| Title | : | In a German Pension: 13 Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 048628719X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780486287195 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 112 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1911 |
In a German Pension: 13 Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) Reviews
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Short stories can be like photographs, catching people at some moment in their lives and trapping the memory for ever . There they are, smiling or frowning, looking sad, happy, serious, surprised ... And behind those smiles and those frowns lie all the experience of life, the fears and delights, the hopes and the dreams.
― Katherine Mansfield
Last year, I was enraptured by a collection of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories,
Something Childish But Very Natural so while reading Willem Elsschot’s
Villa des Roses, written around the same time and also set in a boarding house, Mansfield’s debut collection from 1911, In a German Pension popped up from some hidden corner of the mental bookshelf.
For these pension stories, Mansfield took inspiration from her own stay as a ‘cure guest’ in Villa Pension Müller at a Bavarian spa of Bad Wörishofen in 1909, send off there by her mother to muffle her extramarital pregnancy which would end in a miscarriage.
With demonic zest Mansfield’s sharp-witted and observant narrator, a young English woman, looks at the peculiarities and behaviour of the pension guests, many of them at the spa on account of their ‘nerves’, trenchantly depicting the gross and distasteful table manners of the German pensioners, picking teeth with a hairpin, overeating, cleaning ears with a napkin, talking about saliva, spitting cherry stones in public, repugnantly displaying the use of handkerchiefs. The narrator’s bantering commentary on the boarders’ preoccupancy with bodily functions and digestion and their unctuous attitudes is mirrored by the depreciatory and spiteful opinion which the German guests confide to the narrator vis-à-vis the odd manners of the English: “It is a great pity the English nation is so unmusical”. ‘I have never been to England’, interrupted Fräulein Sonia, ‘but I have many English acquaintances. They are so cold!’ She shivered. ‘Fish-blooded’, snapped Frau Godowska, ‘Without soul, without soul, without grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials.' ‘England is merely an island of beef flesh swimming in a warm gulf sea of gravy’. “She was like a young tree whose branches had never been touched by the ruthless hand of man. Such delicacy! Of course it is difficult for you English to understand when you are always exposing your legs on cricket fields, and breeding dogs in your back gardens. The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For myself, I do not understand how your women ever get married at all.”
After all, one ought not forget WWI is hovering over some of these stories, and Mansfield astutely bares the stereotyping in the hearts and minds of her coevals, speaking their minds openly, some lines alluding to the oncoming conflict:“I suppose you are frightened of an invasion too, eh? Oh, that’s good. I’ve been reading all about your English play in a newspaper. Did you see it?”
(Germans at Meat).
“Yes.” I sat upright. “I assure you we are not afraid.”
“Well then, you ought to be,” said the Herr Rat. “You have got no army at all – a few little boys with their veins full of nicotine poisoning.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Herr Hoffmann said. “We don’t want England. If we did we would have had her long ago. We really do not want you”.
“We certainly do not want Germany,” I said.
Fairly light-hearted and jocular as long as the pension guests are concerned, the tone and themes of the stories gradually darken, and angst, even tragedy enter. The few stories that do not focus an on the pension guests but on the villagers convey pictures of quotidian domestic cruelty, reminding us that barbarism begins at home, touching upon the deplorable plight of womanhood, the discomfiture of childbirth, the imbalance of power in the institution of marriage and its subsequent violence and exploitation and the sexual and social oppression of women and girls. Lofty musings on conformist femininity and love are exposed as fibbing and lampooned:Whom then, asked Fräulein Elsa, looking adoringly at the Advanced Lady – “whom then do you consider the true woman?” “She is the incarnation of comprehending Love!” “But Love is not a question of lavishing”, said the Advanced Lady. “It is the lamp carried in the bosom touching with serene rays all the heights and depths of – “Darkest Africa,” I murmured flippantly.
(The Advanced Lady)
The swing of the Pendulum
Nonetheless men and women alike get a good dressing-down by Mansfield’s barbed pen, men are repulsively unhygienic and egocentric, women coquettish and wanton, like in the last two stories portraying the female protagonists as cold-hearted and calculative temptresses, taking umbrage at the men eventually succumbing to their frivolous games, like the allumeuse in Blaze when confronted with the consequences of displaying her ambivalent nature: I can’t help seeking admiration any more than a cat can help going to people to be stroked .
Depicting Germans as boorish and self-righteous, English women as silly sporty moos unlikely finding or keeping husbands and having procreation issues – in some sense reflecting her own - Mansfield’s sardonic blow-up of the mutual tribal biases are far from political correct - if that anachronism would make any sense in the context of these tales - with its irresistible vitriolicism my children found me chuckling aloud. As immature Mansfield might have considered this debut herself, a work of juvenilia that she refused to have republished during her lifetime, the stories are in spurts hilarious in their hyperbolism and razor-sharp observations, stunningly precise and incisive in its details, rich in themes and worded in effervescent and sensuous prose, full of life. Some of the stories might be less subtle and slightly more predictable than what she will write later in her so brief a life, or have not the delightful open-endedness that will characterize later stories, to me this collection was sheer delight.At the head of the centre table sat the bride and bridegroom, she in a white dress trimmed with stripes and bows of coloured ribbon, giving her appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in neat little pieces to the bridegroom beside her, who wore a suit of white clothes much too large for him and a white silk tie that rose half-way up his collar.
( Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding)
The oil paintings are from the New Zealand artist Susan Wilson, who illustrated Katherine Mansfield’s short stories for The Folio Society in 2000. -
There was a time when I had lost all interest in Jane Austen, resigned to accepting the self-assured utterances of a few male acquaintances who still continue to believe that she wrote nothing other than classical 'chick-lit'. (My ignorant, younger self hadn't thought of asking them what was wrong with 'chick lit' in the first place) But a reading of
A Room of One's Own and a re-reading of Pride & Prejudice later, I was tempted to literally beat some sense into those bluntheads (with a brick-sized omnibus edition of JA's works preferably) who had caused me to momentarily stray from my earlier path of fangirlish enthusiasm.
