- Hardcover: 216 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (19 April 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691144974
- ISBN-13: 978-0691144979
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 812,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Angina Days: Selected Poems (Facing Pages)
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Review
Angina Days, a crisp new selection translated by Michael Hofmann and published in Princeton's 'Facing Pages' series, is an opportunity for Eich to secure at last the English-speaking readership he has long deserved. In the German-speaking world, Eich is widely accepted as a twentieth-century classic, the supreme poet of unease. His poem 'Inventur' ('Inventory') is one of the best known poems in the language. Born in 1907 in Lebus on the Oder, a small village near Berlin, Eich was a member, along with Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, of the Gruppe 47, a literary association 'called into being to cleanse and adjust and simplify' the German language after its abuse by the Third Reich, as Hofmann explains in his excellent introduction. . . . Hofmann's translations in Angina Days have the confidence, clearness and clout to offer Eich salvation from obscurity. . . . Hofmann's new translations are neither cumbersome nor dull. They work as poems independently from the German. They are animated, idiomatic, attractively spry, and above all they allow Eich's voice to reach us loud and clear--peevish, skeptical, true to itself, irresistible. -- Siriol Troup, Times Literary Supplement
Scenes of isolated survival amid bewildering change appear throughout Angina Days, an excellent comprehensive bilingual selection of Eich's poems edited and translated by Michael Hofmann. -- John Palattella, Nation
At last a major portion of the poetry of Günter Eich (1907-1972) has been made accessible to an English-speaking readership in a new translation. -- Axel Vieregg, Berlin Review of Books
Fortunately, renowned poet and translator Michael Hofmann has brought a selection of Eich's late poetry into sharp, searing English in Angina Days, a book that will remain the definitive translated edition of Eich's late work. . . . Eich's scaled-back language--in Hofmann''s deft translation--facilitates a devastatingly unsentimental tone appropriate for this clear-eyed consideration of what it means to be a prisoner, and what a prisoner's simple possessions mean to him. . . . Michael Hofmann's thrilling new translations of this neglected master will stick like barbs in the minds of English-language readers for years to come. -- Stephan Delbos, Prague Post
Since I mention poetry, I should say that Michael Hofmann's translations of the poems of the German poet Guenter Eich, Angina Days, is one of the best books to come out in 2010. Eich's acerbic, chafing, sensuous verses, dealing with life's most basic anxieties and activities, refute, through a combination of stubbornness and technique, Adorno's stricture about the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz. -- Amit Chaudhuri, Outlook India
Contemporary literature would be a great deal duller, sparser and more insular without Michael Hofmann. . . . Eich (1907-72) is among the most significant voices in post-war German poetry. For anyone new to [Eich], Hofmann's selection, drawn mainly from his later work, is an excellent introduction. -- Dennis O'Driscoll, PN Review
Scenes of isolated survival amid bewildering change appear throughout Angina Days, an excellent comprehensive bilingual selection of Eich's poems edited and translated by Michael Hofmann. -- John Palattella, Nation
At last a major portion of the poetry of Günter Eich (1907-1972) has been made accessible to an English-speaking readership in a new translation. -- Axel Vieregg, Berlin Review of Books
Fortunately, renowned poet and translator Michael Hofmann has brought a selection of Eich's late poetry into sharp, searing English in Angina Days, a book that will remain the definitive translated edition of Eich's late work. . . . Eich's scaled-back language--in Hofmann''s deft translation--facilitates a devastatingly unsentimental tone appropriate for this clear-eyed consideration of what it means to be a prisoner, and what a prisoner's simple possessions mean to him. . . . Michael Hofmann's thrilling new translations of this neglected master will stick like barbs in the minds of English-language readers for years to come. -- Stephan Delbos, Prague Post
Since I mention poetry, I should say that Michael Hofmann's translations of the poems of the German poet Guenter Eich, Angina Days, is one of the best books to come out in 2010. Eich's acerbic, chafing, sensuous verses, dealing with life's most basic anxieties and activities, refute, through a combination of stubbornness and technique, Adorno's stricture about the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz. -- Amit Chaudhuri, Outlook India
Contemporary literature would be a great deal duller, sparser and more insular without Michael Hofmann. . . . Eich (1907-72) is among the most significant voices in post-war German poetry. For anyone new to [Eich], Hofmann's selection, drawn mainly from his later work, is an excellent introduction. -- Dennis O'Driscoll, PN Review
Product Description
This is the most comprehensive English translation of the work of Günter Eich, one of the greatest postwar German poets. The author of the POW poem "Inventory," among one of the most famous lyrics in the German language, Eich was rivaled only by Paul Celan as the leading poet in the generation after Gottfried Benn and Bertolt Brecht. Expertly translated and introduced by Michael Hofmann, this collection gathers eighty poems, many drawn from Eich's later work and most of them translated here for the first time. The volume also includes the original German texts on facing pages.
As an early member of "Gruppe 47" (from which Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll later shot to prominence), Eich (1907-72) was at the vanguard of an effort to restore German as a language for poetry after the vitriol, propaganda, and lies of the Third Reich. Short and clear, these are timeless poems in which the ominousness of fairy tales meets the delicacy and suggestiveness of Far Eastern poetry. In his late poems, he writes frequently, movingly, and often wryly of infirmity and illness. "To my mind," Hofmann writes, "there's something in Eich of Paul Klee's pictures: both are homemade, modest in scale, immediately delightful, inventive, cogent."
