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Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist / PATRON ONLY EARLY ACCESS (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-18 04:01:48
Edited:
2020-07-18 13:57:32
Imported:
2026-09
Tags:

Content

A German tale of a horse breeder's revenge in the16th century.

Files

Michael Kohlhaas - Heinrich von Kleist BOOK REVIEW

BUY HERE: https://amzn.to/30fWgPW Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/booksarebetterthanfood?fan_landing=true New Yorker Article: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/michael-kohlhaas-the-book-that-made-the-novel-modern *Correction* Kohlhas'

Comments

Kris Tabor

Awesome, you should definately check out the movie Amour Fou, its about Kleist's suicide pact with Henriette Vogel, it's one of my favs!

Derrik

Kleist remains an unforgivable gap in my reading. "St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music" was an unforgettable short story I had to read for a class eons ago.

Jeffrey Rozier

Hey Clifford, thanks for the New Directions Publishing intro. I went to the website and they have a New Classics 12 month book of the month club. I'm going to join and I want to let New Directions know I learned about them through Books Are Better Than Food. Do you know if there is a discount code by chance? If not, no problem I'm still going to join awill mention BABTF brought me there.

Marshall L'Amour

I share your sentiment about the latter portion of the book, which I think is why I prefer the film adaptation (though I did appreciate the clip of the text, as you mention, and did feel it was perhaps ahead of its time, not unlike my regard for Nietzsche). My big takeaway from the story was regarding the concept put forth by Kohlhaas (in speaking with Martin Luther, I believe), in which he explains how the injustice of his situation exempted him from society and its laws, effectively exiling him (as I believe he put it), which, right or wrong, is a natural outcome and very much a human proclivity. "In Defense of Lost Causes" puts quite succinctly in a way as implied by Hegel's own observations in this regard: "If a class of people is systematically deprived of their rights, of their very dignity as persons, they are eo ipso also released from their duties towards the social order, since this order is no longer their ethical substance." As in, the degree to which a behavior is ethical is always contingent upon the extent to which an ethical background sustains the dignity of those subject to it (failing in this, a society courts anarchy, etc.). Where I think Kohlhaas, himself, errs is not in going too far so much as not going far enough; narrowing his vision to revenge and remaining blind to the greater plight of his comrades, for instance, or his victims for that matter.

Marshall L'Amour

Amazing soundtrack on the film, by the way. And if you haven't seen it, don't judge it by the US trailer ("Age of Uprising"? WTF?) which is very deliberately misleading to make a buck (one if the reasons I personally wrote "Fight Club" off when that first came out, incidentally).