A female voice with a dignified sense of humor and impeccable comic timing is a rarity in the hallowed halls of literature still; a female voice with the ability to comment on the power imbalance in gender relations and small quotidian societal injustices under the veneer of wry humor even more so.
Katherine Mansfield, who put together this excellent collection of short stories nearly a century after the publication of Pride and Prejudice, reminds me of Austen in the sense that her mockery of stiff-upper-lipped high society German ladies and barons is a throwback to Austen's keen talent of zeroing in on individual character quirks and highlighting the constant need for validation through assertion of material prosperity. But this is where the parallels end.
The last few short stories in this collection astonish with their thematic depth despite their brevity. Issues of rabid sexism, domestic disharmony, marital rape, thwarted attempts at sexual assault, the bodily violence of childbirth, abuse of young children employed as servants are touched on in the subtlest of ways. These grim realities were, perhaps, not unknown to JA but who, nonetheless, steered clear of them in her romantic comedies. The fact that Mansfield wrote these stories while quietly living out the ignominy of childbearing out of wedlock in a foreign country should be kept in mind while dissecting the rather no-holds-barred approach she adopts while exposing human foibles."I suppose it's the savage pride of the female who likes to think the man to whom she has given herself must be a very great chief indeed."
It's a pity of monumental proportions that the 22-year old who wrote with such insight didn't live long enough to hone her craft to absolute perfection or to leave enough of a mark on the literary landscape of her times like her much venerated contemporaries. But then there's the consolation that she wrote at all. -
Katherine Mansfield would’ve matured to be an amazing writer if she hadn’t died at the age of 34 of tuberculosis – which quite possibly was another of the knock-on effects of the gonorrhoea she contracted from her Polish lover – Florian Sobieniowski. Was it worth it, Katherine -
http://www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/... ? Ladies, beware of men who have more consonants in their names that seems reasonable.
I know all that from the introduction to my Penguin edition written by Anne Fernihough – an introduction that was rather dense and scholarly. Too late did I realise that Hesperus produced a very pretty edition of ‘In a German Pension’ with an introduction by Linda Grant. I bet that one didn’t have moronic footnotes that explained who Wagner or Mozart were (a famous Austrian composer, apparently). I’m trying to imagine a world in which someone who has never heard of Mozart reads Katherine Mansfield's obscure short stories.
Stories collected in this volume are semi-autobiographical because Mansfield herself was sent away to a ‘German pension’ for a ‘cure’ - her affliction being getting pregnant outside of wedlock. Her semi-autobiographical narrator is stuck in the pension where she is surrounded by crass idiots. She vents her anger by writing sharply satirical portraits of them. This all is something I could very much relate to because I am, also, often angry and surrounded by idiots.
The stories, of course, touch on bigger problems than being annoyed by a dinner companion who picks his teeth and cleans his ears at the table, while talking absolute bollocks. It’s all about gender roles and sexism, and class system, and exploitation of children and sexual violence. The stories start off light and satirical but get progressively darker. Apparently they are obviously inspired by Chekhov and mock Virginia Woolf gently, which I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read either. I know, how embarrassing! What the hell! Why would I even admit to that in public?
Anyway. Mansfield was slightly embarrassed by those stories she wrote when she was 22. She called them immature and rolled her eyes at how obsessed she was with bodily functions (there is a lot of detailed bodily functions here). Quite honestly though, who isn’t embarrassed by what they produced when they were 22? And if you aren’t, then it’s probably because you haven’t developed any further and that’s nothing to be proud of. I checked my blog to see what I wrote when I was 22 and it’s bloody cringe-worthy. I can’t believe I was allowed to vote and drink alcohol – I was a complete bimbo. And I guess that’s the difference – there is no-one in the world that could read my blog from those days and not cringe, while Mansfield’s stories, even if occasionally immature, smart-ass and swaggering, are still very much readable, a hundred years later.
I changed my Tinder profile to say that I like men who read Katherine Mansfield and Dorothy Parker. I haven’t been very lucky so far. -
This is Mansfield's first published collection of short stories, and it comes from her experiences during her short time in Germany prior to 1906. She called it "immature", but you can see the promise of things to come in this collection. One story alone,
The child who was tired, makes it worth reading. -
As everybody knows
24 is the highest number, and in the same spirit there are only two women writers, Jane Austen is one, and then there is the other one.
That other one though is multifaceted.
Mansfield herself apparently regarded this collection as immature, which I suppose we can understand in many different ways. Everything from Mansfield saying 'pooh don't be impressed by these, kiddo because you ain't since anything yet, I've once started to write' before she cartwheeled down the street and black flipped into her publisher's office, down to feeling, as I did at first, that the stories were immature in the simpler sense of 'ew, other people talking about their bodies and bodily functions, totally gross and disgusting, I'm going to be alone in my room with my genius' as though she was some kind of turn of the century Adrian Mole.
I read further:
"'Do you know that poem of Sappho about her hand in the stars...I am curiously sapphic. And this is so remarkable - not only am I sapphic, I find in all the works of all the greatest writers, especially in their unedited letters, some touch, some sign of myself - some resemblance, some part of myself, like a thousand reflections of my own hands in a dark mirror.'
'But what a bother,' said I" (p.41)
and further:
"'Is it a novel?' asked Elsa shyly.
'Of course it is a novel,' said I
'How can you be so positive?' said Frau Kellermann, eyeing me severely.
'Because nothing but a novel could produce an effect like that.'
'Ach, don't quarrel,' said the Advanced lady sweetly. 'Yes it is a novel - upon the Modern Woman'" (p.82)
I felt both those passages were about Mansfield and her ambition at that stage in her brief life. From the first quotation I felt that this collection was not so much about sensitive 'English' woman meets boorish Germans before the first world war so much as Mansfield confronts herself, I recalled Virgina Woolf writing in her diary that Mansfield stank like a civet cat (from the perfume she wore), the women in these stories I felt more and more were facets of Mansfield herself, as she was, also as she might become, or have been. From the second it seemed to me that this is Mansfield's anti-manifesto. You can't, she says, come to a conclusion about 'the Modern Woman' and it is impossible to present contemporary woman in a novel because the form of the novel tends to a message and a single viewpoint. No, instead you have to smash it to understand it. Once you've smashed the mirror into enough pieces then perhaps can you begin to get a sense of the many facets of the modern woman, says the young woman from New Zealand, pregnant and hiding from English social disapproval in deepest, darkest Bavaria.
