The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen

The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen

'Gaudy, wild, raw, amusing, rollicking and ragged, boiling with life, on intimate terms with death and evil - but in the end, contrite and fully tired of a world wasting itself in blood, pillage and lust' Thomas Mann

A story of war in all its absurdity and horror, this incomparable novel describes the fortunes of a young boy travelling through a world ravaged by conflict, and the terrible things he witnesses. Written by someone who fought in the Thirty Years War which decimated Europe in the seventeenth century, it combines brutal, documentary realism with fantastical, knockabout humour to depict a universe turned upside down. This pioneering work of fiction is considered to be the first great German novel.

Translated by J. A. Underwood with an Introduction by Kevin Cramer

Simplicissimus not only satirizes the world's folly but offers a Christian view of the vanity of this transitory existenceFor this purpose, Grimmelshausen sense Simplicius off on a series of picaresque adventures. ... And he has done so in a lively, colloquial, folksy style that is a major and original achievement, and a test for the translator. J. A. Underwood certainly passes this test. He has gone all out for a vivid, slangy, contemporary style, and his version is tremendous fun to read, as well as accurate. -- Ritchie Robertson * TLS *

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621-67) was born during the Thirty Years War and grew up to fight in it. It is impossible to disentangle how much of Simplicius Simplicissimus was based on his own experience and how much was fabricated.

J. A. Underwood is a distinguished translator of German and French. He has translated, among others, Freud, Canetti, Kafka, Benjamin, Gombrowicz, Bachelard and Robbe-Grillet.

Kevin Cramer is the author of The Thirty Years War and German Memory in the 19th Century. He teaches at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780241309865
ISBN 10	0241309867
Title	The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus
Author	Hans Jakob Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	2018-03-01
Number of pages	496
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.