The Radetsky March Readalong--Part One

I'm very glad I learned of the Spring (April) Readalong of The Radetsky March by Joseph Roth (1894-1939), hosted by Lizzy of Lizzy's Literary Life and Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. Both Caroline and Lizzy host the annual November "German Literary Month," which focuses on literature written in the German language (including works by writers living in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and German-language writers living in other countries. (For example, Franz Kafka was a Czech writer, but he wrote his masterpieces in German.)
 Last year Lizzy and Caroline hosted a spring readalong, and they're repeating it this spring 2019. Thank you, Caroline and Lizzy!

So what exactly prompted me to set aside time to read Joseph Roth's critically acclaimed masterpiece?
I believe I mentioned in a post in February that I had read a Joseph Roth novel  years ago for German Literary Month, but I had absolutely no idea that he wrote a sweeping novel about the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (The Habsburg Empire), right up to World War I.
After the defeat of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WWI, the Habsburg Empire dissolved and the lands were carved up into small nations according to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty.

In any case, I have read so many novels, and so many historical novels about the UK's involvement in WWI, the U.S. involvement, the French involvement, the German, and the Russian, and the fact that I have never read anything in fiction (or non-fiction) about the Austro-Hungarian Empire's participation was a primary motivator for me.
Thus, the fact that The Radetsky March, published in 1932, was declared a masterpiece by so many writers and critics, coupled with my eagerness to know something more about "the other empire," are what motivated me to tackle this novel. And it is indeed a fascinating novel.

So which translation did I choose?
I am pleased to say that I'm very happy with the Michael Hofmann translation. To get the Hofmann translation in the edition I wanted, I had to order from the Book Depository, which is no hardship at all financially, but is a constraint if you have time pressure. Thankfully I had plenty of time, so a 2-week wait was no problem. (The Book Depository states that they deliver to New York State in 5-8 business days once a book is shipped, but this is not true, never true. It always takes a minimum of 10 business days.)
The other translator for many U.S. editions is the esteemed Joachim Neugroschel (1938-2011). Born in 1938 to Jewish parents in Vienna, the entire family escaped to Brazil in 1939. From there, they migrated to Brooklyn in 1941, where Neugroschel eventually received an excellent education at Columbia, majoring in English and Comparative Literature.  He went on to become a foremost translator of over 200 works into English from the French, Italian, Russian, German, and Yiddish. In an interview, he admitted, "I never read a book before translating it. No reason to. I do not translate the words literally. Only a bad translator would translate literally."
I did not choose his translation,  not on account  of the quotation,  but because the Hofmann translation is that  of a German-language specialist. It would be interesting to read the Neugroschel translation. He seems to have been a polyglot, which is always fascinating.

What particularly struck me in Part One of The Radetsky March:
I was particularly struck by the repeated image of the very young Carl Von Trotta, during his summer vacations, standing upon a chair to view the portrait of his famous grandfather, who was the "Hero of the Battle at Solferino." This grandfather had been the son of a Slovenian peasant, yet he saved the Emperor's life in battle at Solferino. Although the rescue had been a spur-of-the-moment, knee-jerk reaction to save the Emperor's life, this act went on  through the generations and hovered like an anvil over his descendants' lives, something to be forever lived up to.

I think of the very young Carl Von Trotta, the grandson of the Hero of Solferino, whose mother died very young and was not present for his upbringing, so that Carl desperately needed love and  affection and sought it during his teen-aged years from a lower-class woman, Katharina, in a pattern that would afterward be repeated.


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