Eternal Philistine, The: An Edifying Novel in Three Parts (Neversink) - Softcover

Odon Von Horvath

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935554476 ISBN 13: 9781935554479

Publisher: MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING, 2012

Synopsis

A classic prescient work of pre-WWII literature by a major Weimar author about a young used car salesman. In search of another means to live the highlife, he decides to travel from Berlin to Madrid to see the World's Fair - and hopefully meet a beautiful, rich woman who can provide for his every whim. The Eternal Philistine is a highly stylised and at times raucously funny tale of the almost absurd: a dark satiric look at European life from all levels of society on the brink of cataclysmic Fascism.

About this title

About the Author

ÖDÖN VON HORVÁTH (1901-1939) was born near Trieste, the son of a Hungarian diplomat who moved the family constantly. Horváth would subsequently say of himself, "I am a mélange of Old Austria; Hungarian, Croat, Czech, German; alas, nothing Se- mitic." Although his first language was Hungarian, he went to high school in Vienna and college in Munich, and began writing plays in German. Leaving school, he settled in Berlin, where in 1931 his play Italian Night debuted to rave reviews--except from the Nazi press, which reviled him. His next play, Tales from the Vienna Woods, starring Peter Lorre, drew an even stronger, equally divided re- sponse. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 he relocated to Vienna, but on the day of the Anschluss--March 13, 1938--he fled to Budapest. From there, he soon moved to Paris, but on June 1, 1938, he was killed in a freak accident when, caught in a rainstorm coming out of a theater on the Champs-Élysées, he took shelter under a tree that was hit by lightning; von Horváth was struck by a falling tree limb and killed instantly. He was 36 years old and had published 21 plays and three novels--The Age of the Fish, A Child of Our Time, and The Eternal Philistine.

Edition details

• Publisher: MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1935554476
• ISBN 13: 9781935554479
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224