Reading Journal : Germany
Summary of the literary journey through Germany
5/28/2026
Understanding One's Neighbours?
One of the obvious benefits of these readings has been approaching, however modestly, the questions of identity that preoccupy German thought. A New History of Germany by Marie-Bénédicte Vincent and A History of Germany through Texts by Sophie Lorrain allow one to brush up against the question of the unity of the German people — a question that has been pressing for several centuries. The weakness of the corpus I assembled is that it sheds no light on the roots of this problem, and to this day I am still unable to explain why German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and so on. The books and speeches project the image of a people scattered across various states against its will, but without going into the causes. It should be noted that this is no failing on the authors' part — they never promise to provide that explanation, and they clearly define the scope of their studies. I warmly recommend both books. For me, the major contribution of these readings is precisely this awareness of the internal tensions within German identity, which has taken different forms throughout history: Prussia, Austria-Hungary, the East/West Germany divide, and so on.
Still on the historical side, and one that spills beyond Germany's borders, let us turn to A Short History of the Rrom People by Marcel Courthiade. This is an enriching read that introduces the reader to who the Roma are — known in France as gens du voyage and in Germany as Sinti. It belongs to that category of books that give you the feeling of suddenly understanding your surroundings better, by shedding light on the history of people one often encounters. The only shortcoming of the book is that it is, in the end, rather silent on Roma customs and traditions, focusing primarily on their geographical trajectory from India and the varying ways in which they have been received across different countries.
As for the Sorbs, the articles were interesting and help one picture life in the GDR. They also serve as an introduction to European minorities, which will be a recurring theme going forward. Comparing with what I know — the Corsicans, the Bretons, the Forezians — the treatment of the Sorbs by the state was completely different, which explains, for example, why their language is still alive today.
On philosophy and politics, I will say little. I read The Communist Manifesto more for my own general culture than to gain any insight into the communist regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and I suspect Marx and Engels would not have disapproved of that approach, given that they themselves acknowledged the text was already dated by 1870. As for German Philosophy by Dominique Folscheid, I came to realise on the one hand that my knowledge of "classical" metaphysics was insufficient to tackle Kant, Fichte, and their contemporaries head-on in a first reading — a gap I will at least partly remedy after Andorra. On the other hand, I regret that Folscheid fell into the trap of deliberately adopting a jargon-laden and opaque style, seemingly to project an air of depth and complexity, making the reading unnecessarily laborious. Whatever the author's stated intentions at the outset of the book, I cannot recommend it to anyone — because I genuinely cannot identify who it is written for: who, in reality, already knows all the jargon of metaphysics, moral philosophy, and logic, yet still needs an introduction to the key authors in those fields?
A Varied Set of Literary Experiences
The Song of the Nibelungs
My first read was The Song of the Nibelungs, a medieval epic from the 13th century composed in Middle High German. It was a genuinely thrilling read. I found its first part, recounting the creation of the ring, strikingly modern in its conception of divinity: Odin questions the world, the nature of time, strives to understand. The second part, focused on the adventures of Siegfried, is equally enjoyable, though more conventional in the manner of its era — it bears a strong resemblance to Chrétien de Troyes's Grail Romances.
The unexpected came when I began looking for commentary or analysis of that first part, which turned out to all intents and purposes not to exist, as it is not reproduced anywhere. On reflection, I came to understand that the Claude Mettra named on the cover was neither the translator nor the editor, but the actual author. In short, I had inadvertently read a late-twentieth-century adaptation. Upon investigation, it seems that Claude Mettra followed Siegfried's adventures fairly closely, while taking greater liberties with the events that precede them.
Is this a problem? Yes, in the sense that this is not the text that lay forgotten for centuries before being elevated to the status of national epic. From a historical standpoint, the adaptation I read has no real value beyond giving me a sense of the original text's content. However, I am inclined to say no, it is not a problem — quite the contrary.