And what does she show us? Artistic pretension, rivalries with the difficult Mother, illegitimacy, sexual violence, snobbery and social exclusion, abuse, marriage as a battleground of dominance and inherent abuse, marriage as a chain of childbirths (none of which could never be personal concerns or worries for Mansfield herself, oh, no never). For Mansfield the experience of being a modern woman can not be expressed in a novel with a beginning, a middle and an end, but only in fragments, disconnected fragments offering foreboding, promise or both.
Some of these themes continue into her later fiction though with an over laying preoccupation with death, and I think, returning to the question of immaturity, with a more sophisticated use of setting, imagery and incident. But there is an intensity and sharpness here. Her child was stillborn, the stories live. -
I read this sometime in the last few years. It's an interesting collection.
"Hoo-wih!" shouted the wind, shaking the window-sashes.
...very creative! -
I realize I’m about to piss off some lovely people around here, but it can’t be helped: I dislike Virginia Woolf. A lot. The other day at the gym I was watching Family Guy on mute—yes, this is relevant—and the closed captions described a character’s unintelligible yammering as “pretentious babble.” Exactly. Pretentious babble is what I hear in my head when I read Woolf. I know what you’re thinking: “But, but—the beauty, the lyricism, the subtle nuances, the, the-" Yeah, fine, whatever. Pretentious babble. It’s just me, alright? I readily admit my mind is neither subtle nor nuanced enough to appreciate the delicate English rose that is Virginia Woolf. (Okay, if you want the truth, I had mildly positive feelings about Woolf until a girlfriend dragged me to see The Hours and I spent the whole time swallowing my own sick).
Why this apparently random and senseless attack on the grande dame of the English novel? Because I always had a preconception that Katherine Mansfield was in the same tradition of gauzy, water-coloured impressionism. But she’s not like that at all. She doesn’t do lyrical. Her prose is so astringent and vinegary you could pickle a fetus in it (or, you know, something inoffensive). And her irony: just withering—the kind of irony that shrivels everything it touches: men, women, children, and Germans. Especially Germans.
According to impeccable scholarly sources (Wikipedia), In a German Pension is largely autobiographical. As a very young woman, Mansfield found herself scandalously pregnant and was packed off to a Bavarian spa by her mother for a ‘rest cure’ (i.e. childbirth on the hush-hush). In that light, the book reads like a clever girl’s literary revenge on her circumstances. I’ll show these stupid Germans. And fuck you, mom.
Most of the pieces here are not really stories; they’re more like tart little sketches that capture a moment or a character while avoiding easy drama and cheap epiphanies. Some readers will be frustrated by the studied uneventfulness, but I’m okay with it. In my experience, a good 90% of life is just a bunch of nondescript stuff that won’t fit into a slick narrative, that isn’t even worthy of an anecdote. But clearly I need to get out more.
If the book lacks finish—Mansfield later dismissed it as “immature”—you have to remember this is the work of a twenty-two year old woman writing in 1910. The date is startling because there’s hardly a line here that couldn’t have been written yesterday. Somehow this rebellious, messed-up Kiwi chick turned herself into a modernist before there was any modernism to write home about. Just goes to show you how far a little talent and a shitload of anger can carry a person. -
“É claro que tudo isto é difícil de entender para as inglesas, quando vocês andam constantemente a mostrar as pernas nos campos de cricket e a criar cães no jardim das traseiras. (...) Parece que estávamos realmente numa péssima situação. Será que o espírito romântico só abria as suas asas rosadas sobre a Alemanha aristocrática?”
Katherine Mansfield tem uma língua afiada, e eu adoro-a por isso. Esta colecção de contos, a primeira que escreveu, data de 1911, depois de ter vindo na Nova Zelândia para passar uma temporada na Alemanha. O seu anti-germanismo é evidente, mas os alemães não lhe ficam atrás, dando patadas e bicadas aos ingleses à mínima oportunidade, numa troca de galhardetes muito pedantes, sem nunca perderem a pose.
“Este marido, que eu inventara especialmente para Frau Fischer, tornou-se nas mãos dela uma figura tão real que já não aguentava mais ver-me sentada numa rocha com os cabelos cheios de algas, aguardando esse navio fantasma pelo qual todas as mulheres adoram fingir que estão à espera.”
Os Alemães à mesa - 5*
O Barão - 5*
A Irmã da Baronesa - 5*
Frau Fischer - 4*
Frau Brechenmacher Assiste a um Casamento - 4*
Uma Alma Moderna - 5*
Na Pensão Lehmann - 4*
"Luft Bad" - 4*
Nascer - 3*
A Menina-Que-Andava-Cansada - 4*
Uma Mulher de Ideias Avançadas - 4*
A Oscilação do Pêndulo - 4*
Fulgor - 3* -
Primeiro livro publicado por Katherine Mansfield, a deixar evidente a promissora arte de ver os pecadilhos alheios e de os revelar com sublime ironia. Os contos são curtos e, muitas vezes, sem história aparente. Todavia, é nessa falta de acção e até de palavras que se revelam as fraquezas das personagens. Noutros, a mesquinhez e presunção são palpáveis em diálogos claramente sarcásticos disfarçados sob um véu de boas maneiras.
-
An excellent set of short stories; brief with abrupt and unsettling endings and sharp, dry humour. These are early stories by Katherine Mansfield, written when she was barely over 20. She was recuperating from a miscarraige in Germany and from a short unpleasant marraige.
The stories analyse the German middle class and their habits, prejudices and loves. They also look at the more difficult lives of the servants. Mansfield was in the vanguard of the modernist movement acquainted with Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence and the like.There is a focus on the role of women as wives, mothers, lovers, put upon servants (the wives as well as the servants) and there is a sense of injustice and even rage underneath. Some are very funny, some tragic. One in particular has a jaw dropping ending (The Child-who-was-tired)that stays with you , the horror of it gradually seeping in.