Unjustly neglected in English, Eich finds his ideal translator here.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A huge book, longwise and crosswise. But not too fat, relatively few poems, the German facing the English translations. Short strange poems.
Lines like:
Our words are being recorded by silence.
The manhole covers lift up a crack.
The signposts have been turned round.
. . I am thrilled with it.
These short intense lyric poems, especially for me the early ones, have a strange unique evanescent beauty. He is like but unlike Paul Celan, with whom he seems to have been a contemporary. They are unlike Celan's poem's in that these abrupt supposedly oblique lines have a transparency; they are not hermetic, or closed off; they are not impossible to understand in a literal way; but can be related to ordinary circumstance. In general this is a poet whose work is governed by a very powerful non-linear intelligence, haunted by war, he begins at the end of the 2nd WW, so I am not sure why I have never seem him until now. The collection is an instant favourite with me.
Lines like:
Our words are being recorded by silence.
The manhole covers lift up a crack.
The signposts have been turned round.
. . I am thrilled with it.
These short intense lyric poems, especially for me the early ones, have a strange unique evanescent beauty. He is like but unlike Paul Celan, with whom he seems to have been a contemporary. They are unlike Celan's poem's in that these abrupt supposedly oblique lines have a transparency; they are not hermetic, or closed off; they are not impossible to understand in a literal way; but can be related to ordinary circumstance. In general this is a poet whose work is governed by a very powerful non-linear intelligence, haunted by war, he begins at the end of the 2nd WW, so I am not sure why I have never seem him until now. The collection is an instant favourite with me.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Beautiful collection of German poetry
30 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover
Gunter Eich was a German poet who lived 1907-1972 and who was known for the simplicity of his poems. Translator Michael Hofmann presents a unique picture of Eich in his introduction to Angina Days (a title in reference to his health in later years). In some cases, an introduction reveals too much and tries to interpret too much. Hofmann's biography of Eich resists that and instead focuses on Eich's personal life and allows the reader to contemplate and define the poetry on their own. He calls Eich's poems "humble and lived-in and somehow practical" and this collection reflects that. While the poetry is not oversimplified, each reader can likely feel as if they can successfully understand the emotions portrayed.
Hofmann also says that in translating the works, ranging over Eich's lifetime, he discovered in them "for me the source of the quiet and immense and eerie power of each: words are like stray, chance, isolated survivals after some catastrophe, of unpredictable utility and beauty." As a side note, Eich's poetry is compared to the art of Paul Klee.
Within the poetry itself, broken into sections of Eich's life, there is an array of symbolism with a focus on plants, food, landscape, and travel. Some are romantic, as in Munich-Frankfurt Express where he describes a train trip to see his beloved and "my desire to grow old in the vicinity of your voice." He can also reflect on WWII with grief in Memorial:
The moors we wanted to hike have been drained.
Their turf has warmed our evenings.
The wind is full of black dust.
It scours the names off the gravestones
and etches this day
into us.
In Dreams he combines the symbolism of travel on the earth with travel in the heart:
There are road signs,
and easily discernible river course,
lookout points in elevated positions,
maps where the lakes are in blue and the forests in green-
It's easy to find one's way around in the world.
But you, companion at my side, how hidden from me
is the landscape of your heart!
Feeling my way in the fog, I am often overcome with fear
of the thickets and the hidden precipice.
I know you don't like your thoughts to be traced,
the echo of your words is intended to mislead-
Roads going nowhere,
pathless terrain, lapsed signage.
This collection is comprehensive and reveals how Eich's outlook changes from youth through illness as he ages, since the poems are spread across 1948-1972. I found this a great exploration of German poetry.
Hofmann also says that in translating the works, ranging over Eich's lifetime, he discovered in them "for me the source of the quiet and immense and eerie power of each: words are like stray, chance, isolated survivals after some catastrophe, of unpredictable utility and beauty." As a side note, Eich's poetry is compared to the art of Paul Klee.
Within the poetry itself, broken into sections of Eich's life, there is an array of symbolism with a focus on plants, food, landscape, and travel. Some are romantic, as in Munich-Frankfurt Express where he describes a train trip to see his beloved and "my desire to grow old in the vicinity of your voice." He can also reflect on WWII with grief in Memorial:
The moors we wanted to hike have been drained.
Their turf has warmed our evenings.
The wind is full of black dust.
It scours the names off the gravestones
and etches this day
into us.
In Dreams he combines the symbolism of travel on the earth with travel in the heart:
There are road signs,
and easily discernible river course,
lookout points in elevated positions,
maps where the lakes are in blue and the forests in green-
It's easy to find one's way around in the world.
But you, companion at my side, how hidden from me
is the landscape of your heart!
Feeling my way in the fog, I am often overcome with fear
of the thickets and the hidden precipice.
I know you don't like your thoughts to be traced,
the echo of your words is intended to mislead-
Roads going nowhere,
pathless terrain, lapsed signage.
This collection is comprehensive and reveals how Eich's outlook changes from youth through illness as he ages, since the poems are spread across 1948-1972. I found this a great exploration of German poetry.
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