Nobody else's book club: The Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth
Hello you! It's been a long time! Here I am again to tell you about the book I have just read this morning.
This post is about a short novella — I think I read it in one hour — written in 1939 by a Jewish Austrian writer exiled in Paris. Joseph Roth died of alcoholism very shortly after writing it. It is generally considered a masterpiece. It is also a very strange novel. It tells an extremely sad story in such a light way, and with such humour, that one cannot help smiling through it all. Even its tragic ending leaves the reader with a sense of almost joy. The story itself can be told in one single short paragraph, but I will refrain to do that and tell you to read it instead. It is very much worth it. Such a strange and precious thing.
Michael Hofmann, the translator of my book, explains the lightness of this story in a single sentence: "A drinker's blackouts, confusions and carelessness — or liberality — are a way of experiencing the world." Roth, a heavy drinker himself, sets out to describe this experience, to those of us who do not even drink, in a way that refuses pity and somehow replaces it with wonder. And we are left with the question: How does he do it? It seems short of miraculous.
Andreas, the main hero of this tale, reminds me in some way of my father. Not that my father is an alcoholic, much less has he ever been homeless, mind you! But my father was born in extreme poverty and then he was a very hard working and studious boy who managed to study as far as university and to get a good job and earn a decent salary. This meant he was always quite careless with his money. If he had it, he spent it in whatever he enjoyed. Gadgets, because he was an engineer and he loved a good gadget, good food, nice women, drink, nights out dancing, holidays. Money earn, money spent. Because he knew that, when he run out of money, he could sleep on the floor better than on a soft mattress, feed himself with simple home cooked food as well as in the best of restaurants. He was never rich, but he also never suffered any sort of anxiety about money. He was never ambitious, because he can appreciate the simple as much as the luxurious.
There is extreme freedom in having experienced the worst in your past and knowing you have survived and cannot do worse. Nothing can break you. A freedom to live. A freedom and an inner strength against any form of angst.
Here is where I should be suggesting a book to read before the next post. But I'm right now out of ideas. Let us see what catches my fancy and, if it takes me more than one hour to read, it usually does, I will have time to post a suggestion while I am reading it.
This post is about a short novella — I think I read it in one hour — written in 1939 by a Jewish Austrian writer exiled in Paris. Joseph Roth died of alcoholism very shortly after writing it. It is generally considered a masterpiece. It is also a very strange novel. It tells an extremely sad story in such a light way, and with such humour, that one cannot help smiling through it all. Even its tragic ending leaves the reader with a sense of almost joy. The story itself can be told in one single short paragraph, but I will refrain to do that and tell you to read it instead. It is very much worth it. Such a strange and precious thing.
Michael Hofmann, the translator of my book, explains the lightness of this story in a single sentence: "A drinker's blackouts, confusions and carelessness — or liberality — are a way of experiencing the world." Roth, a heavy drinker himself, sets out to describe this experience, to those of us who do not even drink, in a way that refuses pity and somehow replaces it with wonder. And we are left with the question: How does he do it? It seems short of miraculous.
Andreas, the main hero of this tale, reminds me in some way of my father. Not that my father is an alcoholic, much less has he ever been homeless, mind you! But my father was born in extreme poverty and then he was a very hard working and studious boy who managed to study as far as university and to get a good job and earn a decent salary. This meant he was always quite careless with his money. If he had it, he spent it in whatever he enjoyed. Gadgets, because he was an engineer and he loved a good gadget, good food, nice women, drink, nights out dancing, holidays. Money earn, money spent. Because he knew that, when he run out of money, he could sleep on the floor better than on a soft mattress, feed himself with simple home cooked food as well as in the best of restaurants. He was never rich, but he also never suffered any sort of anxiety about money. He was never ambitious, because he can appreciate the simple as much as the luxurious.
There is extreme freedom in having experienced the worst in your past and knowing you have survived and cannot do worse. Nothing can break you. A freedom to live. A freedom and an inner strength against any form of angst.
Here is where I should be suggesting a book to read before the next post. But I'm right now out of ideas. Let us see what catches my fancy and, if it takes me more than one hour to read, it usually does, I will have time to post a suggestion while I am reading it.
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