Mansfield was influenced by Chekov and became an increasingly good short story writer brfore her early death. Mansfield referred to these stories as immature as she developed her craft; but they are fresh, sharply humourous and do feel very modern. -
Katherine Mansfield died of tuberculosis at the age of 34. 34. I'm 34. That just puts a whole lot of shit in a whole lot of perspective.
I was going through one of those phases where I'm reading a really big book at home but currently don't have anything tiny enough to carry with me on the bus to and from work, so I'm in a major funk, so I spent a good part of last night opening books from my shelves, reading a page or two, and then putting it back. Nothing was speaking to me.
This slight little collection of Mansfield's writing spoke to me from the beginning. The stories in this collection were inspired by her time spend in Bavaria where she was sent to recuperate after a miscarriage. Mansfield was an observer of the best quality - she took what she saw and heard and applied it to her writing. And here are those stories.
I fell in love with Mansfield when I read her
Journals. Even in some of her random thoughts, I could tell she had a strength in her writing that made me want to know more about her. She was known as one of the modernists and was friendly with other modernist-types like
D.H. Lawrence and
Virginia Woolf, and like so many other writers who died too fucking young, I wonder what she could have accomplished had she not contracted tuberculosis. She wrote about women in a way that most writers were, but more importantly she wrote about people in a way that not many people of her time were. These stories are satirical, cutting, and often leaves the reader feeling unsettled. To think that Mansfield was so young when this collection was published leaves me feeling pretty lazy.
And unfortunately I couldn't stop reading this, so now it's back to the drawing board in regards to finding something else to read this week during my commute. It's no tuberculosis, but that's what I've got going on - reading funk. At least this little collection helped me remember there's good literature out there, sometimes even in small packages. -
A German Burlesque?
An early collection of Mansfield’s short stories from 1910-11. I very much enjoyed the first half of the collection as the stories focused on life in a German pension. The guest (KM?) examines the habits and behavior of the Germans guests. KM often takes quite a humorous look at Germans – actually almost a bit sarcastic at times. The Germans appear bombastic and narrowminded. I’m not quite sure how KM stood politically at this time, but she is certainly making fun of German culture. Entertaining and colorful for sure. At times she moves to an almost Chekhovian writing style, but she remains more in the burlesque tier in these stories. The latter part of the collection focus more on being a woman and aspects of love as well as needs. These stories seemed a bit weaker in my opinion. Still, this was an interesting introduction to KM’s stories – a thread I hope to pursue by reading her collections in a chronological order. -
I have had three works of Katherine Mansfield sitting on my bookshelves for the longest time. I finally got around to reading this collection of short stories over the last two days. I have Bliss and Other Stories (1920) and The Garden Party (1922) to go. I am curious to read more of her because I know she is a well-respected writer. I found some of the stories in this collection to be a bit blasé…
Reading the first several stories it seemed like the stories were harmless enough…sort of making fun of rich German people staying at a Pension.… But some of the stories were more disturbing as I read on. Overall 2.5 stars.
Two passages from the book that caught my eye…
• [A woman is excited for a young couple getting engaged] – Newly engaged couples, mothers with first babies, and normal deathbeds have precisely the same effect on me.
• [a poor servant girl is treated rudely by the man of the house, whose wife is having a baby upstairs and is in pain] – She waited a moment, expectantly, rolling her eyes then in full loathing of menkind went back into the kitchen and vowed herself to sterility.
• Germans at Rest – 2.5 stars
• The Baron – 2.5 stars
• The Sister of the Baroness – 3 stars
• Frau Fischer – 3 stars
• Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding – 3 stars
• The Modern Soul – 3.5 stars
• At Lehmann’s – 4 stars
• The Luft Bad – 2.5 stars
• A Birthday – 4 stars
• The Child-Who-Was-Tired – 3.5 stars
• The Advanced Lady – 2.5 stars
• The Swing of the Pendulum – 2.5 stars
• A Blaze – 2 stars
Reviews:
•
https://anzlitlovers.com/2010/07/27/i...
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https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.c...
•
https://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1475 -
What a wonderful little book. A selection of short stories set in a German B&B just prior to WW1. It is full of life and finely observed - foibles, jealousies, love, even murder - all are there. It has a contemporary feel to it, for all that it was written a century ago. There is impish humour aplenty and enough stings in the tale to please a scorpion.
I am delighted that I chanced upon this book, and I will look out for more by the same author. -
Já há bastante tempo que tinha o desejo de ler Katherine Mansfield. Hoje este seu livro "chamou-me" à leitura e ainda bem que tal aconteceu.
Descobri neste livrinho um conjunto bastante interessante de contos. Na sua maioria, uma jovem narradora, mais ou menos participante da história narrada, encontra-se numa pensão, hotel, termas, ou local similar. Daí nos descreve acontecimentos observados ou momentos vividos. As histórias contadas destacam-se pelos seus personagens algo caricaturados. Estando a acção localizada na Alemanha, parece haver da parte da autora um exagerar cómico das características dos intervenientes, numa sátira ou ironia aos seus modos, costumes e valores, por contraste aos ingleses. Várias vezes as questões "Inglaterra versus Alemanha" surgem referidas, numa crítica aberta dos intervenientes alemães aos costumes ingleses (fazendo muitas vezes a autora com que não estas afrontas não fiquem impunes ou como se costuma dizer, com que "lhes saia o tiro pela culatra"). Contos divertidos e ligeiros na forma, mas com alguma profundidade de conteúdo.
Alguns contos divergem desta linha, como é o exemplo do conto intitulado A Menina que Andava Cansada (do qual se diz no prefácio tratar-se de uma adaptação de um conto de Tchéchov). Curiosamente foram estes os que mais apreciei do conjunto e aqueles que penso que irão perdurar na minha memória.
