Theodor Storm Books

The reasons for Theodor Storm's relative obscurity for English readers have always been a mystery to me. His novellas of poetic realism are gems of 19th century fiction, lyrical, beautifully written, full of psychological insight, and well-observed portraits of the northern German milieu in which he lived.

In Storm's stories, the central characters often seem prisoners of their circumstances and societal constraints, constraints that they might challenge, yet do not. Though written with ironic detachment, his stories often have a sharp edge of pain and loss and regret that produces deep pathos. It's hard to imagine the work of the young Thomas Mann without Storm's example.

"Paul the Puppeteer" might be thought of as artist's fable. It is an idyllic story of the vanishing world of the marionette theater. "Renate" is an historical novella where suspicion of witchcraft is an element. "The Village on the Moor" is a tale of the destructive effects of sexual passion. All of these stories are from Storm's mature phase, and two of them have never before been translated into English.

Denis Jackson has already given us two excellent volumes, with a translation of _Der Schimmelreiter_ (probably Storm's finest story), as well as several other works. Now, we get this volume, and it's every bit as good as the previous ones. The man has performed not only a service to Storm with these translations, but to all of us. I hope he goes on to translate all of Storm's major novellas.

Highly recommended.

Husum News 17 April 2004


"Pole Poppenspäler" in the English Language

Denis Jackson has translated the Storm 'Classic'

A few days ago the Theodor Storm Society (in Husum, North Friesland, Germany) received a parcel from England. Contents: Storm's Novellen 'Paul the Puppeteer' along with 'Renate' and 'The Village on the Moor'. Translator: Denis Jackson.

The English 'Storm-fan' has yet again translated the works of the German Realist into his own language. After 'Schimmelreiter', 'Hans und Heinz Kirch', 'Immensee' and 'Eine Halligfahrt', now comes 'Renate', 'Draußen im Heidedorf' and Storm's most successful story for the young 'Pole Poppenspäler'. The special feature of this publication is that never before has 'Pole Poppenspäler' appeared in the English language, although it is one of the most well-known works of the Husum author.

The most familiar Theodor Storm Novellen in English are 'Immensee' and 'Der Schimmelreiter'. For some time the author has been well known to the majority of English and American students of the German language. His poetry and prose have been an integral part of the curriculum for many. That also applies to regions in the world where English is the first foreign language. Many there, who are interested in Germany, learn German through the texts of Theodor Storm, as is the case in India, China and above all in Japan.

Through Denis Jackson's fine and stylistically sensitive translations other readers, besides those competent in the German language, can now read the most acclaimed works of the leading figure of Poetic Realism. And Jackson's translations are equally distinguished by another factor: they contain notes that explain to the reader the distinctive regional and historical aspects of the work. Storm's descriptions of the specific North German landscape and the portrayal of its people are thereby made the more meaningful to a world-wide reading public.

The translator lives on the Isle of Wight and has been closely connected with the Theodor Storm Society in Husum for many years. Through his association with the Society he has develops links with many in the region who equally share his enthusiasm for the author. The new translation is also available in German bookshops.

The Husum News (Husumer Nachrichten) 17 April 2004

The first time I saw this book was in a book store, where I flipped through it and was immediately caught by Lisbeth Zwerger's dreamlike illustrations - the image of the calm forever-lasting night, the giant old moon lady with pale round face and black overcoat moving slowly with curious little hobbin in his crib - the atmosphere is superbly presented by the water-colour in a form that I have never seen in other children books. Although there are only 6 full pages of picture plus some smalll ones, I personally think some of them are simply the best among zwerger's. If I didn't see it in the book store and compare it to other Zwerger's work, I wouldn't have bought it think of the few pages it has.

This was mandatory reading in high school in Vienna. I remember our Professor (was it 1975?) being deeply moved by the words, the melodies, the imagery, and the illusions of this novella. We all thought back then that it was boring drivel. But I'm reading it to our son now and reading it today I feel much like our Professor felt then. It really is a beautifully woven novella. The imagery and detail captures the being of living along the Dikes of Northern Germany. I highly recommend this book ...

the following is copy from the jacket copy of the book which, as one of the book's editor's, I thought would be useful to potential buyers.

