Wednesday, April 05, 2006

You heard it here early ...

... if not first. Almost a year ago we posted this: Introducing Peter Altenberg. We also discussed Altenberg in this post: Of storage systems and form ... We even included Telegrams of the Soul on our 10 Best Books of the Year list: Everybody else does it ...

Now Sam Jones has linked to a bunch of pieces on the Viennese master: Telegrams of the Soul. I read Lensing's review in the TLS last week and had thought to blog about it, but never got around to it. The "third-rate American novelist" he refers to was Alexander King, whom I mentioned in my original post. Only King was a memoirist, not a novelist - and he was a native Viennese who may have had a more idiomatic grasp of Altenberg than even the learned Mr. Lensing, who seems to think well of Altenberg but ill of any of the people - King, translator Wortsman - who have taken steps to keep Altenberg's name alive. Pettiness, thy name is Pedant!

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