The Collected Stories of Joseph Roth

A sheer literary clinic in the art of the erzhalungen / short story. Roth's cool-headed, knowing, bittersweet, deeply human, and, according to Brodsky, ultimately poetic collection is a delight that keeps on giving. True, a few of the stories included were still 'in progress,' or simply unfinished, but the aggregate offer a tantalizing glimpse at the breadth of Roth's story-telling power. 'The Honors Student' 'The Cartel' and 'This morning a letter arrived...' are personal favorites; the reputations of 'Stationmaster Fallmerayer' and 'The Bust of the Emperor' (both published in Overlook's very fine Three Novellas) are well-known. It is a priceless portraiture of a vanished time and place whose dual emotional and entertainment value far outpace quite a number of his better-known contemporaries. It is high time this author received the attention his works richly deserve from the American ivory tower.

In recent years, Joseph Roth has emerged as one of my very favourite writers. It is quite a puzzle that the author of such works as The Radetzky March, Job and Rebellion remains largely unknown to so many English-speaking readers - and even those well acquainted with modern European literature, and the likes of Thomas Mann. Several wonderful translators - not least of them, the poet Michael Hoffman - are helping to correct this sorry situation. Hoffman's rendition of The Collected Stories of Joseph Roth is the latest service in a great cause, as it shows Roth also had a gift for short fiction. With his characteristic lyricism, and precise depiction of conflicted, and all-too-human characters, Roth creates several more memorable stories. Anyone familiar with Roth's work might recognize the haunting Stationmaster Fallmerayer, as this is perhaps the best known work in this collection. Certainly they will recognize Stationmaster as vintage Roth, once read, as it is redolent of the writer's unique ability to capture the simple tragedy of simple lives, sensitively, but without sentimentality. The same can be said of The Bust of the Emperor, which contains echoes of the novel The Emperor's Tomb. A particular favourite of mine was Barbara, the responsible mother, "Didn't the name sound like hard labor", who knows responsibility to her son, but perhaps not to herself. How many writers, Chekhov aside, can distil with such poignancy a character's whole emotional life in a mere eight brief pages? It is a glorious collection. Buy it, read it, keep it by your side for future reference.