Essential, brilliant.

Susan Sontag

Scathingly clever short stories. Includes The Devil in the White House and The Development of Iraq as a Case for the Files.

The Devil's Blindspot

Fiction by Alexander Kluge

Translated from German by Michael Hulse

The 173 stories collected in Alexander Kluge’s The Devil’s Blind Spot range from a dozen pages to just half a page in length: these tales are like novels in pill form. The whole is arranged in five chapters. The first group illustrates the little-known virtues of the Devil; the second explores love (from Kant to the opera); the third (entitled “Sarajevo Is Everywhere”) addresses power; the fourth considers the cosmos; and the fifth ranges all our “knowledge” against our feelings. Stories such as “Origin of Iraq as a Case for the Files” and “The Devil in the White House” display Alexander Kluge’s special genius for making found material his own. From the wreck of the Kursk to failed love affairs to Chernobyl, Kluge alights on precise details, marching us step by step through a black comedy of the exact stages of thinking that lead to disaster. These semi-documentary stories radiate what W.G. Sebald termed “Kluge’s intellectual steadfastness” as he undertakes his “archaeological excavation of the slag-heaps of our collective existence.”

Paperback(published Sep, 01 2007)

ISBN
9780811217361
Price US
14.95
Price CN
19
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
224

Clothbound(published Sep, 01 2007)

ISBN
9780811215954
Price US
25.95
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
224
Portrait of Alexander Kluge

Alexander Kluge

Alexander Kluge is a famous German filmmaker and author.

Essential, brilliant.

Susan Sontag