This quotation from the introduction by Michael Hofmann, poet and translator of four Roth novels, highlights both the delights and limitations of this book. Like the Radetzky March, it has all the ingredients for a greatly exciting read and touches on all aspects of society in the Austro-Hungarian empire--worlds of the court, the army, journalism, night life, the law, popular entertainment, and even prostitution. Unlike the Radetzky March, however, it is sketchy, and doesn't draw you into the action or involve you with the characters. There's a curious disconnect between the characters and the reader, akin in many ways to the disconnect between most of the characters and each other, perhaps because there are many of them in this short novel, and perhaps because Roth himself felt disconnected, living in exile and dying of alcoholism at the time he wrote it.

The visit of the Shah of Persia and his one-night-stand with a young Viennese woman provide fertile ground for wonderful dialogue and lyrical descriptions, but the characters are like exhibits in the wax museum which plays a part in the conclusion of the novel. In short, this novel is intriguing primarily for its detailed and exacting recreation of an historical context, but its large scope and small size act as barriers to reader involvement.

I enjoyed this book very much. Roth is a much under appreciated author today and his style of writing is as modern as anyone's. While the plot meanders along a trite line, the heart of all Roth's work is the Austro-Hungarian Empire and all it's failings in morals, people and politics. This, along with Roth's Radetzky March, and you will have all you'll ever need to know about that important era.

The editorial reviewers have done more justice to this beautiful book than I can. It is everything they say it is: a bittersweet delight to read.

I've had four copies of this book in my hands and all have had the same physical defect: bad binding. The glue which holds the pages to the paperback cover simply pulls away from the cover with the least pressure.

While the content of this book is excellent, this defect is a serious problem. If you buy the book, plan on gluing the cover in place yourself.

I actually obtained two copies directly from the publisher, Ariadne Press. When the first defective copy arrived, they sent another but said that the books were printed in the UK and they could not guarantee the quality. They also said this problem was possible with all of their Gustav Meyrink titles, though I've only had the problem myself with "Walpurgisnacht" and "The Deadalus/Ariadne Book of Austrian Fantasy: The Meyrink Years 1890-1930."

Walpurgisnacht might probably be considered Meyrink's most pessimistic, apocalyptic vision of the inevitable destruction of the world, of the weaknesses and foolishness of humankind.

The word "Walpurgisnacht" has its folklore roots in the concept that the night of April 30th is an evil night, one when old values are destroyed and replaced by new ones. But, in the mind of Meyrink no new values will bring salvation to the world. The novel was published in 1917, and the setting is the city of Prague during WWI. The main characters are Zrcadlo (the mirror) the solitary man who forces people to look into their own souls, and Dr. Thaddaeus the only survivor of a spiritual alchemy, the only character capable of facing his sould and taking a new direction in his life.

In his contempt for established religion, Meyrink brings forth the concept of Aweysha. Anyone who is not able to hear his own soul becomes an "aweysha," a living body whose soul has moved into another living being, a dead mirror where strange demons come and go, a wandering corpse. Defying the concept of "free will," Meyrink holds that anything a person does against his will comes from "aweysha."

Myerink was influenced by Jewish mysticism and found in the experience of the "innermost I" the salvation of the soul: "the innermost I is the source of joy, and who does not worhsip it is a servant of hell." Unfortunately, his mystical experience integrates the good and the evil alike, downgrading the soul to low moral standards.

This novel is a reflection of personal despair, a desperate search for a transcendent reality that will surpass mysticism into the esoteric.

Este Libro lo he buscado en Español y no lo he encontrado. Ahora se que puedo encontqarlo en Ingles e intentare hacerme a el. Yo heleido el Golem, El angel de la Ventana de Occidente, el Dominico Blanco y otros cuentos, elautor es impresionante com o maneja los temas de la vida cotidian y su vida de Buscador Real de la Vida . Espero tenerlo pronto.

This is a book that collects the better stories of the immensly succesfull "Cry for Dawn" series by Joseph Michael Linsner, the serie that was the breakthrough for Linsner and the first Dawn-series. People who liked 'Dawn' must surely pick this up (also because the original issues are near impossible to find AND darn expensive if you do find them). I personally think it's not as good as the later six-part miniseries "Dawn" (later in TPB renamed as 'Lucifers halo') but that's not a negative point, it says more about the quality of the latter series. It's still very close though.

The stories within this trade aren't related to each other, there's no continuity. The only things they have in common is that the stories center around Dawn, the goddess of life and death. Tales with a lot of symbolism and surrealism in them. It's more a collection of loose stories which are especially suitable for the Fantasy/Horror lovers.

