Hermann Ungar, The Maimed, Trans. by Kevin Blahut (Twisted Spoon Press, 2002)«Set in Prague, The Maimed relates the story of a highly neurotic, socially inept bank clerk who is eventually impelled by his widowed landlady into servicing her sexual appetites. At the same time he must witness the steady physical and mental deterioration of his lifelong friend who is suffering from an unnamed disease. Part psychological farce, Ungar tells a dark, ironic tale of chaos overtaking one's meticulously ordered life. One of only two novels Ungar wrote.»
«Originally published in 1923 and accurately described by Thomas Mann as depicting "a sexual hell," The Maimed is also one of the most provocative novels I have ever read.— Thomas McGonigle
«... a sexual hell, full of filth, crime and the deepest melancholy—a monomaniacal digression, if you will, but nevertheless the digression of an inwardly pure artistry, which one might hope will mature into a less one-sided view and representation of life and humanity.»— Thomas Mann
«Ungar's The Maimed captures the suffocatingly claustrophobic life of Franz Polzer, a life haunted by lies, deceit, brutality, blackmail, and physical and moral coruption.» — The Education Digest
«Ungar leads the reader through a maze of the foul, a catalogue of human failings, then pulls the plug with a rumbling inevitability. It can't really be described as a downward spiral, more a steady progress. Nobody could really drop any further, but they lose any misgivings about being so low. People do not become beasts: they just acknowledge that they are beasts.» — nthposition
«David Lynch and Patrick McCabe fans will fall right into this marvelously dark and psychotically twisted tale. It is a maniacal blend of sadism mixed with the vivid portrayal of an individual's descent into psychosis and his perceptions of the equally insane world around him: Blue Velvet meets Butcher Boy.» — New Pages
«Set in Prague with a bank clerk as the main character, The Maimed explores the breakdown of identity and culture in the unsettled, ominous years between the two World Wars. Franz Polzer is a fastidious bank clerk. But his fastidiousness comes to be seen as a desperate means to try to maintain a grip on the world around him and his self in it coming apart from the political, social, and historical pressures of the time. Ungar tracks the stages of the disturbance which ineluctably overcomes Polzer. Many stark, expressionistic woodcuts add to the tone of the novel. Not only the theme and writing style, but also the artistic design of this book from a publisher in Prague will draw readers of serious modern fiction to it.» — Henry Berry
«The novel is exceedingly grim, dwelling on themes of child abuse and sexual molestation, religious fanaticism, flesh-eating disease, whoring, crime, poverty, the slaughtering of animals and finally serial murder; and poor Franz Polzer is plunged into despair simply by the unfashionableness of his hat.» — furious ape!
«In Genesis, the patriarch Jacob is lamed at the hands of a man, identified by the prophet Hosea as an angel. Only Jacob's leg is lamed, though the angel undoubtedly possessed the power to kill. And only after this injury is he fit for the name Israel, and its inheritance. Achilles' heel is a greater weakness than Achilles' foot, and for that reason Achilles is fated to myth. Ungar will survive any maiming and will emerge stronger.» - The Prague Pill
«The Maimed by Hermann Ungar wonderfully terrifying descent into paranoia, perversity and the power of abuse. Well-written and captivating from the opening sentence, this novel tells the depressing story of Franz Polzer. Ungar leads us with a perfect narrative through a tale that offers no lasting happiness for the tortured soul of Franz or those around him.Thematically, we are dealing with repression, abuse, madness, homosexuality and sadism.
Doesn't that sound like fun? Read on, brave ones.