From a literary standpoint, the author (or authors) of The Song of the Nibelungs chose not to sign the work, preferring instead to present themselves as the transmitter of an earlier tradition. To compose it, they drew on the French chanson de geste, German poems, and at least one Norwegian saga. Moreover, it seems to me that in that era many epics were not created solely to be read, with an obsessive concern for fidelity to a fixed original text. Books were too expensive for personal copies to be widespread; one had to memorise the text in order to recite it to others, which inevitably brought its share of approximations, omissions, and additions at the reciter's discretion. The original author must have known this, and I believe he would not have felt betrayed to learn that I heard his story in another's voice. To my mind, this is a reading that honours the spirit of the work.
Simplicissimus
I then turned to Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus. There is no better word to describe it than romanesque — because it is books like this, I believe, that gave that word its meaning. In contrast to more recent novels (and I include the nineteenth century in that "recent"), which tend to recount improbable tales that are "reasonable" — that is, the novel presents one or two extraordinary occurrences surrounded by rational facts, once those surprising events are accepted and known — Simplicissimus is composed almost exclusively of improbable events, a new one in every chapter. Simplicissimus, the hero, practises every trade, wins every battle, rises to extraordinary wealth before falling into destitution (several times), travels to Strasbourg and to the centre of the earth through a lake a hundred kilometres or so from his home in Germany, and passes through Japan on the way back. It is a genuine pleasure to read, written with great wit, sharply critical and mocking of almost everything. I am not the only one who appreciated it: more than two hundred years before Sherlock Holmes, Grimmelshausen agreed to bring his character out of retirement to satisfy his readers, who were clamouring for more. Although the Continuatio — the name of the sequel — is included in the edition I own, I chose not to read it, as the original ending is coherent, satisfying, and carries the work's message perfectly.
The work is ultimately a long meditation on fate — its changeable nature, but also its inevitability. In the world of Simplicissimus, life is governed by a pendulum, a metronome: those who know wealth will eventually know poverty, and the same holds for beauty, religion, and all else. One can also read it as a reflection on the eternal return to the banality of everyday life — whatever happens, whatever feat of arms is accomplished or extraordinary event is experienced, it was only a moment, and the everyday ordinary resumes immediately after. A fine illustration of this is the episode where Simplicissimus meets the king of the water spirits at the centre of the earth, who offers to grant him any wish he chooses. Pondering a wish that will allow him to become rich again — a wish duly granted — Simplicissimus returns to live on his parents' farm with nothing to show for it but aching legs from the journey back, just as his father had predicted.
Goethe
To put it plainly, I did not enjoy The Sorrows of Young Werther. This is the pure example of the Bildungsroman, a genre I find very little pleasure in. Reading Werther's letters crying out at insurmountable suffering caused by an unrequited love is unbearable — particularly after readings set in Afghanistan or Algeria, where death, hunger, and unjust violence lurk at every turn, and yet the characters face their lives with courage. I understand that there is a context, a style, and even some interesting reflections — but I cannot set that aside.
Faust, on the other hand, I recognise as a memorable read. Given its length, its richness, its style, and above all its place in the literary canon, I chose to read it as one reads the Divine Comedy for the first time: without consulting notes or commentary, simply allowing oneself to be carried by the text and accepting the shadowy zones, whether caused by incomprehension or a lack of reference. One cannot remain indifferent to this experience — it feels like visiting a place that is celebrated by name and façade, but whose door is rarely pushed open; one can finally see the splendour within, the furnishings, and imagine the stories that have unfolded there. The second part is genuinely disorienting, far less celebrated than the first, or at least far less often reprised and adapted. One discovers that the building is in fact of vertiginous depth, and that to claim one day to know it well, several years of effort would be required…
The German leg of the journey was brief compared to the scale of the corpus, but I do not regret my choices. I leave with a desire to read Norse mythology, picaresque novels, and to continue at my own pace with intensive reading.