Product Description

This book, one of the most haunting things that Roth ever composed, was published in 1939, the year the author died. Like Andreas, the hero of the story, Roth drank himself to death in Paris, but this is not an autobiographical confession. It is a secular miracle-tale, in which the vagrant Andreas, after living under bridges, has a series of lucky breaks that lift him briefly onto a different plane of existence. The novella is extraordinarily compressed, dry-eyed and witty, despite its melancholic subject-matter. The Legend of the Holy Drinker was tumed into a film by Enrico Olmi, starring Rutger Hauer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22389 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-16
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was a superb writer whose compact yet lambent fiction deserves the highest praise (and a much wider readership). The Legend of the Holy Drinker, written and published in the year of his death, is a deeply affecting tale of Andreas, an alcoholic like Roth, who drinks himself to death in the rough houses of Paris.

Michael Hoffman's superb translation has rightly garnered much praise. Hoffman stresses that, although often esteemed for the simplicity of his style, Roth is no brutalist: it is the economy and the directness of his writing that is so moving and makes his work so special. Despite its melancholic subject matter The Legend is an uplifting novella.

Throughout the tale Andreas, previously an impoverished vagrant, is continuously visited by miraculous good fortune that illuminates the last days of his mendicant existence and lift him, and the reader, to a new understanding of his (our) dissolution. Roth was a peerless writer and Granta must be praised for bringing him back to our attention in such lovely volumes. --Mark Thwaite

About the Author
Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was the great elegist of the cosmopolitan, tolerant and doomed Central European culture that flourished in the dying days of the Austrian Empire. He wrote thirteen novels, including The Radetzky March and The String of Pearts.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful epitaph to a unique writer
The Legend of the Holy Drinker was the last book that Roth wrote, finished shortly before his alcohol-related death in Paris. It details the last few weeks of an alcoholic tramp who lives under the bridges of the Seine between the wars. A series of extraordinary strokes of luck allow him to recapture some of his old life, and leads him to contemplate who he is and how he got to where he is.

Far from dreary, this is a joyful story, almost whimsical. It is written with such economy and lightness and sureness of touch that it is utterly absorbing, yet has power and poignancy that belie its short length.

This is a brilliant, gleaming little volume, truly a modern day legend, that is so perfectly formed that it cannot disappoint.

A beautiful little tale
Hardly even qualifying for the title novella, this long short story is another one of those tales that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your eyes prickle when you come to the end. In the space of a few pages Roth caught superbly the trial most of do battle with daily -- trying to be good yet occasionally veering from the path through stupidity, weakness or even good intentions. Reading it -- in Hoffman's superb translation, with not a word wrong or a phrase that is infelicitous -- is one of those experiences that makes you remember where you were and what you were doing before you sat down to read. It is a superb little story; a gem. (And as for the apology about the title, contained in the preface -- could you think of anything catchier or more apposite when you finish it?)

A must
First time I read this book, it did impact me profoundly. Few years later I had the opportunity to see the film, not available on DVD yet. Mr Hauer's performance is memorable and the entire setting fantastic.

There is one thing I would like to say about the book and the film: It can actually change the way someone sees things and consequently have a major impact on your life

Fantastic film: an inner-fight between the "ideal me" and the "Ideal of me"