"Perspectives on Early Modern and Modern Intellectual History" brings together several disciplines and historical periods, and three generations of scholars to celebrate the pedagogical and scholarly career of Nancy Struever, who taught in the Humanities Center and Department of History at The Johns Hopkins University. Twenty-three essays reflect the breadth of disciplinary competence and the standards of scholarly rigor that Struever instilled in her students and demonstrates in her scholarship. The book is organized around three divisional areas of inquiry: Renaissance Humanism, Histories of Art, and Rhetorics, Philosophies, and Histories. The first part includes studies on Shakespeare and Ariosto; essays on Machiavelli, Caterina da Siena, and Lorenzo Valla; and Manetti on the library of Nicolas V. The section on histories of art contains contributions on L.B. Alberti, on early modern spectacle and the performance of images, and on rhetoric and art. The third section continues with discussions of rhetoric, history, and literature from a more theoretical viewpoint. The book concludes with a bibliography of Struever's works. Authors include: Marvin Becker, Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle, Salvatore Camporeale, F. Edward Cranz, Elizabeth Cropper, Marc Fumaroli, Thomas M. Greene, Michael Ann Holly, J.G.A. Pocock, Charles Trinkaus, and Hayden White.

This book collects old tanslations. E.g., Chamisso's "...Schlemihl" is in a 19th-century translation by Henry Morley. A more recent trans. is Harry Steinhauer's 1977 version in German Romantic Stories (Continuum, ed. Ryder). Stifter's 'Brigitta' is in Edward Fitzgerald's 1957 trans. (cf. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly's 1990 trans.), Storm's 'Immensee' is C. W. Bell's trans.

The book contains three well known German novellas:

Theodor Storm: Immensee
Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl
Adalbert Stifter: Brigitta

Being German, I know them since I was an adolescent, and I love them. Therefore, here is what others have to say about them:

Theodor Storm (1817 - 88), poet and short-story writer, was born in Schleswig... As early as 1843 he had made himself known as a lyrical poet of the Romantic School, ...but he wrote nothing that excels, in depth and tenderness of feeling, the charming story of Immensee; and taking his work all in all, Storm still ranks today as a master of the short story in Ger-man literature, rich though it is in this form of prose-fiction. (C. W. Bell)

Peter Schlemihl, one of the pleasantest fancies of the days when Germany delighted in romance, was first published in 1814. The story is a poet's whim. Later writings of Chamisso (1781-1838) proved him to be one of the best lyric poets of the romance school of his time, entirely German in his tone of thought. (Henry Morley)

Brigitta is usually regarded as an early example of German realism and written by probably the most accomplished Austrian prose writer of the nineteenth century, Adalbert Stifter (1805 - 68)..., an illustration of Stifter's didactic con-cern with inner beauty in contrast to outward appearances... Stifter instructs us in more than inner beauty by demonstrating for us - perhaps unwittingly - that the preferred and positive values of the civilized world are always already informed by their antinomies. (Robert C. Holub in: Brigitta, or the Lesson of Realism)

If someone who speaks modern German has problems with the translation it's because of dialect, high German or Low German and time period. Coming from a German family who came to America in the 1860s I learned a German language that is a bit different from modern German language. From what I have been told is that there is a lot of variation depending on which area of Germany the person comes from and when. Anyway, this little book is completely in English. It is literally translated from German but contains no German.

A beautiful story, but the translation from the original language (german) is unbelievably poor.

The only part of the book I read was Immensee, but it was enough - what a beautiful story. Nothing that followed could possibly have compared. The characters are crafted so wonderfully that it's impossible to not feel like you know them. Reinhard is particularly captivating, with his kindness, his wandering soul, and his enduring love for a girl he never manages to get. Watching him slowly be replaced in Elisabeth's life is painful - as painful as it is to observe his youth and vigor slowly slipping away. Geez - I read this stupid thing today, and even now it haunts me.

It's a really small book, about 35 pages, so I read it in one day (even with my poor German). I really would advice this book to anyone who needs a book for their literature list fast.

