Theodor Fontane
2,716 words
Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) is widely regarded in Europe as the major example of German realist writing in the second half of the nineteenth century, although Americans have barely heard of him, obsessed as we are (or at least our German Lit. departments and New York arbiters of taste) with Thomas Mann. (more…)
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Today we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery [the press] that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. — Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (more…)
2,773 words
I have been a stranger in a strange land. — Exodus 2: 22
It is very hard, dear brother, to live in a foreign land. — Leo Tolstoy, The Cossacks
If I were asked what I considered the greatest invention in my lifetime I would have no hesitation in replying that it is the e-reader. Had my grandfather, for example, wished to own the collected works of Plato, he would have had to have taken time off from his work as a film developer for Paramount Films, travelled on the underground from his flat in Ealing, (more…)
