Tagundnachtgleiche

by Catherine Colomb

Erfüllt von tausend Bildern, die andere Leute in sich zerstören, um wie Händler nur das Nützliche zu behalten, schwankte er, wenn er aus dem Stall kam, verwechselte Ost und West, Raum und Zeit.

Genres: Fiction, France

179 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1953

About the author

Catherine Colomb (1892–1965) has long been considered one of the most original francophone novelists of the twentieth century in Switzerland. Using penname Catherine Tissot, she published her first novel, Pile ou Face (Heads or Tails), in 1934. Adopting the name Catherine Colomb, she wrote a second novel, Châteaux en enfance (Castles in Childhood, 1945), which drew attention to her work. Colomb’s next novel, Les Esprits de la terre (The Spirits of the Earth, 1953), was a critical success. Except for stays in Weimar, Potsdam, Berlin, Paris, and London (where she met members of the Bloomsbury Circle, including Lloyd George, Bertrand Russell, Lytton Strachey, and Vaslav Nijinksy—but not the Woolfs), Colomb spent her entire life in the canton of Vaud. It is known that she read Balzac, Hölderlin, Jean Paul, and especially Proust, as well as, late in life, Virginia Woolf; but, above all, she fashioned her exceptional style and formally innovative fictions in relative isolation.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is wonderful--inventive and interesting. The Virginia Woolf/Proust analogies are quite misleading; this is much closer to Josef Winkler and Ivy Compton-Burnett (all indirection and repetition), but I guess those names are even less likely to generate sales. I very much hope John Taylor translates Colomb's other novels, which would be far too much for me in the original.

Anyway, you have to pay attention, but it rewards that attention. It's a real shame that so few seem to be reading this book!