January Meme: Favourite books read in 2019

[selenak]

Zen Cho's "Sorceror to the Crown" and "The True Queen" were certainly among my favourite novels. (My review of them is here. Another novel which I loved but haven't written about is Robert Löhr's Das Erlkönig-Manöver, which uses just about every conspiracy theory ever related to Marie Antoinette's children (see some of them listed here as a MacGuffin to hang a hilarious Dumas-esque plot on, in which various German literati - Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Alexander von Humboldt, Bettina Brentano & her later husband Achim von Arnim - are enlisted, cajoled, wood or blackmailed into a rescue operation (OR IS IT?) for a young man supposedly the long lost Dauphin and about to be killed by Napoleon's men. Half the fun is Löhr's way of including quotes from the works of everyone involved in a completely different context that still works perfectly within the story, where it makes for fantastic banter between a bunch of cranky writers. Also, Kleist's increasing outrage that Goethe still hasn't read his latest manuscript. (In rl tragic, here, just the right kind of fun. Not to mention that Kleist at least gets finally laid, by Alexander von Humboldt, no less, which is a good consolation price.) In between all of this, you have daring undercover missions, masquerades, hair-raising escapes and last minute rescues, in short, all you'd want from a swashbuckler. I'm just not sure how it would translate to an English speaking audience who'd barely able to identify one Schiller or Goethe line and doesn't know who Bettina was, hence no proper review.

Non-fiction: no contest. As described in this earlier post , my non-fiction book of the year is actually three volumes of one, the original publication and then two volumes with addenda, i.e. the cut entries the earlier volume was missing, to wit: the Diaries of one Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff, adorkable chamberlain to Frederick the Great's unwanted wife and life long friend-with-benefits of Friedrich's younger brother Heinrich.

The Other Days

Comments

[sovay]

(In rl tragic, here, just the right kind of fun. Not to mention that Kleist at least gets finally laid, by Alexander von Humboldt, no less, which is a good consolation price.)

This sounds amazing.

[chelseagirl]

I adored Sorcerer to the Crown so much that I replaced my paperback with a hardcover. But somehow I have bounced off the first few pages of The True Queen more than once. Not sure why -- perhaps I should reread the first book and then move straight to the second.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, "Das Erlkönig Manuöver" is brilliant. I must try and find my copy.

[makamu]

Das Erlkönig Manöver is my go-to book for when my younger cousins complain that "German literature is boring!" - it has so far induced a perfect conversion rate; besides, it's just rollicking good fun. Though I wouldn't have minded it going full AU (both for von Humbold/Kleist and because we then could have avoided the historical character death that made me go "Darn! It's 1805!" near the end).

And your recommendation has just moved Sorceror to the Crown closer to being a part of my next book haul.

[trobadora]

Das Erlkönig-Manöver

Damn, that sounds delightful. *puts it on the list*

[taelle]

So I've googled Bettina (I've heard about her, but just as "person who corresponded with Goethe") and while the English Wikipedia only has the brief "stopped corresponding with Goethe because of her behavior to his wife" bit, the Russian Wikipedia is being more entertaining. They tell me that Bettina was rude about the works of Goethe's artist friend, for which Mrs Goethe tore spectacles off her, and Bettina called her "crazy sausage". But they don't quote their sources: was it really as cat-fighty as that?

[sajia_kabir]

Wow, Das Erlkönig-Manöver sounds like a really good book, too bad it's not translated into English yet? I've read a Bengali translation of Lotte and Lisa by Eric Kastner as a teenager, but although German literature is popular in Bangladeshi literary circles I haven't read a lot of it.

[cahn]

I'm just not sure how it would translate to an English speaking audience who'd barely able to identify one Schiller or Goethe line and doesn't know who Bettina was

Clearly the answer here is to educate your English-speaking audience. With hundreds of thousands of words. :P :D

[lurkinghistoric]

Das Erlkönig-Manöver sounds glorious from the title on. I'm one of those English speaking readers who would miss most of the joy, but you make me want to go on an intensive preparation course to catch up with it.

I love Zen Cho, and your mention of her is good timing, because her newsletter has just sent me the link to *her own* True Queen Yuletide fic: "Yeah, I socked up and wrote a post-canon True Queen fanfic as a Yuletide Treat! I did it because I was procrastinating on my current WIP (cough) and also because the recipient's request and letter were so great and right up my street. You can read it here, but be warned that it's massively spoilery for both True Queen and Sorcerer to the Crown".
The story is on AO3 as Winter Sojourn by MrsWythe89: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315

The SttC series is delightful, but I love her short fiction even more. Mostly supernatural, often about emigrant/immigrant experience and living between different cultures, with lots of Malaysian magic. Her author website has links to what's online.