A quotation from Stefan Zweig’s Confusion

And so it was that the two of us, out of a shared and confused hatred, performed an act that looked like love, but while our bodies sought each other and came together we were both thinking and speaking of him all the time, of nothing but him. Sometimes what she said hurt me, and I was ashamed to be involved with what I disliked. But my body no longer obeyed my will, and instead wildly sought its own pleasure. Shuddering, I kissed the lips which were betraying the person I most loved.

—another quotation from Stefan Zweig’s Confusion, in honor of its publication day. It was reviewed last week in the blog The Mookse and the Gripes, if you are interested read it here.

Publication Day for Stefan Zweig’s Confusion

‘All phenomena, all humanity is to be recognized only in its fiery form, only in passion. For the intellect arises from the blood, thought from passion, passion from enthusiasm—so look at Shakespeare and his kind first, for they alone will make you young people genuinely young! Enthusiasm first, then diligence—enthusiasm giving you the finest, most extreme and greatest tutorial in the world, before you turn to studying the words.’

—from Stefan Zweig’s Confusion, which publishes today. The speech is made by a professor of English language and literature at a university in a provincial German town. His student, the protagonist has spent his first semester philandering in Berlin, and has been sent to a smaller town to dedicate himself to his studies. We also think it’s a pretty good introduction to the themes in all of Zweig’s works.

It’s pub day for Taka-chan and I! Taka-chan is the story of a dog, Runcible, who somehow digs his way from a beach in Cape Cod to the coast of Japan. There he meets Taka-chan, a young girl imprisoned by a sea dragon because her father and the the other fishermen no longer give proper respect and rice balls to sea dragons. Runcible, ever a loyal Weimaraner, decides that we will help Taka-chan complete the sea dragon’s task and gain her freedom. Betty Jean Lifton, who wrote the text, and Eikoh Hosoe, a renowned Japanese photographer, worked together to create this wonderful children’s book (originally published in 1967), and we wanted to share the above image from the meeting of Runcible and Taka-chan.

Pub day for Nescio’s ‘Amsterdam Stories’

We are thrilled to be publishing Nescio’s Amsterdam Stories, translated into English from the Dutch for the first time by Damion Searls. Nescio, Latin for “I don’t know,” was the pen name for J.H.F. Grönloh, a businessman with the Holland-Bombay Trading Company and father of four. No surprise then that he did not write much, only a series of short stories and novellas totaling roughly 160 pages. And it was only after World War II that he became truly celebrated in his home country, where he is now read widely in high school and has an Amsterdam bridge named after him. To celebrate we wanted to share the first paragraphs of ‘The Freeloader’ (‘De uitvreter’), the first novella in our original collection:

Except for the man who thought Sarphatistraat was the most beautiful place in Europe, I’ve never met anyone more peculiar than the freeloader.
       The freeloader you found lying in your bed with his dirty shoes on when you came home late; the freeloader who smoked your cigars and filled his pipe with your tobacco and burned your coal and peered into your cupboards and borrowed your money and wore out your shoes and took your coat when he had to go home in the rain. The freeloader who always ordered in someone else’s name, who sat and drank jenever like a prince at the outdoor tables of the Hollandais on other people’s tabs, who borrowed umbrellas and never brought them back, who heated Bavink’s secondhand stove until it cracked, who wore his brother’s double collars and loaned out Appi’s books, and took trips abroad whenever he’d hit up his old man for money again, and wore suits he never paid for.

Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories

Today is the publication date for Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, a collection of his early stories, with some later ones as well, set in Berlin where he followed his elder brother in 1905, translated by Susan Bernofsky and others including Christopher Middleton. We thought we’d share the first story in the book, titled “Good Morning, Giantess!”:

It’s as if a giantess were shaking her curls and sticking one leg out
of bed when—early in the morning, before even the electric trams
are running, and driven by some duty or other—you venture out
into the metropolis. Cold and white the streets lie there, like outstretched human arms; you trot along, rubbing your hands, and
watch people coming out of the gates and doorways of their buildings,
as though some impatient monster were spewing out warm,
flaming saliva. You encounter eyes as you walk along like this: girls’
eyes and the eyes of men, mirthless and gay; legs are trotting behind
and before you, and you too are legging along as best you can, gazing
with your own eyes, glancing the same glances as everyone else. And
each breast bears some somnolent secret, each head is haunted by
some melancholy or inspiring thought. Splendid, splendid.

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Publication Day for Georges Simenon’s Act of Passion

Today we are publishing Georges Simenon’s Act of Passion and wanted to share the opening lines of the novel:

“Monsieur Ernest Coméliau
Examining Magistrate
22 bis Rue de Seine
Paris (VII)

Your Honor:

I should like one man, just one, to understand me. And I would like that man to be you.

We spent many long hours together during all the weeks of preliminary investigations. But at that time it was too soon. You were a judge, you were my judge, and I would have seemed to be trying to justify myself. But now you know, don’t you? it has nothing to with that?

I have no idea what your impression was when you came into the courtroom—familiar to you, of course. As for me, how well I remember your arrival! I was alone between my two guards. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and the twilight was beginning to gather in clouds, as it were, around the courtroom.

It was one of the reporters—their table was near the prisoner’s dock—it was a reporter, as I say, first complained to his neighbor that it was getting too dark to see clearly. The neighbor spoke to the journalist next to him, a rather sloppily dressed old man with cynical eyes, probably a habitué of the law courts. I don’t know whether I am mistaken, but I think he was the one who wrote in his paper that I looked like a toad in ambush.

Perhaps this is why I wonder what impression I made upon you. Our dock—that is, the prisoner’s dock—is so low that only the head can be seen above it. It was therefore perfectly natural to keep my chin resting on my hands. I have a wide face, much too wide, which gets shiny easily. But why a toad? To make his readers laugh? Through pure malice? Because he didn’t like my looks?”