Steven,

Correct. That was Boll and was a comment on the general neurosis of post War German lit and my liking of it.

I highly recommend Mann in the original German. My father read a recent translation of one of his novels and really liked it, but I have only read Doktor Faustus in translation (and a rather tedious one). However, in German he is fantastic. I think that he could be translated, but it would be a difficult thing to do and I am not sure he is really worth the effort (I certainly would not say, "run out and spend four years studying German just to read Mann," but if one has already learned German, he is worth reading).

Dear Erik,

Isn't Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Böll? Or was that just a general comment on reding German literature?

I would unreservedly recommend both The Tin Drum and The Flounder, though one needs to be prepared for some pretty gritty and awful stuff--the whole eel-fishing bit and the entire premise and events of The Tin Drum. But I find both wonderful works, as I did Cat and Mouse Even in translation they work well--something that can't be said for a great many German writers. (I've yet to read a passable translation of anything by Thomas Mann. If he were that dull in German he deserves to remain unread.)

shalom,

Steven

TSO,

I actually don't know if I would recommend it. I have a soft spot for all that post-War Kraut krap. So much so that I don't even trust my own evaluation of it. I just like it (that includes much visual art as well. Got any fat, felt and wax?). In college I was the lead in Biedermann und die Brandstifter (auf Deutsch, naturlich), and it was just heavenly. We had other oddballs in the audience, including a fair number of folks who did not speak German. I will never know what they got out of it. I even like Billiards at Half Past Nine, which is a book that I frequently hear people complaining about. So, when it comes to that stuff, it might be more a matter of my own warped world view.

As for Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I have to admit that part of what I like about it is how poorly written some major chunks of it are. Tom Wolfe is funny when he tries to capture dialect. It is probably cruel of me to read a book just to laugh at the author, but there you go. Parts of the book really are good, though, so it is not entirely a matter of watching an irritating East Coast establishment writer with notoriously philistinian views on art make a complete ass of himself ("the lime....light........" or whatever that goofy thing is he uses all the time). I also get a kick out of Wolfe's frequent factual and geographical errors. When I picture them coming out of the white suit, I just giggle. But he wrote The Right Stuff, which was a hell of a book, so he isn't all bad. And I have read the Acid Test several times, not just to make fun of him, either.

Ahh yes..."Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"...gotta re-visit that one. Haven't read it in years. "The Tin Drum" has been one of those "I ought to read that someday" books for a long time.

Erik-Thanks for posting the review! Based on what I've heard of the CD, your review is dead-on.

John, I normally do not post reviews before they go to print, but since you mentioned this one, and I just wrote the review last week, I will post it here in the comments. It will run in Friday's paper. It is just a capsule review, but you should get the idea from it:

Stan Getz
Bossas and Ballad: The Lost Sessions
Verve
**** (four stars out of four stars)

Stan Getz had an individual sound almost from the very beginning of his career. Most veteran jazz fans and musicians can identify him after hearing only a note or two. Back in the 1960’s John Coltrane said, “we all want to sound like Stan Getz.” However, as great as Getz was in his peak popularity during the bossa nova craze of the 1960’s, his best work came out of the last five years of his life, when he was battling cancer and finally sober. These nine tracks, which have to rank among the best work that Getz ever did, were recorded in 1989, two years before Getz succumbed to cancer, yet were forgotten in the A and M vaults for many years. They are the result of Getz’s first sober recording session and reveal an amazing sympathy between the legendary horn man and pianist Kenny Barron. Getz’s characteristic sound is abundantly present, yet is more focused and haunting than on nearly any other Getz recording.

Erik-This is completely unrelated to your post...I know you're a big Stan Getz fan. Do you have (or have you heard) his Lost Sessions: Bossas and Ballads CD? (Apparently it was only "lost" in the sense that A&M Records head Herb Alpert refused to release it.) I was listening to clips in the record store today and thought Getz's playing (this was very late in the game for Stan-he died a year or two later) was as good as I'd ever heard. But I don't want to be fooled by the little snippets they select for you. Have you heard this one?

I forgot all about my cookbooks on my list!