Muito positiva esta primeira experiência de leitura de Katherine Mansfield. Espero que outros dos seus livros se cruzem no meu caminho de leitora. -
Η -μάλλον άγνωστη στη χώρα μας- Κάθρην Μάνσφηλντ είναι η πιο διακεκριμένη συγγραφέας της Νέας Ζηλανδίας. Γεννημένη το 1888, εγκατέλειψε την χώρα της στα 15 για να πάει Κολλέγιο στο Λονδίνο και δεν ξαναγύρισε ποτέ. Ανήσυχο πνεύμα, κατάφερε στα λιγοστά χρόνια της ζωής της να ανανεώσει τη φόρμα του διηγήματος, να σχετιστεί με πολλούς μοντερνιστές συγγραφείς, την Γουλφ, τον Έλιοτ, και να δημιουργήσει ακραία σκάνδαλα με την συμπεριφορά της.
Ήδη από το σχολείο την απασχόλησε η θέση των γυναικών της εποχής της και αποφάσισε να παλέψει για αυτήν. Παρ’ όλα αυτά όταν το 1909 κατέφτασε η μητέρα της στο Λονδίνο ανήσυχη, ούτε εκείνη κατάφερε να μην την στείλουν «σε μια γερμανική πανσιόν» για να αναρρώσει. Ήταν 21 ετών, είχε μόλις παντρευτεί έναν άντρα- που τον παράτησε σε ένα μήνα- είχε ερωτική σχέση με μία γυναίκα, ενώ κυοφορούσε το παιδί ενός άλλου άντρα.
Εκεί στην Γερμανία η Μάνσφηλντ θα γράψει τα πρώτα της διηγήματα, βασισμένα πάνω στις εμπειρίες της, θα αποβάλλει και θα εμφανίσει και τα πρώτα συμπτώματα πλευρίτιδας. Θα γυρίσει το 1911 για να μπλεχτεί σχεδόν αμέσως σε μια καρμική συζυγική σχέση με τον συγγραφέα Τζων Μάρυ και να συνεχίσει τις ερωτικές συνευρέσεις με δυο διαφορετικές γυναίκες. Μέσα στην καταιγίδα της προσωπικής της ζωής κατάφερε να εκδώσει άλλες δύο συλλογές διηγημάτων και να λάβει μέρος στην συντακτική επιτροπή του λογοτεχνικού περιοδικού που έβγαζε ο άντρας της. Πέθανε στα 34 της από φυματίωση και μετά θάνατον εκδόθηκαν ακόμα δύο συλλογές.
Στο «Σε μια Γερμανική πανσιόν» κάνει εντύπωση από την αρχή στον αναγνώστη η καθαρότητα της γραφής της, το πικρό της χιούμορ, η απόσταση που κρατά από την ιστορία, αν και είναι βίωμα. Πολύ συχνά οι ήρωες της μένουν χωρίς όνομα – ο Κύριος Σύμβουλος, ο Βαρώνος- γιατί αυτό δεν έχει καμία σημασία. Ακόμα συχνότερα τα διηγήματα μοιάζουν απλά με επεισόδια, όπως θα γύριζε κανείς μια μικρού μήκους ταινία σήμερα, σαν να σταμάτησε ο φακός της συγγραφέως σε ένα καρέ. Η αποδομημένη, κινηματογραφική αίσθησή της για την λογοτεχνία ήταν κάτι εντελώς νεωτερικό για την εποχή. Κάτι καινούριο και φρέσκο, που έκανε τα σύγχρονα διηγήματα αυτό που είναι σήμερα.
Την απασχολούσαν τρία βασικά θέματα. Το πρώτο είναι η γυναίκες· η θέση τους στην κοινωνία, ο τρόπος που τις χειρίζονται οι συγγενείς και οι άντρες τους, το πανάρχαιο όνειρο «να βρεις πλούσιο σύζυγο και να του κάνεις πολλά παιδιά» που τις δένει σε μια μοίρα που δεν θα επέλεγαν οι περισσότερες.
Ενδιάμεσα περιγράφει τον τρόπο που συμπεριφέρονταν οι Γερμανοί το 1910, τον σωβινισμό και της υπεροψία τους, τόσο καυστικά, που σχεδόν άθελα της προαναγγέλλει τον πόλεμο που θα έρθει. Στήνει το φόντο της εποχής με απίστευτη ενάργεια και ενέργεια.
Τέλος, ασχολείται με το τέλος μιας εποχής όσον αφορά την κοινωνική διαστρωμάτωση. Το δραματικό διήγημα με την μικρή υπηρετριούλα που αναλαμβάνει εκείνη πάνω της όλο το νοικοκυριό μοιάζει να ‘χει βγει από τον Τσέχωφ ή τον Ντίκενς κι είναι το μόνο που ακολουθεί την κλασική δομή του διηγήματος, το μόνο που καταλήγει σε ανατροπή.
Ο τρόπος γραφής της Μάνσφηλντ είναι εντυπωσιακός. Ειδικά αν αναλογιστεί κανείς πόσο σημερινό μοιάζει το κείμενο, κι ας έχει γραφτεί εκατό χρόνια πριν, πώς έγραφαν οι σύγχρονοί της. Όπως έγραψε η πολυαγαπημένη μου – και άσπονδη φίλη της συγγραφέως- Βιρτζίνια Γουλφ, «ζήλεψα το γράψιμό της! Ήταν το μόνο γράψιμο που ζήλεψα ποτέ». -
“On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table covers.”
This collection of gently mocking tales is full of strangely accurate details like these.
Have you ever walked past windows along the street and wondered about the dramas going on behind each one? This was like that, only with a witty and insightful storyteller to fill you in.
My favorite was “A Birthday,” but I enjoyed them all. According to the introduction, Mansfield’s initial comment about the possible reissuing of this, her first book, was: “I can’t go foisting that kind of stuff on the public.” I’m certainly glad she changed her mind! -
he stories in this collection are divided between vignettes of guests staying at the Pension, which are gently mocking in tone, and much darker stories that often have a sting in the tail. A frequent theme of the latter is the social and sexual oppression of women.
