From Publishers Weekly
The malaise of mid-century Germany and the early stirrings of disgust at the smooth machinations of postwar politics are startlingly fresh and vivid in this tour de force originally published in Germany in 1953 and only now translated into English. Koeppen (1906-1996) has been championed over the years by such luminaries as Gnter Grass, Max Frisch and Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and their faith in this novel and the two that with it make up a loose trilogy (Pigeons on the Grass and Death in Rome) proves to be amply justified. Set over the course of two stormy August days in Bonn in the early 1950s, where the German Parliament is meeting alongside the Rhine, the novel follows the actions and deliberations of a member of the socialist opposition party. Brooding over his young wife's recent death, the once-idealistic Keetenheuve struggles to renew in himself a sense of purpose. He left the country in the 1930s, disgusted by Nazi rule, and returned only after the war. As a result, he observes his colleagues with weary detachment, amazed at their ability to recover from dubious wartime activity "back at the center, eight years previously one had been in Nuremberg, eight years before that one had also been in Nuremberg" but also with a certain outsider's wistfulness. As an important vote approaches, he must decide: will he speak up once more for peace and justice, or will he resign himself to some darker fate? Gloom pervades these pages, lighted from within by the fireworks of Koeppen's dazzling prose, rich with allusions to classical and German literature and masterfully translated by Hofmann. Almost eerily contemporary in its concerns, and remarkable as a sidelong, searing appraisal of the legacy of the Nazi years, it is a recovered masterpiece. (June)Forecast: Wildfire word-of-mouth in literary circles and strong reviews will ensure respectable sales and maybe even breakout success. Either way, The Hothouse will be an essential backlist title for the foreseeable future. Death in Rome (Forecasts, June 4), first published in English in 1993, is being reissued simultaneously in paperback.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Koeppen was an influential post-World War II German writer, although he came of age before the war. He was little known outside Germany, yet his work was admired by many German writers of the next generation, including Gunter Grass. This novel, originally published in 1953 and now appearing in its first English translation, tells the story of the final days of a widower who is a member of the German parliament. As his sadness over his loss expands to encompass not only the death of his much younger wife but also the destruction and division of Germany and the present political corruption of which he finds himself a part, he moves deeper into depression. Written in a highly expressionistic style, this taut, existential novel firmly echoes its time and place. Frank Caso
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Marcel Reich-Ranicki
A provocative elegy.
Nadine Gordimer
Scathingly beautiful....it is lyrically inescapable.
The Wall Street Journal
Hofmann has rendered this difficult novelist's richness of observation, insight and verbal elan into vibrant prose.
The Hothouse FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Harrowing, moody, and supremely powerful, The Hothouse, first published in 1953, stands among the finest novels written in postwar Germany. Bitterly controversial at home, largely unknown abroad, Koeppen (1906-1996) brought a volcanic, high-modernist style to German literature, a style that remains unparalleled to this day. It is only since his death that his works have begun to experience a literary renaissance. Here, with the first English publication of The Hothouse, award-winning translator Michael Hofmann has produced a work that not only conveys Koeppen's uniquely radical voice but also is a breathtaking piece of prose in its own right." "The Hothouse refers to the city of Bonn with its warm, damp climate, but it also refers to the political environment of the temporary capital of divided postwar Germany, where politics became more about compromise and half measures than principled change."--BOOK JACKET.
FROM THE CRITICS
Nadine Gordimer
Scathingly beautiful....lyrically inescapable.
Marcel Reich-Ranicki
A provocative elegy.
New York Times Book Review
A masterpiece of German fiction.
Wall Street Journal
Hofmann has rendered this difficult novelist's richness of observation, insight and verbal élan into vibrant prose.
Kirkus Reviews
The first English translation of an important German novel, first published in 1953, whose pointillist complexity offers a searing image of postwar Germany on the perilous threshold of partition and possible rearmament. Virtually forgotten today, Koeppen (1906-96) was an expatriate member of the literary generation immediately preceding that of Heinrich Boll and Günter Grass, whose self-exile from Hitler's Germany made him a prophet without honor in the country to which he returned after the war, living out the rest of his long life in undeserved obscurity. Though he published nothing after 1954, Koeppen is remembered for the so-called "Postwar Trilogy" that includes (his previously translated novels) Pigeons on the Grass and Death in Rome-and the present one: a meticulously observed chronicle of the last two days in the life of Keetenheuve, a Socialist Peace Party member of the Bundestag (Parliament) who, despairing over his countrymen's amoral consumerism and reflexive drift toward militarism, finds he cannot survive in the "hothouse" atmosphere of Bonn, a capitol city sunk in the mire of getting and spending. Most of the story is keyed to Keetenheuve's tormented psyche, and Koeppen produces numerous spectacular stream-of-consciousness passages-notably, the account of a long stroll through Bonn's crowded mean streets, which triggers the bitter (and inevitable) hallucinatory ending. But The Hothouse isn't hermetic: its flexible structure gracefully accommodates flashbacks illuminating its protagonist's neglect of his weak-willed young wife, equally guilt-ridden love-hate relationship with his culture, and complex relations with colleagues who embody a spectrum ofallegiance and resistance to the lingering phenomenon of Hitler's "revolution." This rich brew of history and psychological portraiture, further seasoned by subtle allusions to Teutonic myth and literature, is made fully accessible by Hofmann's fluent, resourceful translation. A rediscovered masterpiece. Norton is reissuing Koeppen's Death in Rome to accompany it. Let's hope a new edition of Pigeons on the Grass will follow soon thereafter.
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