Alexander

Baron Bagge, an unsettling tale of war trauma, superbly and uniquely told

Revisado: 01-13-25

A World War I soldier navigates a war zone on the Eastern front, and more otherworldly spaces, in this reissued modernist novella.

This eerie, affecting tale, first published in German in 1936 and published in English translation in 1956, is narrated by the title character, a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army fighting off Russians near the Carpathian Mountains in 1915.

Much as in his novel Count Luna, published in English the same year, Lernet-Holenia has a knack for capturing the melancholic, paranoid mood that pollutes minds in wartime.

This reissued edition includes a brief, admiring foreword by Patti Smith and a handful of letters between the author and fellow Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, who writes that it is "positively magical the way dream and reality glide seamlessly into one another." Fog-of-war tales are always abundant, but this one conjures a unique spell.

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Expect the unexpected

Revisado: 02-27-11

This is high class literature, a story so intelligent & different, written in such a fascinating & elegant style that is impossible to come across in modern day literature. This author was a true genius.

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