In “German Meat”, the female English narrator is a sardonic commentator on the coarseness of the German guests who are constantly eating, perspiring and discussing their ailments and bodily functions. They, however, believe themselves superior to the English, particularly when they learn the narrator does not know what kind of meat her husband likes and, worse still, admits to being vegetarian. Mansfield deftly conveys the guests’ greed and grotesque habits in a few short sentences.
'A glass dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table.
“Ah , fruit!” said Fraulein Stiegelauer, “that is so necessary to health. The doctor told me this morning that the more fruit I could eat the better.”
She very obviously followed the advice.'
In “The Sister of the Baroness”, Mansfield exposes the snobbery of the other guests who cannot contain their excitement at the prospect of a relative of a wealthy member of the nobility staying at the Pension. 'Coffee and rolls took on the nature of an orgy. We positively scintillated. Anecdotes of the High Born were poured out, sweetened and sipped: we gorged on scandals of High Birth generously buttered.' Unfortunately their fawning regard for the new arrival turns out to be misplaced when it is revealed she is merely the daughter of the Baroness’s dressmaker.
In “The Advanced Lady”, the pretensions to intellectual superiority of a lady writer is lampooned.
'“But Love is not a question of lavishing,” said the Advanced Lady. “It is the lamp carried in the bosom touching with serene rays all the heights and depths of..”
“Darkest Africa,” I murmured flippantly.
She did not hear.'
Amongst the darkest of the stories is “The Child Who Was Tired”, which recounts the unrelenting toil of a young girl and the dreadful act she is driven to by despair and exhaustion.
Another notable story is “Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding” in which the conventions of domestic bliss are satirised both in the descriptions of the pompous Herr Brechenmacher and the events of the wedding breakfast. The bride is described as having the appearance of “an iced cake, all ready to be cut and served in neat little pieces to the bridegroom beside her”. There is a sense of violence underpinning the story which is realised in the final sentence.
Although Mansfield later came to regard this early collection of stories as having little merit, I enjoyed the precision of the writing and their dark humour. -
"Germans at Meat" - an English woman is at a German pension where she and her dinner companions talk about the possibility of war breaking out (3 stars)
"The Baron" - an unnamed narrator observes a solitary baron (3 stars)
"The sister of the Baroness" - an English lady is staying in a German pension where people are expecting the arrival of a daughter of a baroness and her aunt (3 stars)
"Frau Fischer" - Frau Fischer comes to the pension for the 'cure' and begins to tell our unnamed English lady about life and love, the way Germans see them (3 stars)
"Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding" - Frau and Herr Brechenmacher go to a wedding (4 stars)
"The Modern Soul" - an English Fräulein befriends a buffoonish professor, a widow and her actress daughter while staying at a pension (3 stars)
"At “Lehmann’s”" - Sabina works in the Lehmann’s home and coffee shop when she meets the Young Man (3 stars)
"The Luft Bad" - a (English?) woman visits a bath house (3 stars)
"A Birthday" - Andreas goes to fetch a doctor because his wife has gone into labor (3 stars)
"The Child-Who-Was-Tired" - a child servant in the boarding house takes care of the masters and her children (4 stars)
"The Advanced Lady" - the young lady from England, Violet, is the subject of the other bath house patrons' gossip (4 stars)
"The Swing of the Pendulum" - a young woman is awaiting her sweetheart when another man enters the room (3 stars)
"A Blaze" - a married woman has a dispute with the unmarried man she's been flirting with (4 stars) -
3,5/5
Κάπου στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του ’80, μου έκαναν δώρο το βιβλίο μιας συγγραφέως άγνωστης τότε σε μένα. Το βιβλίο ήταν οι «Κόρες του αείμνηστου συνταγματάρχη» της Κάθρην Μάνσφηλντ από τις Εκδόσεις Γράμματα σε μετάφραση Μαρίας Λαϊνά. Τότε εγώ μόλις είχα πρωτοανακαλύψει τον Στίβεν Κινγκ και διάβαζα μανιωδώς ό,τι δικό του υπήρχε. Το βιβλίο μπήκε στην άκρη και το έπιασα στα χέρια μου μετά από ενάμιση χρόνο. Διάβασα μια συγγραφέα με τέτοια οικονομία και καθαρότητα στη γραφή, που σπάνια συναντάς. Η διεισδυτικότητά της, τόσο στην ψυχή των ηρώων όσο και στην ανάλυση των καταστάσεων που βίωναν, μου φάνηκε πρωτοφανής. Δεν είναι τυχαίο ότι η Βιρτζίνια Γουλφ έγραψε στο ημερολόγιό της ότι η γραφή της Μάνσφηλντ ήταν η μόνη που ζήλεψε ποτέ!
Η Κάθρην Μάνσφηλντ έζησε μια σύντομη αλλά ασυνήθιστη και περιπετειώδη ζωή. Γεννήθηκε στο Ουέλλιγκτον της Νέας Ζηλανδίας από μεγαλοαστούς γονείς. Η σχέση της με την καταπιεστική μητέρα της ήταν εξαρχής δύσκολη. Ολοκλήρωσε τις σπουδές της στο Λονδίνο και ταξίδεψε στην Ευρώπη. Αμφιφυλόφιλη —στο ημερολόγιό της αναφέρει δύο γυναίκες με τις οποίες είχε σχέσεις—, έμεινε έγκυος εκτός γάμου. Παντρεύτηκε σε πρώτο γάμο τον Τζορτζ Μπόουντεν, αλλά ο γάμος δεν κράτησε παρά ελάχιστες ώρες, μιας και τον εγκατέλειψε το ίδιο βράδυ. Αποβάλλει, και η μητέρα της την αναγκάζει να εγκαταλείψει το Λονδίνο για ένα σπα στη Γερμανία. Με την επιστροφή της στο Λονδίνο ξαναβρίσκει τον κύκλο των Μοντερνιστών και συνεχίζει τον μποέμικο τρόπο της ζωής της που είχε διακοπεί. Δεύτερος γάμος με τον Τζον Μίντλετον Μάρι μετά από μια θυελλώδη πολύχρονη σχέση. Το 1917 διαγνώστηκε η φυματίωση. Πέθανε στα τριάντα τέσσερά της χρόνια. Κληρονομιά της ογδόντα οκτώ διηγήματα-διαμάντια.