Franz Polzer's life starts off badly and never quite recovers even though for a time, he learns to maintain a routine through his systematic organization and superstitions. After losing his mother and being repeatedly beaten at the hands of his father while his aunt held him down, Franz becomes a timid and withdrawn fellow fearing most everything and everyone. Then one night he sees his father leaving his aunt's room and believes that they are having an affair. Franz develops an intense aversion to her which is impressed upon his memory the part in her black hair contrasted with the whiteness of her scalp. This imagery sticks with him and shows up later in the book causing him paralyzing anxiety as he thinks of his landlady, Frau Porges:
As soon as the shadow of his aunt fell across the lighted door, Polzer had known that a woman's nakedness was something horrid. Even before seeing his aunt's shadow, he was tormented by the horrible thought that her naked body was not closed. He felt the same way in the presence of Frau Porges--like he was plunging endlessly into a terrible slit. Like open flesh, like the folds as the edge of a wound. In galleries, he never wanted to see the pictures and statues of naked women. He wanted to touch the body of a naked woman. He felt it was the locus of impurity and a disgusting smell. He only saw Frau Porges during the day, when she was fully clothed. Yet he was tormented by the thought of her fat, naked body.
The one thing that saves Franz from his miserable existence is his success in his studies and the meeting of Karl Fanta, a rich boy who attends the Gymnasium with him. Ungar describes a homosexual relationship between Karl and Franz even from the beginning, "Karl Fanta saw that Polzer was unhappy, and often both boys embraced, kissing each other while they cried." In 1923, this was quite a daring work and when Ungar submitted it to Kafka's publisher at the time, although liking it, thought he would be brought up on obscenity charges if he published it. Interestingly, the relationship between Franz and Karl is the only relationship, at least for Franz, where physical intimacy is an expression of love not a an act of compliance stemming from fear. Of course, in true Eastern European style, any happiness derived from his relationship with Karl is thwarted. Karl becomes ill and is sent away for treatment. Karl's father had agreed to pay Franz's way through his University studies, but once Karl is sick, Franz is forced to leave his studies and take a clerk position in a bank.
Due to his meager finances, he is forced to rent a room from Klara Porges, the fat and 'hairy' widow. He is frightened of her and repulsed by her. He consistently obsesses over her fat and the part in her black hair that reminds him of his aunt. Even though he avoids her, she manipulates him into spending more time with her as well as sleeping with her which turns out to be a humiliating and disgusting experience:
The breasts beneath her loose blouse were already touching his body. He lifted his hands to push her away, but his fingers only grasped th heavy mass of flesh.
That evening he was able to do it.
She had put out the light and was sleeping beside him. Her arm was around his shoulders.
That night Franz Polzer was seized by a great, incomprehensible and horrible thought.
It happened suddenly. The white line made by the part in her hair shimmered palely. Her body seemed soft and dark He longed for this body, and suddenly her remembered it was the body of his sister.
He knew the thought had no foundation. He had never had a sister. But the idea was too powerful and immediate for him to dispel it.
Franz Polzer rose and wrapped himself in his coat. He sat down at the table. It was as though he had slept with his sister. He remembered the nights at home when his father's heavy steps would creak over the rotten floorboards, and he would lie in bed, overcome by horror as he listened.
As his relationship with Frau Porges progresses, it becomes more humiliating. Karl, who is now married and has a teenage son, becomes prominent once more in Franz's life. Now a paraplegic and rotting away from some unknown disease, he has become a hostile and paranoid man He confides in only in Franz and the weight of this is unpleasant and intimidating for Franz. But because of his feelings and loyalty to Karl, Franz never questions or objects. He does what is asked of him. At one point, Karl becomes so verbally abusive to his wife and son that the son, also named Franz, confides in Polzer providing another sexually confusing moment:
Polzer pulled him close. He pressed the boy's head to his chest. Franz Fanta's question had touched him For a moment his hand lay on Franz's soft hair. He pulled quickly away struck by indistinct memories of the boy' father, of the work from the assignment book, of tears of distant affection.
"I'm sure you won't get sick," he said.
"It bothers us," said Franz, "me and my mother. Mother thinks you could help us." Polzer held Franz Fanta tight. He felt his thin limbs against his body, felt the way Franz's chest rose and fell as he breathed.
The boy looked at Franz Polzer.
