Werner Bergengruen (1892–1964)

Already clearly nostalgic (occasionally overly so) when it was written 85 years ago, a series of short stories set in Tallinn regarding death and how it's dealt with in a world where, with history always right around the corner and the "old" Europe rapidly becoming something different, there's no clear boundary between the living and the dead. The citizens of then-Reval, Germans, Russians, Estonians and Swedes, from the highest to the lowest, finding themselves faced with the very physical show more manifestation of their mortality, a dead body.

And it's funny. The sort of funny that doesn't necessarily dismiss what's important, just puts it in perspective. The old woman running a perpetually empty home for people who are accidentally buried alive, the eel fisher (hello, Grass!) who "forgets" to report the death of his wife since she's such good bait, the homeless man who keeps a dead woman company since she's only using a fraction of the warm bed... All passing through, and long gone by the time it's written down, but all the more alive for it. show less

Der Tod von Reval is a collection of short stories about death and Tallinn (Reval is an older German name for the city). It starts off with the long, but true story of the Duke of Croÿ, who died in debt as a war captive in the city and is refused burial, only to have his mummy become a major tourist attraction. Another favorite is "Schneider und sein Obelisk" ("Schneider and his Obelisk") in which a series of husbands and wives are buried around an obelisk. There's also the story of a show more doctor who worries about people presumed dead and buried alive and leaves a bequest to found a hostel for them near the cemetery, the tale of an Estonian fisherman who finally finds a use for his no-good drunk of a wife one winter, and a warning about the dangers of Grappa.

But my all time favorite is "Die gelbe Totenvorreitersche" ("The Yellow Funeral Procession Leader") where the widow of a soldier in the Russian army who died on a far off front in the Caucasus or Turkey, decides to repay whomever buried her husband by leading every funeral procession regardless of ethnicity or religion to the final resting place. She wears a yellow jacket because it is what she had, being a poor widow, but in time it becomes her trademark. But when it's her turn to go to the cemetery, who will lead her procession?

Unfortunately, this book never seems to have been translated into English, which is a shame, because it is one of my absolute favorites. But if you read German, it's definitely worth seeking out.


Quote of the Book: "Der Obelisk hatte, wie es ja der Natur eines Obeliskes entspricht, vier Seiten. Wäre das Grabmal ein Dekaeder oder ein Dodekaeder oder sonst ein Polyeder gewesen, so müsste diese Geschichte wohl noch lange forterzählt werden." (p. 133)

"The obelisk had, as is the nature of an obelisk, four sides. If the grave marker had been a decahedron or a dodecahedron or a polyhedron, then this story would probably still have to be continued for a while." show less

Finest German Prose about the legends around the House of Rodenstein, whose ultimate son and heir died in the seventeenth century. The castle ruin of the ancestral seat can still be visited in the thick Forest of Odes, which is, like Spessart or Black Forest, due to its dense vegetation unique in Europe. These regions have always been abundant with sagas and ghost stories.

from the French by Arthur Mitchell