Μετά το «Γκάρντεν πάρτι» από τις Εκδόσεις Σμίλη το 2006, μια ακόμα εξαιρετική μετάφραση της Μαρίας Λαϊνά, ήρθε η ώρα της «Γερμανικής πανσιόν». Το ντεμπούτο της Μάνσφηλντ είναι μια συλλογή δεκατριών διηγημάτων. Κυκλοφόρησε το 1911 από τον εκδοτικό οίκο του Στίβεν Σουίφτ και γνώρισε αμέσως επιτυχία. Είναι σπάνιο να συναντάς μια γυναικεία φωνή με τέτοια αίσθηση του χιούμορ, με τόσο άψογο κωμικό timing. Ένα χιούμορ μαύρο, σαρκαστικό, χρησιμοποιείται για να στιγματιστεί η ανισορροπία δύναμης στις σχέσεις των δύο φύλων, οι μικρές και μεγάλες κοινωνικές αδικίες.
Τα δεκατρία διηγήματα χωρίζονται σε δυο κατηγορίες. Τα πρώτα θα μπορούσες να πεις ότι είναι σατιρικά πορτρέτα: η δυσκαμψία της υψηλής κοινωνίας και ο πιθηκισμός της μεσαίας τάξης της Γερμανίας αναδεικνύονται μέσα από τη δηλητηριώδη διακωμώδηση της ανάγκης για συνεχή επιβεβαίωση της δικής τους πολιτισμικής ανωτερότητας και υλικής ευμάρειας. Η Μάνσφηλντ παρατηρεί προσεκτικά τον υφέρποντα εθνικισμό. Τα σχόλια των Γερμανών βαρόνων για τους Άγγλους και τον τρόπο ζωής τους, τα σουφρωμένα χείλη αποδοκιμασίας προς την πρωταγωνίστρια και τις εγγλέζικες συνήθειές της, φαίνονται εφιαλτικά προφητικά. Τρία χρόνια μετά, οι δυο πολιτισμοί θα συγκρουστούν με έναν πρωτοφανή για την ανθρωπότητα τρόπο. Μια σύγκρουση που θα οδηγήσει στην πτώση της Αυστροουγγρικής Αυτοκρατορίας.
Το βιβλίο, όσο προχωρά, γίνεται όλο και πιο μαύρο. Τα παιγνιώδη, σαρκαστικά διηγήματα, που σε έκαναν να γελάς με το έξυπνο χιούμορ τους, δίνουν τη θέση τους σε άλλα, σκοτεινά και ακανθώδη. Η πένα της Μάνσφηλντ γίνεται πιο κοφτερή, σχεδόν βίαιη. Πλέον κυριαρχεί ο υποβιβασμένος ρόλος της γυναίκας. Της γυναίκας συζύγου, κόρης, υπαλλήλου. Η ενδοοικογενειακή βία, ο συζυγικός βιασμός, η απόπειρα σεξουαλικής επίθεσης, η παιδική εργασία, ακόμα και η βία του τοκετού. Η συγγραφέας παρατηρεί τα πάντα με μεγεθυντικό φακό, δίνοντας στο φως μια καθημερινή πραγματικότητα που προκαλεί οργή. Γίνεται ιδιαίτερα καταγγελτική για τον αντρικό ζωώδη κόσμο στον οποίο ζει και τους κανόνες που αυτός έχει επιβάλλει. Ο θεσμός του γάμου και της οικογένειας φαντάζει σαν φυλακή, με τις γυναίκες να έχουν αποδεχθεί τον ρόλο που τους έχει οριστεί — μια γυναίκα μπορεί να αισθάνεται πλήρης μόνο αν τεκνοποιήσει. «Γέννηση», «Το κουρασμένο κορίτσι», «Η ταλάντωση του εκκρεμούς», «Ξέσπασμα», όλα τους στάζουν φρίκη. Σχεδόν όλα τα διηγήματα έχουν ένα τέλος απότομο, ανοιχτό, αφήνοντας τον αναγνώστη μετέωρο, με ένα αίσθημα ανησυχίας.
Τα διηγήματα αυτής της συλλογής δεν έχουν το τέλειο φινίρισμα των διηγημάτων του «Γκάρντεν πάρτι» που εκδόθηκε έντεκα χρόνια μετά. Μοιάζουν με άκοπα διαμάντια. Αλλά το ακατέργαστο έχει τη δική του γοητεία. Ας μην ξεχνάμε ότι τα διαμάντια, όπως κι αν είναι, είναι παντοτινά. Τελειώνοντας το βιβλίο, δεν μπορείς να μην αναρωτηθείς τι θα μπορούσε να κάνει αυτή η συγγραφέας αν δεν την προλάβαινε ο θάνατος. Η κληρονομιά που μας άφησε είναι μικρή σε ποσότητα αλλά τόσο πολύτιμη. -
Μια προοδευτική Νεοζηλανδέζα γράφει και σκιαγραφεί τη ζωή των γυναικών στην Ευρώπη των αρχών του 20ου αιώνα.
Μας θυμίζει πόσο λίγος καιρός έχει περάσει αφότου κατέκτησε η γυναίκα τα αυτονόητα δικαιώματα. Ας μην ξεχνάμε ότι δικαίωμα ψήφου στην Ελβετία κατοχύρωσε το 1971!!!! -
Ήταν ένα βιβλίο με 13 ιστορίες όπου με σατυρική διάθεση αναγνώριζε κανείς το πνεύμα της εποχής και γινόταν κοινωνική κριτική, αλλά ήταν τόσο μικρή η κάθε ιστορία που προσωπικά με άφηνε πολλές φορές αδιάφορη. Καταλαβαίνω όμως τον σκοπό που είχε η συγγραφέας.
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"Είναι το σύμβολο της πραγματικά προοδευτικής γυναίκας: όχι ένα από εκείνα τα βίαια πλάσματα που αρνούνται το φύλο τους και πνίγουν τα εύθραυστα φτερά τους κάτω από την πλαστή περιβολή του κίβδηλου ανδρισμού."