Polzer avoided his eyes. He felt the boy's heartbeat. It was a face he had seen before. Dora was right. Forgotten similarities filled Polzer with consternation and anguish.
Franz Fanta said:
"Do you love me, Polzer?"
Shocked, Polzer let go of the boy.
Ungar gives us such a repressed story of homosexuality that it's difficult for the reader to ever think that Franz will find happiness. An infusion of oppression and desperation leads us from page to page, hoping that relief is soon to be found. But each of the characters in this book is truly tragic. Polzer is the ultimate victim--abuse brought on by others and fueled by his own defense mechanisms. But the others are sorrowful victims of their own self-imposed cages grasping for quickest way to feel powerful in hopes of garnering even the smallest moment of happiness. Abuse begets abuse and it was never more true than in this twisted and tragic tale of Franz Polzer.
What adds to this tragedy, are the eerily exquisite drawings by Pavel Rut. It's as if Rut has given us pencil drawings of all the people who are from the same town as the figure in Edvard Munch's The Scream. These illustrations merely enhance the sorrowful aesthetic. Hermann Ungar should be better known than he is and thanks to Twisted Spoon Press for putting this novel back in print. I am for sure going to check out the Ungar's other book, Boys and Murderers.» - Monica Carter
«Franz Polzer works in a bank, noting and filing papers. He speaks to no one, goes from his room to his work, and then back to his room. He eats a simple meal prepared by his landlady, the widow Klara Porges. He then sleeps, gets up and goes to work, arriving at exactly the same time he has for the last seventeen years.
But the widow craves affection, finally gets him to take her for a walk, and then seduces him --- much to his shame. Meanwhile, he meets with his friend Karl Fanta who has turned from being a handsome young man to a cripple who has lost both legs and one arm.
Karl whispers to Franz that his wife Dora is plotting against him, wants to steal his money, has hired on an attendant to kill him and take the inheritance. To get away from his wife, Karl and the attendant, Sonntag, move into Franz's apartment, and everything falls apart.
Well, not really. Like a Kafka novel, everything has been falling apart from the very beginning. Franz Polzer (the word means "weenie") worries about his fellow workers in the bank laughing at him; he worries about the widow stealing sheets of paper from him; he worries about how yellow and hairy she is; he worries about a hole in the knee of his best pair of pants; he worries - as all good neo-schizophrenics must - about worrying.
But with Sonntag and his knife (he used to be a butcher) and Karl his nutty ideas about people wanting to steal from him and kill him - with all these right down the hall, things go from being screwy to being downright scary. Klara Porges gets pregnant, and Karl, lying next to her in bed, thinks,
The child in her belly was breathing, the living child. Soon her belly would be opened and the child would lie before Polzer, naked, with tubular limbs and deep creases in the flesh at the joints, a girl, with a line between her legs...He did not want it, it should never be.
This meditation on his soon-to-be-born daughter leads him into a threnody on ugliness --- a song that is repeated again and again:
She was ugly and everything was a torment, But everything had to be a torment and everything had to be ugly.
"Everything had to be ugly:" Franz with his "big red hands." Karl with his stumps and suppurating wounds. Sonntag with his blood-stained apron. Frau Klara, with
the swollen belly, her breasts which fell to the side when she lay down, the hairs between them, her fat face, the hands that had grasped all over the bodies of the men.
This is an absolutely riveting tale, told with an absolute minimum of detail - filled with quick, impressionistic sketches. With its repeated horrors out of the daily grind of life, it reminds one of the post WWI art of Weimar Germany known as Die neue Sachlichkeit - "the new matter-of-factness," or "the new resignation," possibly even, "the new blah" - with painters like George Grosz, Georg Schotz, Otto Dix, Otto Griebel, and Heinrich Maria Davringhausen.
The Maimed is thus first cousin to Die neue Sachlichkeit. There are no flowers here, no trees, no happy children, no happy people. The characters are trapped in a miserable merry-go-round, desperate for an escape and yet afraid of any escape that is offered to them. One is reminded of Sartre's La Nausée, West's Miss Lonelyhearts, the plays of Eugene O'Neill.