This is great for any intellectual out there, its a compilation of the Cry for Dawn comic book series, which was writen in the end of the 80's, all black and white work, except for the cover (which has Dawn the character herself, who latter on becames a heroine in some of his comic book series) its very melancholic, somewhat depressing, very dark, but that goes with his style which is very gothic indeed, if u like gothic, you'll adore this, intelectual and with some good art work, I found it to be a classic comic book compilation, represents a side of the eighties all too well, for those who experienced the darker side of it, and for those who havent, you'll grasp some of it with this book.

This group of stories take place somewhere between fantasy and reality.

A man goes away to school and eventually becomes a history professor, losing touch with his younger brother. One day, he opens the newspaper and sees a picture of little brother, fronting a popular rock music band. Overnight, the older brother's life is turned upside down, as he goes from being an average college professor to brother of a famous rock star. A westerner living in Japan, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, watches as his innocence slowly disappears.

A woman and her fiance are eating in an [trendy] restaurant. Suddenly, she notices an older gentleman a few tables away and screams. The fiance takes her home immediately, and after a good night's sleep, it's as if the incident in the restaurant never happened. A couple of times, the woman says "I won't hurt you," for seemingly no reason at all. The object of her emotional reaction, an actor, appeared in a film a few years previously. It's about a man who befriends a little girl, takes her shopping for a doll, then drugs her, undresses her and photographs her, but otherwise doesn't harm her.

A police officer in present-day Bangkok, Thailand, after reuniting a lost boy with his frantic parents, tells of how his own son, a schizophrenic, committed suicide. Perhaps those who hear voices in their heads are the sane ones, and the rest of us, who can't hear them, are insane.

These stories are really good. Hoffman has done a fine job throughout. They are easy to read, with real people as characters and are highly recommended.

The Empty Cafe is a collection of short stories by a writer I (and probably you) had never heard of - Michael Hoffman. The first impression you get as you read is how musical and flowing the prose is. The second is of being in a strange place without being able to put your finger on where exactly the strangeness lies - everything is familiar, and at the same time not. I would have to - and I plan to - read the book again before I try to explain how the author achieves this effect - if in fact this is an effect he has sought to achieve. A family touring Bangkok suddenly loses their son - has he vanished down a manhole, or what? A staid, up and coming professor opens the paper one Sunday to find his much younger brother transformed into a grotesque, wildly popular rock star. A foreigner living in Japan is accused of assaulting a young girl. The accusation is false. So why is he (as he seems to be) guilty? A cafe waitress has had every experience there is to have except one: she hasn't seduced her kid brother, and she seems to want to. Where does the author think he's taking us?
The final story in the collection is a novella entitled Solitude. It is a murder story, but no detective could ever possibly solve it. I came across this book by chance, and found myself getting into it as I idly skimmed. I haven't decided yet if it is profound or pseudo-profound. I'm still thinking about it.

flesh and the word 3 is an excellent book about all the different nuances and possibilities of gay sex and erotics. it combines stories of the realistic tradition with stories of a more experimentalist or postmodern type. the whole range of american contemporary fiction is in a way combined with passion, erotics and obsessions. anybody interested in reading and interested in sex between men, should absolutely possess this book.

As a good book that reaches a broad range of tastes in gay sex this is a good buy for the collector of anthologies. Some of the stories are wildly erotic and some are less that desiring, but overall the book contains quality stories. I strongly suggest it to an adventurer or the collector.

The Hothouse is a not uninteresting little book, but claims of an unearthed classic are premature, and Koeppen was never the greatest living German writer at any time. It was obviously written both hastily and inconsistently, and the stream-of-consciousness portions, italicized so that you'll know where you are, show up Koeppen as a superficial and immature reader of Joyce. The book is as successful as it is because of its chosen subject -- the first shaky steps at forming a stable new government after World War II. There should be a wealth of great novels to choose from on this theme, but there aren't, since most post-WWII West German writers concerned themselves with the psychic fallout from the war, while the East German writers indulged in naive socialist drivel. Koeppen, by default, gets his niche.

Keetenheuve is an idealistic politician who, shattered at not being shattered enough by the death of his young wife, and not caring much about life anymore, prepares for a vote in the Bundestag where, no longer afraid, he'll speak out for complete disarmament for his country, because -- and this quote encapsulates perfectly how the overly chastened artists in Germany thought until the Berlin Wall fell -- "the defeated have the moral advantage." Or will he? The translator Michael Hofmann compares him to Hamlet, whereas I'd say he's pretty transparently patterned after Nietzsche, another hyperpatriot mistaken for a turncoat just because he scorns the status quo. His Dutch last name, cleverly, links him to another internal dissenter -- Ludwig van Beethoven.

