Do with It ? but they're pretty much all self-published public-domain editions (i.e. of questionable production-value). Rather than holding your breath until Penguin Classics finally get around to him I'd suggest you build up your collection like I did: as one of the bestselling authors of the nineteenth century there are a lot of old volumes floating around pretty cheaply in the used books market, and you should have no trouble finding this one (probably in multiple volumes -- it's long, even by his standards). And for those desperate souls willing to read an electronic version, check out, for example, the Internet Archive edition
Meanwhile, if you're only up for a shorter introduction to Arno Schmidt -- or Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for that matter; he gets a lot of coverage here too -- why haven't you checked out my Arno Schmidt: a centennial colloquy ?
Everyone needs a copy ! -- and if not a personal copy, why haven't you nudged your university or public library to get a copy for wider perusal ? (The library at Duke seems to be the only one so far .....)
(Get your copy at Amazon.com, or on Kindle, or at Amazon.co.uk (etc.), or see the Goodreads page, etc. etc.)
Check out their publicity page, which includes the absolute best tag-line I've come across in ages:
Das Buch, mit dem Arno Schmidt sich von Zettel's Traum erholte.The joke being that translating a 1400-page work might be an appropriate restorative exercise for an author who just completed the monumental (and even wordier) Zettel's Traum.
[The book with which Arno Schmidt recuperated from Bottom's Dream.]
All joking aside: how cool is it that an author would turn to translating obscure (but very wordy -- i.e. time-consuming) nineteenth-century fiction to recuperate from his fiction-writing adventures ? (Okay, yeah, also: how depressing, that he was doing this for the money -- that translation was a more dependable cash cow than fiction-writing .....)
Pre-order your copy at Amazon.de (hey, I'm tempted to, by the promise of the never-before-published Schmidtian marginalia !).
As longtime reader know, I'm not only a huge Schmidt fan, but also a Bulwer-Lytton-devotee (I've read pretty much everything he's written -- and that's a lot (over ten thousand pages)) -- but pretty much all of it before I started the site, so the only Bulwer-related titles under review are biographical ones, e.g. Leslie Mitchell's Bulwer Lytton.
Amazon lists many editions of What Will He Do with It ? but they're pretty much all self-published public-domain editions (i.e. of questionable production-value). Rather than holding your breath until Penguin Classics finally get around to him I'd suggest you build up your collection like I did: as one of the bestselling authors of the nineteenth century there are a lot of old volumes floating around pretty cheaply in the used books market, and you should have no trouble finding this one (probably in multiple volumes -- it's long, even by his standards). And for those desperate souls willing to read an electronic version, check out, for example, the Internet Archive edition
Meanwhile, if you're only up for a shorter introduction to Arno Schmidt -- or Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for that matter; he gets a lot of coverage here too -- why haven't you checked out my Arno Schmidt: a centennial colloquy ?
Everyone needs a copy ! -- and if not a personal copy, why haven't you nudged your university or public library to get a copy for wider perusal ? (The library at Duke seems to be the only one so far .....)
(Get your copy at Amazon.com, or on Kindle, or at Amazon.co.uk (etc.), or see the Goodreads page, etc. etc.)