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Michael Kohlhaas (Art of the Novella) by…
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Michael Kohlhaas (Art of the Novella) (original 1810; edition 2005)

by Heinrich Von Kleist

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8202526,509 (3.64)59
Michael Kohlhaas has been wronged. First his finest horses were unfairly confiscated and mistreated. And things keep going worse--his servants have been beaten, his wife killed, and the lawsuits he pursues are stymied--but Kohlhaas, determined to find justice at all costs, tirelessly persists. Standing up against the bureaucratic machine of the empire, Kohlhaas becomes an indomitable figure that you can't help rooting for from start to finish. Knotty, darkly comical, magnificent in its weirdness, and one of the greatest and most influential tales in German literature, this short novel, first published in German in 1810, is now available in award-winning Michael Hofmann's sparkling new English translation.… (more)
Member:LizzySiddal
Title:Michael Kohlhaas (Art of the Novella)
Authors:Heinrich Von Kleist
Info:Melville House (2005), Paperback, 124 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***
Tags:german, C18, translation, in 2007, fiction, read 2008

Work Information

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist (Author) (1810)

  1. 10
    Njal's Saga by Anonymous (andejons)
    andejons: Both are stories dealing with legal procedure and violence.
  2. 00
    Ragtime: A Novel by E. L. Doctorow (Stbalbach)
    Stbalbach: Doctorow called his book "a quite deliberate hommage" (sic) to Kleist's story.
  3. 00
    The Lucky Mill by Ioan Slavici (Stbalbach)
    Stbalbach: Both about a merchant alone in the wilderness who is abused by local strongmen, oppressed by a corrupt government, and seeks justice through violence.
  4. 00
    Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (thorold)
    thorold: Rob Roy MacGregor and Michael Kohlhaas are both peaceful traders who turn to outlawry as a reaction to the abuse of feudal power. Scott certainly knew about Kleist's novella when he wrote Rob Roy.
  5. 00
    The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer (spiphany)
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» See also 59 mentions

English (19)  German (3)  Swedish (1)  Italian (1)  All languages (24)
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
Set sometime in the early Renaissance, Michael Kohlhaas is a horse trader who finds himself unfairly (he believes) required to pay a toll. When he contests the toll, his horses are confiscated, and things go from bad to worse as Kohlhaas goes to further and further extremes to seek justice, to the extent that soon the whole country is up in arms.

The book has been described as a portrait of a man "in the Hell of unsatisfied vengeance," beset by "bureaucratic obstacles and governmental corruptions," and is said to have influenced Kafka. Its story illustrates how all out combat can result from the most petty of personal disputes in a fanatical quest for justice.

Even though the book was short, I did not find it an easy read. The backs and forths of the machinations of both sides were not always so easy to follow, though the frustrations experienced by Kohlhaas are clearly conveyed. Read it if you are trying to check some books off the 1001 list, but although it is highly critically praised as being extremely influential, it is not a book I would categorize as "must read."

3 stars ( )
  arubabookwoman | Dec 28, 2023 |
Early Kafka, but (even) more comedic and severe (in the sense that these innumerable functionaries actually exist), though tarnished by a "magic Gypsy" subplot and the narrative imperfection which brings back those schwarz horses in our final scene. ( )
1 vote Joe.Olipo | Sep 19, 2023 |
On the surface this is a story of Michael Kohlhaas's run in with the political characters of his country. He is first taken advantage of and when he seeks justice he receives anything but justice. The other level that this is written from is regarding Napoleon and it is written in this veiled manner to avoid persecution for his writing. The story is basically realistic until toward then end when he has a piece of paper from a gypsy character that reportedly has a prophecy against one of Kohlhaas's tormentors which the man wants to get his hands on. It is a bit of supernatural with all the harsh realism that gives some home to a very harsh ending. ( )
  Kristelh | Feb 6, 2022 |
Interesting novella. Seeking justice for a wrong, circumstances and his own extreme actions get away from the main character. The bureaucracy and rulers of various German principalities presented. Supposedly darkly comic in spots, I missed that. I don't know if the author's original German was made up of such knotty sentences, but it was difficult to read. I enjoyed it anyhow. ( )
  janerawoof | May 12, 2020 |
Just back from a long train journey, I took the opportunity to read Michael Kohlhaas in German. I can't imagine this text in English; it somehow seems simultaneously modern, and of the time in which the story is set. The actual language hardly intrudes at all, but there are particular words or phrases whose recurrance or juxtaposition hints at darker, hidden meaning; horrible things are described with equanimity, but there is always just a hint of deeper feeling beneath the surface. The foreword coins the phrase "anti-rhetoric"- a deliberate toning down of the descriptive passages, in order to focus attention on single moments, character's reactions, or a gesture.

Anyone who cannot find happiness on earth is unlikely to find it at the book fair either. If we imagine Heinrich von Kleist in one of the trade-fair halls, if only for a second, then that famous sentence comes to mind that Kleist wrote to his brother-in-law: „I ask God for death, and you I ask for money." There is no more concise and drastic a way of describing the drama of the artist twixt a wish for salvation and a fear of impoverishment, between transcendence and dull life in the here and now, the poet's soul tossed hither and thither.

Back in he day, I remember as many as three biographies attempting to shed light on the Kleist phenomenon. Brief, sound and with pointed quill, the effort by Herbert Kraft („Kleist". Live and Works, Aschendoff Verlag), while Jens Bisky declares Kleist with great passion and stylistic verve to be the „greatest German political poet" and tries to show in what delicate constellations the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution found their way into Kleist's life and works. Gerhard Schulz is interested more in the life than the work, („Kleist". A Biography, C. H. Beck), treating this and that enigma in the poet's biography, such as the nebulous trip to Würzburg, as mere balloons: Easily he deflates them. For all the cold logic as regards the details of Kleist's life, Gerhard Schulz preserves his respect for the secrets of poet's life as a whole. ( )
  antao | Aug 30, 2018 |
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
Heinrich von Kleist’s novella, based on a true story and first published in full in 1810, has now been freshly translated into English by Michael Hofmann – the closest we have to a celebrity translator. It deserves to attract a new generation of obsessives.
added by Nevov | editThe Observer, John Self (Sep 5, 2021)
 

» Add other authors (37 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Kleist, Heinrich vonAuthorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Ågren, ErikTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dorowin, HermannEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hofmann, MichaelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lützeler, Paul MichaelAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sahre, PaulCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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3458358889 2012 softcover German insel taschenbuch 4188
3458798706 2012 eBook German insel taschenbuch 4188
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Michael Kohlhaas has been wronged. First his finest horses were unfairly confiscated and mistreated. And things keep going worse--his servants have been beaten, his wife killed, and the lawsuits he pursues are stymied--but Kohlhaas, determined to find justice at all costs, tirelessly persists. Standing up against the bureaucratic machine of the empire, Kohlhaas becomes an indomitable figure that you can't help rooting for from start to finish. Knotty, darkly comical, magnificent in its weirdness, and one of the greatest and most influential tales in German literature, this short novel, first published in German in 1810, is now available in award-winning Michael Hofmann's sparkling new English translation.

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