Not being very political, though I know more about German history than my own country's, this is where the book is most enjoyable -- these little allusions. All along, Koeppen drops sly references to classical German literature and music, from the opening line of The Metamorphosis, to a metaphor drawn from Kleist's Penthesilea, to lyrics from Das Rheingold, and on and on and on. This, too, is patchwork Joyce, with Teutonic references subbing for Anglo ones. It's also nowhere near as detailed and exhaustive as Dubliners, let alone the world-containing Finnegans Wake. But if you have an affinity for German literature then playing spot-the-homage will provide you with many minutes of fun.

Ultimately, after a questionable episode involving two lesbians from the Salvation Army and a bunch of symbolic mannequins, which must have been plucked out of a bad first draft of Steppenwolf, Koeppen chooses to end the book in the most unsatisfactory way possible. It's a complete copout and proves once again, if more proof were needed, that German writers would to a man rather bellyache and spew bile over everything than offer anything resembling an answer. Even an open-ended conclusion would have been preferable, as in a Thomas Bernhard novel -- who, by the way, writes with much the same intensity as Koeppen but is infinitely more hopeful just by dint of his very unceasing desperation, his continual churning out of more and more books. The Hothouse is thin and underconceived and, ultimately, strictly for history buffs and German literature students.

reminiscent of hermann broch at his most accessible, this is marvelous to read, original thoughts popping up again and again and again. the wolfgang koeppen revival is certainly justified.

I must admit I fist pickes it up becuase I was intrigued by the title... Who wouldn't be? Some of the stories are longer then others but none of them exceed 30 pages. I liked that at the end of all the stories, the authors gave a meaningful explination of the story then there was a short bio about that author that you would most likely find on the jacket of one of their books.

I would highly recommened this if you are a fan of any of the authors in the book or even if not, Love & Sex could get you totally hooked on someone new.

"Love and Sex" is a collection of (very) short stories for teens. Each of the ten stories approaches a different aspect of love and/or sex and all the protagonists are teens. The first story is about a girl who wants to wait until marriage for sex -- which may put off teens from reading the other stories which are MUCH more focused on sex itself. As the parent of a teen, I squirmed at much of the material -- graphic and lurid at times (which should keep the teens' attention) but all of which will let each reader know that he/she is not alone in concerns about sex and relationships. Various types of attractions are covered including homosexual and inter-racial. Because each story is written by a different author, each has a different flavor and style. My favorite is a spooky, scf-fi type of allegory about control. All are well written with well drawn characters.

Mike Resnick assembled this collection of SF stories about Africa, or a possible Africa, or... you get the idea. Anyway, being a huge Resnick fan and interested in Africa to boot, I picked this up without knowing anything about it, a real rarity for me. I was not disappointed.
I won't give the plots of all the stories, but here are a few tantalizing themes set forth by the authors. Political: world hunger is solved - but the solution carries its own problem, in a creepy story called "Termites." Personal: two very different worlds collide briefly on a train, in "A Transect," by Kim Stanley Robinson. Epic: aliens come and steal Egypt, in "Of Space-time and the River"! Magical: a foolish tourist gets a taste of African shamanism in "Still Life With Scorpion." Poignant: In "The Quiet," George Guthridge tells of an African tribe placed in a preservation for conservation on the moon; sad and well-written. The unclassifiable: Judith Dubois' "Etoundi's Monkey" is just bizarre and very impressive. And many others...
The rating is an 8 because of some submissions that aren't great; none is an actual klunker, but a few are just okay. My main problems with these lesser stories is just that they could have been about any civilization, and the focus is supposed to be Africa. My only other complaint is that one of Resnick's two stories (both are unique and splendid as always) is a real rouser - Jesus meets the African gods! - but is a scant three pages!
This is a fine collection of science fiction with an interesting angle. Few of the authors are really big names, but don't let that sway you. Sometimes the best stories are just waiting to be discovered

This book a compendium of papers presented at a college campus in Seattle in which the works and achievement of G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis were celebrated. Interesting reading for Lewis and Chesterton fans.

I think a good ghost story is very hard to write. M.R. James makes it look easy. There are others that lay claim to the title of the Father of ghost stories, J. Sheridan LeFanu and L.P. Hartley to name but two. It is James, however, that will forever hold that title.

His are generally stories that evoke life in the 20 years either side of 1900 romantically. They tend to be stories around Cathedrals or in Scholars houses or in and around Schools where the schoolboy is sometimes included.

The reason why these stories are so good is that James judges and recreates exactly the correct amount of romance in each story that parallels the romantic notion of the ghost in every person's mind.

If I had a complaint, it would be that M.R. James' obvious intelligence (He was a professor at Cambridge University for many years) is a little too much for some. It could just be that the language of the times are different and today some words are no longer in everyday use or the style of speech has changed.

These are very minor concerns, however. The upshot is that M.R. James is and always will be the Master and this complete collection of his works is the perfect collection of ghost stories, never to be improved upon.