Right and Left and The Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hoffman

The incomparable Jacqueline du Pre is performing Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto in B minor Opus 104.  It is forty-five minutes long but it is worth your while to listen to the entire thing; especially the middle and last movement.

Today I am sitting on my swing out back writing book reviews.  Hercaloo is chewing on my shoes.  Oh well, they are old.

Here is the view over my house looking north: 

Blue skies dappled with fluffy clouds.

Then I turn around and take a few photos of the sky over my backyard, facing south:

Right now the weather is comfortable and it's sunny.  We're supposed to get two inches of snow by tomorrow.  We'll see what happens.


A happy discovery when I read a book review about Joseph Roth.  These are the first two stories I've read by him and they will certainly not be the last.

Right and Left by Joseph Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My first book by Roth and not going to be my last.

Joseph Roth in a style reminiscent of Thomas Mann, writes about a young man Paul and his family during the early part of the twentieth century. Paul comes from a well to do German household whose fortunes change with the war and the death of his father.

Paul is forever re-inventing himself. As a young boy he was the benevolent, condescending privileged son of a wealthy man. When war came, Paul aspired to become a Calvary man, but when he was turned down he became a passivist, writing vitriolic letters against the war, while nevertheless staying a soldier in a different capacity. A close encounter with death made him change again.

After the war he endeavored to salvage the family's fortunes by administrating their financial affairs, something he was no good at, largely because he spent his money like pouring out water. At the end of his tether he seeks help.

He meets a rich girl and decides he must marry her. Her guardian, an Uncle who owns the largest chemical company in Germany is not a fool. He decides that Paul is a man who came from a family once well off but now in need of money. Paul knows that he must present a good face so he goes to a man who might help.

Nikolei Brandeis is an enigma. His mother was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, his father a Lithuanian Jew. Brandeis knows how to make a fortune and through his own wits becomes powerful. He offers Paul a job because he wants the connection to the Chemical Company.

While most of the story is about Paul there are side tracks to his brother, Theodor and also Brandeis. Theodor is troubled and angry. He decides to join a nationalist, supremacist group called the brown shirts. After running from the law and living in exile and poverty, he returns home. He, too, seeks and obtains a job from Brandeis.

Brandeis has several passports, identities and money; but he is determined never to stay anywhere long. We see him in Russia where, as a member of the police, he must enforce communal ownership. Disgusted he leaves and comes to Germany.

Here he has free enterprise and wealth but he can no longer live with this identity either. In the end he packs up and leaves. Where he disappears to is anyone's guess.

Paul does marry the rich girl and his troubles are over. But the gnawing emptiness in his soul manifests itself through perpetual discontent and ever greater isolation from the rest of society.

Roth narrates in the third person but limited narrator. While mostly he narrates from Paul's viewpoint, he switches to other characters, such as Theodor, Nikolei Brandeis and also Paul and Theodor's mother. It is interesting to read the inner thoughts of all of these characters.

Roth was a keen observer of human nature and readers interested in the socio-political climate that was developing prior to Hitler's rise to power and human nature inside that environment will like this book.



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The Legend of The Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This bizarre little story left me pondering the possible meanings that Roth might be trying to communicate.

A homeless man, Andreas, is approached by a stranger who insists on giving him two hundred francs. The man's stipulation that he must eventually pay the sum back to St. Therese at at particular Cathedreal. Andreas promises.

It looks like his luck has changed. He spruces up and drinks,gets another job, more money and drinks. On Sunday he goes to Mass to pay back St. Therese. He comes too early so waits at a cafe across the street. He drinks a great deal while waiting and soon forgets his purpose.

This happens a lot to Andreas. He falls down, fortune picks him up: he finds one thousand francs in his new wallet; an old friend who is now a famous soccer player meets him and sets him up in an apartment. Then he blows all of his money on women and drink.

But Andreas no longer cares because he realizes that fortune is going to help him out every time.

It is strange that Roth, a Jewish writer, would write something from the perspective of a Catholic. What are we to make of Andreas? He makes no good decisions but he keeps getting reprieves. Another stranger gives him two hundred pounds after he has wasted all the previous money granted him.

But when he is going to repay St. Therese? The ending is strange as the whole story is strange and I'm not sure what we are to make of it.

Perhaps that a unrepentant hedonist will be given so many second chances but finally he will have to answer the call of the reaper and give an account.

Roth wrote this short story in that last few months of his life, dying the month after he finished. The story was published posthumously. Like Andreas, Roth drank heavily and hastened his own demise at the age of forty-five. Was he writing his own epitaph?

Here's an excerpt from the 1988 movie starring Rutger Hauer (the man on the cover of the book).  Be forwarned that this is a foreign film.  Very little happens, but it is still interesting to watch a little of it.

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Has anyone else read Joseph Roth and what is their opinion of him?