Kafka - a contemporary - is merry and bright compared to Ungar. At times, the world of The Maimed is so drab, so bleak, so miserable, so misogynistic that one wants to lay it aside, especially when the cripple Karl starts in to talking about Klara's body,
Her stomach is ugly, isn't it? Covered with folds of fat? You must be able to see it when she bathes...You say she is not very fit. Her breasts, her fat stomach, slap slap, flabby as boiled pork. Just like that, Polzer, slap slap, the mother sow!
But The Maimed works on several levels besides one of naked disgust. There are the tiny details that tear the characters apart (and hold the novel together): the butcher's knife, and the blood-stain on his apron; Polzer's hat that people seem to laugh at; the Saint Christopher painting that hangs over his bed (that falls crashing to the ground); the suit that a stranger buys him; and - again and again - "the white part in Klara's hair." These are themes that bind the story tightly, symbols that come banging together at the very end when Klara Porges' head is found, in the stairwell, wrapped on a dirty cloth, chopped off at the neck.
This is one of two novels written by Hermann Ungar before he died in 1929 at the age of thirty-six. The present edition contains a brief fragmentary final chapter that the author himself rejected when the book was published in 1923. It should not have been included here; in four pages, it undoes much of the ambiguousness that lends such power to this story of cruelty and unrest and anxiety.» - Gunther Krause
Hermann Ungar, Boys & Murderers, Trans. by Isabel F. Cole (Twisted Spoon Press, 2006)«Boys & Murderers is the first complete collection of novellas and stories in English from Hermann Ungar, author of the highly-acclaimed novel The Maimed. A writer of unique talent whose life was prematurely ended by illness, he was much admired by Thomas Mann, who prefaces this volume, and known as the "Moravian Dostoevsky" for his analysis of the human psyche. In fiction that is often grotesque and comical, Ungar explores the depravities of the heart and delusions of the mind. Taking Prague as well as his hometown of Boskovice for his settings, he can be located in that illustrious tradition of both Prague German writers (he was associated with Max Brod in the Prague Circle) and Jewish writers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such as Joseph Roth.
Forgotten for decades, Ungar's work has experienced a renaissance over the past years with translations appearing in a number of languages and new editions appearing in German, which has allowed him to take his place among the greats of 20th-century European literature.»
«In the two novellas Boys & Murderers Ungar demonstrates an almost disconcerting mastery. Here, in utterly sharp, utterly clear, almost violently naked language, the author relates two fates with an intensity equaled by few of today's luminaries. Unyielding, steely as a screw, a cruel psychology bores its way into people, down to the innermost core of their being: you falter, you shudder to read on, but with the relentless grip of a man on fire he thrusts you inexorably into his narrative will, not releasing you until the final page. I rank this little book among the most powerful to have emerged from Austria or Germany in recent years. From now on the greatest hopes, the highest expectations, will be pinned to this new name.» — Stefan Zweig
«As with his notorious first novel, the stories in Boys & Murderers plumb the depths of desperation and depravity, suggesting both Robert Walser's sense of the abject and Franz Kafka's brutal irony.» — Rain Taxi
«Ungar's use of language in this remarkable translation paints the reader a portrait of the grim realities of the lives of those who often pass us by in the streets as invisible, tortured beings. This collection represents the work of a man whose literary talent has remained unknown to most of the world until now. It is a spectacular example of literature that had its own limited time on Earth, the German-Jewish literature of the Czech lands.» — Slavic and East European Journal
«Kafka is often suggested as a reference point to Ungar's work, but that is not right: the crazed Old Testament morality to some of the writing reminds one more of Flannery O'Connor. Ungar is convinced of our fated lives. We struggle to maintain order and propriety but, for his characters, the struggle is inevitably doomed.» — Mark Thwaite