Ικανοποιητική γνωριμία με την Mansfield, μια Νεοζηλανδή συγγραφέα που για πολλούς παραμένει άγνωστη. Μια λογοτέχνιδα που υπήρξε σε μια εποχή αναγέννησης της ευρωπαϊκής λογοτεχνίας εξαιρετικά μακριά από το κέντρο των εξελίξεων και των ερεθισμάτων αλλά ανήκει στους πρωτοπόρους της αγγλόφωνης λογοτεχνίας. Φίλη της Βιρτζίνια Γουλφ και του μεγάλου Ντέιβιντ Λώρενς, ένας απλά αναρωτιέται πόσα παραπάνω θα πρόσφερε αν δεν έφευγε μόλις στα 33.
Στην γερμανική πανσιόν, με τον μοντερνισμό που την χαρακτηρίζει, σχολιάζει την γερμανική κοινωνία μια ανάσα πριν τον πρώτο παγκόσμιο. Από την πλέμπα μέχρι την ανώτερη αστική τάξη, συζητά πρωταγωνίστριες που έχουν εγκλωβιστεί στον καταπιεσμένο ρόλο που τους φυλά μια άκρως μισογυνιστική κοινωνία αλλά με μικρά και σταθερά βήματα επαναστατούν. Η Mansfield συζητά φεμινισμό, συζητά πολιτικοποίηση γυναικών, συζητά πατριαρχία και το κάνει σωστά - δεν δογματίζει, αλλά με εύστοχο και καλογραμμένο χιούμορ, στρωτή και ποιοτική γραφή, περιγράφει την μια τραγωδία μετά την άλλη και μπαίνει στο μυαλό του αναγνώστη με όλους τους σωστούς τρόπους.
13 ιστορίες, η κάθε μια με σωρεία μηνυμάτων που πολλοί σήμερα ακόμα δυσκολεύονται να συνειδητοποιήσουν και να χωνέψουν. Πέρα από αυτές που διαδραματίζονται στην ίδια την γερμανική πανσιόν με πρωταγωνίστρια την συγγραφέα και βρίθουν από χιούμορ που πλέκει το πορτραίτο μιας γερμανικής αστικής τάξης με φοβερά αντι-αγγλικά συναισθήματα, ξεχώρισα τις "Στου Λήμαν", "Η Ταλάντωση του Εκκρεμούς" και "Το Κουρασμένο Κορίτσι". Ειδικά η τελευταία, ισοπεδωτική.
Για ακόμα μια φορά ο Μπαρουξής στην μετάφραση του δεν απογοητεύει, αποδίδει και περνάει το κλίμα του βιβλίου όσο πιο πλήρες του επιτρέπεται. -
Πρώτη επαφή με το έργο της Κάθριν Μάνσφιλντ και δηλώνω ιδιαίτερα ικανοποιημένος, ειδικά αν λάβει κανείς υπόψιν τη γενικότερη θεματολογία της συλλογής, που δεν είναι και τόσο κοντά στα αναγνωστικά μου γούστα. Γενικά η Μάνσφιλντ σφάζει με το γάντι τις γυναίκες και τους άντρες της εποχής της, αναδεικνύει τα τότε κοινωνικά δεδομένα και σατιρίζει πολλές από τις ταξικές (και όχι μόνο) αντιλήψεις των ανθρώπων εκείνων των χρόνων, χρησιμοποιώντας λεπτό και ενίοτε πικρό χιούμορ. Τα διηγήματα δεν έχουν κάποια ιδιαίτερη πλοκή, όμως κρύβουν αλήθειες και περνάνε κάθε είδους κοινωνικά μηνύματα που δεν είναι ξένα ούτε στην εποχή που ζούμε. Η γραφή μπορεί να είναι φαινομενικά απλή, αλλά συνάμα είναι ιδιαίτερα οξυδερκής και κοφτερή. Γενικά πρόκειται για μια πολύ καλή συλλογή διηγημάτων, που προτείνεται στους λάτρεις της κλασικής λογοτεχνίας. Αν μου ζητάγατε τα τέσσερα διηγήματα που μου έκαναν τη μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση (αν και όλα τους μου άρεσαν λίγο έως πολύ), μάλλον θα ήταν αυτά: "Η μοντέρνα ψυχή", "Γέννηση", "Το κουρασμένο κορίτσι" και "Η ταλάντωση του εκκρεμούς".
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7.5/10
Same comments here as apply to
The Garden Party and Other Stories. -
When I belatedly realised that I had been neglecting New Zealand fiction on this blog, the first author I thought of to redress this neglect was Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923). She died very young of TB but she left behind some unforgettable short stories, of which In a German Pension was the first collection to be published. I read it in December 2003, and this (edited a little after this re-reading) is what I wrote in my journal at the time:
Whoo!! This author has a barbed pen indeed! It’s a collection of satirical vignettes that Mansfield wrote aged just nineteen, and her dislike of the German bourgeoise is fierce…
To read the rest of this review, please visit
http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201... -
Amazing review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... -
Questa raccolta di brevi racconti è come una collezione di acquarelli: delicati e incisivi, trasparenti e dettagliati. Nella convenzionalità del soggiorno in una pensione tedesca, tra prosopopea germanica e luoghi comuni, si colgono i temi cari alla Mansfield - la condizione della donna sola o maritata, la sua stretta dipendenza dall'uomo per sopravvivere, il carico di lavoro eccessivo che non dà spazio ad altro, la bestialità e l'aggressività maschile nell'approccio all'altro genere - trattati con un tocco e uno stile delicato, ironico ma così penetrante. Alla Wilde per intenderci.
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Her first book which she reluctantly published. A series of short stories of characterizations of people staying at a German Pension in the early 1900s. Very satirical tales about the strange behavior of Germans staying for a health cure.
The short stories were written after her stay in Bad Wörishofen, a German spa town, in 1909. She was taken there by her mother after her disastrous marriage, pregnancy and miscarriage. Excellent short stories that reflect on the habits and demeanour of Germans. Several refer to the exploitation and repression of women by men during that era.
