The Marquise of O--, and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: What in the world is wrong with the world?
Review: I absolutely refuse to believe that I am the first person to review this book. It being one of the most innovative and (truly) groundbreaking collection of short stories in the German literary canon, and influencing massively such big shots (probably with lots more reviews) as Kafka and Deleuze, you will forgive a little cognitive dissonance on my part. So, that being noted, I'll just reiterate what all the other reviewers have already said:
Kleist balances on a fragile strand of (in)sanity that slides lengthwise throughout these stories, not a one of them failing to reinvent the wheel--not only formally but substantively, as it behooves us readers to admit on the double. Don't let the cover fool you either... I did, for a long time, and there should be a dead lady's freaked-out ghost surrounded by three brothers with empty eyes, chanting the 'gloria in excelsis,' all backed by a burning castle with mutilated horses. I'm referring specifically to three stories in this collection---and only three---but there are far more mind-benders, crude and massive explosions of language, and just ouright amazing plots to all of them, that my skimpy comments can do no sort of justice to them. But that's o.k., because you can look at all the other reviewers for more informative responses.
Truly disturbing, truly maddening, truly genius. Kleist notoriously blew his brains out in 1811, after shooting another woman in an altogether fitting (yes, fitting...read and see why) suicide pact formed by Kleist in order to stick one last finger up at the world that had robbed him of his "lifeplan" as a rational youth. The world, that is, responsible for his "madness" (yeah right) and these stories, which clearly many of us have taken great pleasure in absorbing. The world, responsible for his funked up play Penthilesia, which Goethe avoided like the plauge, and for which Kleist had to be physically restrained from challenging the man to a duel.
If so many people hadn't reviewed this already, I tell you, I may have agreed with him about this absurd world. Thank God he was wrong!

Rating:
Summary: What in the world is wrong with the world?
Review: I absolutely refuse to believe that I am the first person to review this book. It being one of the most innovative and (truly) groundbreaking collection of short stories in the German literary canon, and influencing massively such big shots (probably with lots more reviews) as Kafka and Deleuze, you will forgive a little cognitive dissonance on my part. So, that being noted, I'll just reiterate what all the other reviewers have already said:
Kleist balances on a fragile strand of (in)sanity that slides lengthwise throughout these stories, not a one of them failing to reinvent the wheel--not only formally but substantively, as it behooves us readers to admit on the double. Don't let the cover fool you either... I did, for a long time, and there should be a dead lady's freaked-out ghost surrounded by three brothers with empty eyes, chanting the 'gloria in excelsis,' all backed by a burning castle with mutilated horses. I'm referring specifically to three stories in this collection---and only three---but there are far more mind-benders, crude and massive explosions of language, and just ouright amazing plots to all of them, that my skimpy comments can do no sort of justice to them. But that's o.k., because you can look at all the other reviewers for more informative responses.
Truly disturbing, truly maddening, truly genius. Kleist notoriously blew his brains out in 1811, after shooting another woman in an altogether fitting (yes, fitting...read and see why) suicide pact formed by Kleist in order to stick one last finger up at the world that had robbed him of his "lifeplan" as a rational youth. The world, that is, responsible for his "madness" (yeah right) and these stories, which clearly many of us have taken great pleasure in absorbing. The world, responsible for his funked up play Penthilesia, which Goethe avoided like the plauge, and for which Kleist had to be physically restrained from challenging the man to a duel.
If so many people hadn't reviewed this already, I tell you, I may have agreed with him about this absurd world. Thank God he was wrong!