«The perpetual humiliation machine in Ungar's fiction never winds down; it blocks both pleasure and resolution, ratcheting ever further into horror... In [the] minor arena of sexual horror, Ungar is unsurpassable.» — Diana George
«Its title less Freudian than factual, a bald statement of theme, Boys & Murderers is obsessional literature, harrowing and pitiless. In its first story, "A Man and a Maid," a boy leaves his orphanage for America, where he endeavors to make a fortune, only to return to his Moravian town (based on Ungar's native Boskovice) to enslave the orphanage's charwoman, whose sexuality so preoccupied his childhood. Other stories similarly confront a world in adolescent decay, a modernity beset with the basest desires: Ungar's people are almost invariably nymphomaniacs and killers, soldier-drunkards humored by the occasional barbering hunchback. In these pages, there's little history to parse, and hardly any psychology. Topos matters little; the names may change, but we stay the same — our demons follow us everywhere.» — The Forward
«A masterpiece, with such a wealth of psychological relationships, symbolism, harrowing experience, comedy and misery, bold moral statements and artfully evoked mystery that one has this feeling: this comes from a fullness; here is a talent that musters its forces for deeds that will make a stir... extraordinary artistic courage and inspiration, a vision that has left its mark on me forever.» — Thomas Mann
«For all its psychological horror, Ungar's writing nevertheless unearths certain truths about the human condition that manage to seriously affect the reader's waking dreams. Boys & Murderers is a book for people who dream while they're awake, who aren't afraid to name their most personal fears.» - Think again
Hermann Ungar, The Class, Trans. by Mike Mitchell (Dedalus, 2004)«Josef Blau is a high school teacher who comes from a poor background, poorer than that of most of his pupils. The insecurity this causes him leads to an obsession with order and discipline. He senses his pupils watching him, waiting for the slightest weakness; the least infringement, he feels, will lead to the complete collapse of his tightly ordered world. The other focus of his obsession is his attractive wife. Despite all the evidence and her assurances, he cannot believe she will be faithful to him. He forces her to shave her hair and wear clothes that are no more than shapeless sacks, yet still cannot conquer his fears. Catastrophe is looming and, once the first breach is made, inevitable. 'We are all schoolchildren', Blau says, 'in one great class.'. »
«The first English translation of Czech author Ungar's extremely interesting second novel, published in 1927, preceding the better-known The Maimed. Josef Blau, schoolteacher, has a full-blown case of paranoia, driven by an unrelenting sense of inferiority from having been born to the working class. Now, he's absolutely certain that his group of 18 high-school boys-all from the very well-off classes-are simply biding their time, waiting for him to make some mistake that will let them get the upper hand and ride rough-shod over him, revealing that his authority over them is baseless, humiliating him utterly. A more strict keeper of order, therefore, you could hardly imagine than Josef Blau, so stiff and formal that Ungar never even mentions him except by his full name: Josef Blau-not even in the scenes in his apartment at home with his pregnant (and very pretty) wife Selma, his mother-in-law, and their frequent visitor Uncle Bobek, gourmand, souse, sponge, nostalgist, braggart. What will happen? On an outing into the countryside, Josef Blau is certain he hears his boys taunt him-especially when he then senses them turning toward Herr Leopold, the handsome, companionable, athletic new instructor. Things only worsen as Josef Blue runs into money trouble, thinks Herr Leopold is wooing Selma, and believes that the richest boy in his class has a secret that he's about to use to humiliate his instructor. Josef Blau's childhood friend, the very strange and bitterly class-conscious Modlizki, suggests a plan to turn the tables and get something to blackmail the boy in return-by spying on him in the red light district. But there's a snag, and the plan brings results more horrifying thanever intended or imagined, and the question becomes one of whether Josef Blau can survive at all. Like a glimpse three-quarters of a century back into a world that has wholly vanished: formal, constrained, class-ridden, quintessentially European. Fascinating.» - Kirkus Reviews
