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German top novels by difficulty | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 12 19 September 2014 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||
That sounds about right. As a complete guesstimate I would say it's about 50:50. Popular English literature is translated and generally available within year of English release. This can work in reverse too - I read the newest Murakami in German about six months before it was published in English. What you don't get here is much scifi, but fantasy is relatively popular - hence Game of Thrones. What you do get is a ton of crime novels. It's really insane how many are published. Newspapers will publish lists of ten or more of the best crime novels (Krimis) pubished in the last month (i.e., 120 'best' new Krimis per year). God knows how many are published in total annually. My local library has one bookcase for scifi (a mix between pulp and good) and about 20 bookcases (not shelves) of Krimis. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 10 of 12 20 September 2014 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Considering that it's only a short story, Thomas Mann's "Der Tod in Venedig" is quite
difficult. There is one particularly bad older translation by an English (I think) lady, and at least one more modern translation by an American which is better. I gather that Mann was pulling out all the literary stops when he wrote it, so it's not really for the beginner! I found Buddenbrooks easier, even though it's much longer. (I did have an audiobook to help me get through it though. I find that helps a lot). Not classics, but for relatively lighter reads, one might think about Erich Kästner, mostly, but not all, children's books. "Drei Männer im Schnee" is rather fun. Friedrich Dürrenmatt's "Der Richter und sein Henker" and the sequel "Der Verdacht" are very good. Gripping stories, not too long, and not too difficult. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| flabbergasted Triglot Groupie Latvia Joined 6354 days ago 75 posts - 97 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Latvian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Serbo-Croatian, Catalan, Persian | Message 11 of 12 22 September 2014 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Extreme example of German books placed in the order of geometrically increasing
difficulty: 1. Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind 2. Joseph und seine Brüder by Thomas Mann 3. Zettels Traum by Arno Schmidt Edited by flabbergasted on 22 September 2014 at 8:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4637 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 12 of 12 23 September 2014 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Thomas Mann has been mentioned by several, and I would like to add his novel "Doktor Faustus" to the list. I think it is Mann's best novel, but it is pretty difficult to read in the original.
Other books worth reading are Berlin Alexanderplatz: die Geschichte von Franz Biberkopf by Alfred Döblin Die Blendung by Elias Canetti Not really a novel, but still a literary masterpiece in my view is Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. Edit: I should add, all these books probably rate as "difficult" or "very difficult", so maybe not the first books you should read in German. Edited by Ogrim on 23 September 2014 at 11:16am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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