A01=Bonaventura
actor
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
antihero
august klingemann
Author_Bonaventura
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B06=Gerald Gillespie
beckett
bitter
Category1=Fiction
Category=FBC
Category=FC
classic american literature
comic novel
COP=United States
cynical
dark humor
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
despair
eq_bestseller
eq_classics
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
evil
failed poet
faust
gothic
grotesque
Language_English
macabre
melodramatic figure
murder
mystery
night watchman
PA=Available
pessimistic
poe
postmodern
Price_€20 to €50
private activities
PS=Active
puppeteer
romance
romantic
romanticism
sardonic
scandalous
shadowy protagonist
sinful
softlaunch
sordid scenes
spawn of the devil
tragedy
twisted
upscale horror
voyeuristic pleasure
Product details
- ISBN 9780226141428
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 15 x 22mm
- Publication Date: 24 Oct 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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First published in German in 1804, under the nom de plume "Bonaventura," The Nightwatches of Bonaventura is a dark, twisted, and comic novel, one part Poe and one part Beckett. The narrator and anti-hero is not Bonaventura, but a night watchman named Kreuzgang, a failed poet, actor, and puppeteer who claims to be the spawn of the devil himself. As a night watchman, Kreuzgang takes voyeuristic pleasure in spying on the follies of his fellow citizens, and every night he makes his rounds and stops to peer into a window or door, where he observes framed scenes of murder, despair, theft, romance, and other private activities. In his responses, Kreuzgang is cynical, pessimistic, yet not without humor. For him, life is a grotesque, macabre, and base joke played by a mechanical and heartless force. Since its publication, fans have speculated on the novel's authorship, and it is now believed to be by theater director August Klingemann, who first staged Goethe's Faust. Organized into sixteen separate night watches, the sordid scenes glimpsed through parted curtains, framed by door chinks, and lit by candles and shadows anticipate the cinematic.
A cross between the gothic and romantic, The Nightwatches of Bonaventura is brilliant in its perverse intensity, presenting an inventory of human despair and disgust through the eyes of a bitter, sardonic watcher who draws laughter from tragedy. Translated with a fresh introduction by Gerald Gillespie, The Nightwatches of Bonaventura will be welcomed by a new generation of English-language fans, eager to sample the night's dark offerings.
Gerald Gillespie is professor emeritus at Stanford University and a former president of the International Comparative Literature Association.
