The Game for Real - Softcover

Richard Weiner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931883440 ISBN 13: 9781931883443

Publisher: Two Lines Press, 2015

Synopsis

Called “The Man of Pain” by the sci-fi author Karel Čapek (who popularized the word “robot”), Richard Weiner is one of European literature’s best-kept secrets. The Game for Real marks the long overdue arrival of his dreamlike, anxiety-ridden fiction into English. Opening with The Game of Quartering, an unnamed hero discovers his double. Surely, he reasons, if he has a double, then his double must also have a double too, and so on… What follows is a grotesquely hilarious, snowballing spree through Paris, where actual landmarks disintegrate into theaters, puppet shows, and, ultimately, a funeral. Following this, The Game for the Honor of Payback neatly inverts things: instead of a branching, expanding adventure, a man known as “Shame” embarks on a quest that collapses inward. Slapped by someone he despises, he launches a doomed crusade to return the insult. As the stakes grow ever higher, it seems that Shame will stop at nothing—even if he discovers he’s chasing his own tail. Blending metaphysical questions with farcical humor, bizarre twists, and acute psychology, The Game for Real is a riveting exploration of who we are—and why we can’t be so sure we know.

About this title

About the Authors

Richard Weiner (1884–1937) is widely considered to be one of the most important Czech writers of the twentieth century. The author of several works of poetry and prose, his writing was suppressed during the Communist period and only became recognized for its importance after 1989.

Benjamin Paloff is the author of The Politics, a collection of poems; his next, And His Orchestra, will be released by Carnegie Mellon University Press in early 2015. A recipient of grants and fellowships from the PEN/Heim Translation Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Stanford Humanities Center, he has translated several books from Polish, most recently Marek Bieńczyk’s Transparency and Andrzej Sosnowski’s Lodgings: Selected Poems. He teaches at the University of Michigan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Two Lines Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1931883440
• ISBN 13: 9781931883443
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256