Storm's novella presents the legend of Hauke Haien as told to a traveler by an old teacher, a `rationalist' who doubts the supernatural elements of the tale. The teacher depicts Hauke as a great innovator whose engineering prowess gave him superior powers over nature, enabling him to design a better dyke to protect the community. The people respond with suspicion and rumors that he's in league with the devil.

In the teacher's version of the tale, the supposedly supernatural elements figure only ambiguously. So, e.g., there is a seemingly spectral horse, which is sold to Hauke by someone who laughs like `the devil' (p. 72). But nothing much comes of this. In the rest of the story the horse is like a natural, though somewhat wild, horse, one that only Hauke can tame (just as he alone can tame the sea with better dykes). Then there's Trin Jans, who is presented not as a real witch but rather as ... well, as the sort of character who becomes a witch in more fanciful legends. Thus, while the old teacher is aware of the supernatural aspects of the tale, he reigns them in to make them fit into a naturalistic interpretation.

The resulting narrative is in places quite eerie. Examples include the narrator's partly anthropomorphic characterization of some birds on the tidal flats (pgs. 22 & 99) and Trin Jans' uncanny story about a mermaid, which actually makes the mermaid seem terrifying, like something more and less than human (p. 98). In both cases the author embeds fragmentary human traits in strange, alien creatures that are, like nature itself, cold and inhuman, utterly oblivious of humanity.

More generally, the tale charts a mundane landscape suffused with potentially supernatural elements that appear fleetingly in ambiguous forms, never quite surfacing as truly supernatural phenomena but, instead, appearing to be quite at home in the confines of nature. There is thus an ongoing juxtaposition of the world as (on the one hand) a natural order that fits the technical-scientific templates of reason and (on the other hand) a chaotic abyss from which wild, non-rational forces periodically erupt with cataclysmic effect.

These unpredictable natural forces find their echo within the human psyche. Hauke Haien, a paragon of reason, isn't alert to these destructive elements in his own soul, and so he's unaware of how they have eroded and weakened his foundations over the years. Eventually, they catch him totally unawares, welling up from within and casting him into the abyss. This work is the epitome of Freud's claim that in fiction, the uncanny grows in a realistic, ordinary setting into which strange, unworldly elements intrude.

The schoolmaster of a northern German coastal town narrates the tale of Hauke Heien, the highly driven dykemaster who haunts the road along the dyke that bears his name.

As the story begins, it is earthly and normal: young Hauke Heien becomes the apprentice to the former dykemaster, secretly woos his daughter, and eventually inherits the prestigious position himself (raising a few eyebrows in the process). Hauke's latent sinister side is forshadowed as a boy by the killing of a cat, and later manifests itself in the growing cruelty that eekes from his seemingly sensitive character. His idea to create an enormous new dyke causes the locals (who provide the physical labor) to despise him all the more.
Elements of the supernatural emerge later when Hauke aquires a bony, starved white horse from a mysterious man (the devil?). The eerieness of a horse skeleton coming to life at the dead of night is the pinnacle of the story.

This is a beautifully drawn portrait of man and the pathological changes he undergoes, which are expressed outwardly by the supernatural. Though it has its (few) humorous moments, it is not an uplifting book. I HIGHLY recommend reading this book in its original German, but even the English version won't sacrifice the high drama of this book.

My son, who attends a German gymnasium, had to read this book for his 9th grade German class as an example of a novel from the romantic period. I picked it up, too, and found it fascinating. I have not read Denis Jackson's translation, but I bought it for my brother in the US who says he greatly enjoyed it.

It is the tale told by an innkeeper to a chance traveler, of a mysterious rider of a white horse who appears on stormy nights when the dykes are in danger. (the original title is 'Der Schimmelreiter' - not 'Der Deichmeister'). The tale segues into the rider's history, his development, his goals and his struggles against nature and man to achieve them, his personal limitations and their resultant failures, and the tragedy that comes of them which leads to his ghost haunting the dykes of northern Germany.

It is an excellent book, absolutely exotic in character and setting for a modern American, rich in detail and mood.