mollyrook's review
5.0
This is a very simple story that, on its own, wouldn’t amount to much, but in combination with the artwork, I thought it was superb. A wonderful, strange book that is entirely about the experience of wandering through it - I loved it.
piccoline's review
5.0
Beautifully illustrated book, with a strange chilly tale by Bernhard. Very pleasing.
arirang's review against another edition
3.0
On what would have been the 88th birthday of Thomas Bernhard, the most important Western writer of the 2nd half of the 20th Century, and 3 days before the 30th anniversary of his death,
On my way through the high forest, I stumbled over a man called Victor Halfwit, who didn’t have any legs.
Thomas Bernhard's short story, Viktor Halbnarr: Ein Wintermärchen nicht nur für Kinder, was originally published in 1966 in the anthology of childrens' tales „Dichter erzählen Kindern“. It has been translated into English as Victor Halfwit: A Winter's Tale (the subtitle 'Not just for children' dropped, perhaps as it is unnecessary given the form of publication).
The story has our narrator, a physician, walking, in the depths of winter and in the hour before midnight, through the high forest between Traich and Föding to visit a patient, and practising his wading-in-the snow skills (Bernhard's original used a neologism compound-word Durchdenschneewartekünste), when he literally stumbles across Victor Halfwit. The story goes on to tell us how the man lost his legs, why he was in the forest and how the doctor helps him achieve his aim (ultimately to win enough money to buy a pair of handmade shoes).
In the original it was a handful of pages long, but in English, translated by Martin Chalmers (*), it comes, courtesy of the wonderful Seagull Books as a 208 page coffee-table style book (the pages are c30cm*20cm in size), as the text, presented more as a prose poem, is accompanied by stunning artwork from Sunandini Banerjee, using a collage-like technique.
One example (more can be found at the illustrator's Facebook page):
Banerjee's artwork doesn't attempt to illustrate so much show the story as represent an artistic response to it.
In German, a distinct set of artwork was produced, in 2006, in response to the book: drawings by Alfons Schweiggert, which are more grotesque cartoons of the story itself:
Overall: unusually the great Bernhard is eclipsed here, although that his text, even a simple children's story, can produce such artistic responses is a testament to its power. But Banerjee's is the star of the show and the overall book makes for a lovely keepsake for the Bernhard fan.
3.5 stars
---------------------------------------------------------
* To update my list of Bernhard's many English translators:
Of works I have read, I note Ewald Osers (The Cheap Eaters, Yes & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters), David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters), Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction), Martin Chalmers (Prose and Victor Halfwit), Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras), Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking), Michael Hoffman (Frost), Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle), Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days), James Reidel (Goethe Dies), Jack Dawson (Loser), Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes), Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz), Russell Stockman (On the Mountain). And in addition I'm aware of translations by Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard), Michael Mitchell, David Horrocks, Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns (various stories, plays and poems), as well as Douglas Robertson (various unauthorised translations, including The Cheap Eaters - http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-alternative-translation-of-die.html).
On my way through the high forest, I stumbled over a man called Victor Halfwit, who didn’t have any legs.
Thomas Bernhard's short story, Viktor Halbnarr: Ein Wintermärchen nicht nur für Kinder, was originally published in 1966 in the anthology of childrens' tales „Dichter erzählen Kindern“. It has been translated into English as Victor Halfwit: A Winter's Tale (the subtitle 'Not just for children' dropped, perhaps as it is unnecessary given the form of publication).
The story has our narrator, a physician, walking, in the depths of winter and in the hour before midnight, through the high forest between Traich and Föding to visit a patient, and practising his wading-in-the snow skills (Bernhard's original used a neologism compound-word Durchdenschneewartekünste), when he literally stumbles across Victor Halfwit. The story goes on to tell us how the man lost his legs, why he was in the forest and how the doctor helps him achieve his aim (ultimately to win enough money to buy a pair of handmade shoes).
In the original it was a handful of pages long, but in English, translated by Martin Chalmers (*), it comes, courtesy of the wonderful Seagull Books as a 208 page coffee-table style book (the pages are c30cm*20cm in size), as the text, presented more as a prose poem, is accompanied by stunning artwork from Sunandini Banerjee, using a collage-like technique.
One example (more can be found at the illustrator's Facebook page):
Banerjee's artwork doesn't attempt to illustrate so much show the story as represent an artistic response to it.
In German, a distinct set of artwork was produced, in 2006, in response to the book: drawings by Alfons Schweiggert, which are more grotesque cartoons of the story itself:
Overall: unusually the great Bernhard is eclipsed here, although that his text, even a simple children's story, can produce such artistic responses is a testament to its power. But Banerjee's is the star of the show and the overall book makes for a lovely keepsake for the Bernhard fan.
3.5 stars
---------------------------------------------------------
* To update my list of Bernhard's many English translators:
Of works I have read, I note Ewald Osers (The Cheap Eaters, Yes & Old Masters, also an earlier translation of Woodcutters), David McLintock (Concrete, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Extinction & Woodcutters), Sophie Wilkins (Lime Works & Correction), Martin Chalmers (Prose and Victor Halfwit), Peter Jansen (Three Novellas - Amras), Kenneth Northcott (Voice Imitators & Three Novellas - Playing Watten & Walking), Michael Hoffman (Frost), Richard and Clara Winston (Gargoyle), Laura Lindgren (Thomas Bernhard: 3 days), James Reidel (Goethe Dies), Jack Dawson (Loser), Carol Brown Janeway (My Prizes), Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney (Heldenplatz), Russell Stockman (On the Mountain). And in addition I'm aware of translations by Gita Honneger (author also of a biography of Bernhard), Michael Mitchell, David Horrocks, Peter Eyre & Tom Cairns (various stories, plays and poems), as well as Douglas Robertson (various unauthorised translations, including The Cheap Eaters - http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-alternative-translation-of-die.html).
tzveyah's review against another edition
5.0
great little story, and excellent graphics to illustrate.
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