your Joseph Roth
1. Katz: Richard Katz (1888–1968), travel writer, correspondent for the Vossische Zeitung. Worked for Ullstein Verlag, still a major German publisher today.
2. Die grüne Post: a weekly paper for country people.
3. DAZ: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, newspaper for heavy industry.
4. Reichsbanner: liberal soldiers’ union in the Weimar Republic.
5. Koch: Erich Koch-Weser (1875–1944), one of the founders of the German Democratic Party; from 1919 to 1921, minister of the interior, 1928 to 1929, minister of justice.
52. To Benno Reifenberg
Strasbourg, Tuesday [1927]
Esteemed Mr. Reifenberg,
1. I’m returning Holitscher’s1 manuscript by the same post. I didn’t care for it. It had some potential, but for H.’s unbearable views on grand monde, fashion, women, prostitution, etc. A man who is only familiar with life in Berlin or Munich, is naïve, and doesn’t understand the first thing about women, shouldn’t write about such topics. It’s just one more sorry confirmation that the German author remains hidebound and ignorant. No homme social he.
2. The first of my thin but full Diaries will go to you tomorrow. I’m pleased. Setting off deliberately from the personal, it slowly spreads into the universal. My work as a reporter is always done with a book in mind, which doesn’t stop it from falling apart into separate articles. The binding is my style, is me. You will see.
3. I’m finished with the Saarland.2 I left because I wasn’t able to write anything while there. I need to fill two more diaries, almost a book. I have visited factories and a mine. For half a day I worked as a salesman, got drunk at night, and slept with an ugly hotel chambermaid from sheer wretchedness. But I am steeped in the Saarland, and know it as well as I know Vienna. You will see.
4. I’m going to go to Paris for a few days. My wife is very ill in St. Raphael. I may have to take her to Frankfurt. From Thursday, my address is c/o Wagner 8 rue Mignard.
5. In about 10 days I’ll be through with writing my reportage. Where would you like me to go then?
6. I can’t get by on the money. In 4 weeks, I’ve gone through 500 marks. And they use francs. 6a.
7. I am very widely known — almost popular — in the Saarland. Asked to give a talk on Russia, at the request of some cultivated middle-class people. The paper is widely and attentively read. The only place where we are ahead of BT, Voss., and Cologne. People mostly very much in favor. Complaints about the books pages. [. .] Promotion, sales, wooing of subscribers, advertising space, all inadequate. Bäderblatt is popular. My novel much admired. Kracauer’s photograph likewise. [. .]
I think that’s everything!
Best wishes, your
Joseph Roth
1. Holitscher: Arthur Holitscher (1869–1941), travel writer and novelist. He was Thomas Mann’s model for the awful writer Spinell in the novella Tristan.
2. Saarland: Roth was engaged on writing a series of articles on the Saarland and Lorraine, which appeared in the FZ in 1927 under the title of “Letters from Germany.”
53. To his parents-in-law
Hotel Englischer Hof
Frankfurt am Main
30 November 1927
My dear parents,1
thank you for the gloves and the kind letter. I’m going to be here for another 10 days, then to the Ruhr, and then probably joining Friedl in Paris. We could only go to Vienna if I managed to sell my new novel first, but the chances of doing that by Christmas are slim. Also, to get a better offer, it would be more advisable to allow its predecessor a little more time. I hope it is a success! There’s no point in going to Vienna with a little money, and Hedi2 needs our expenses even more than she needs our physical presence. I send her my very best.
My health is so-so. Next spring, I should like to take a cure in Vichy or Karlsbad.
Regards to you and the children, from your
Son M.
1. parents: Selig (1875–1958) and Jenny (Jente) Reichler (1876–1954), née Torczyner. They lived in the Leopoldstadt in Vienna, and in 1935 emigrated to Palestine, where they died.
2. Hedi: Friedl’s sister; she left Austria in 1938 for exile in London.
54. To Félix Bertaux
Hotel Excelsior, Munich
21 December 1927
Esteemed Mr. Bertaux,
I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your letter before today. I’m so grateful to you for your kind words — they filled me with a childish glee. I really don’t know whose verdict on my book1 could have had more importance than yours. Only French Europeans of your stamp are still in a position to recognize the European tradition of stylistic purity — certainly not the American Germans in whose midst I write. If it hadn’t been for your letter, I would have despaired at the stupidity of all the German reviewers, all of whom praised me, but for things I don’t see. Except for one piece of advice, which I am unable to follow: to write in French. They all talked about my “Latin clarity.” You may see thereby how far the Germans of today are fallen from their own literary traditions. It’s the country where the British and American authors have the biggest print runs, and the greatest successes. Whereas I — according to my German reviewers — am a “one-off in German literature”! The feeling of not belonging anywhere, which has always been with me, was borne out.
I am glad you recognized Rohan.2 Oui, c’est ça, c’est lui!
May I tell you I am now working on a novel on the postwar generation.3 I hope the material will be of interest to you.
I’m going to be in Berlin in February. I will be delighted to seek out your son. Before that, though, there’s a chance — a probability, even — that I’ll be in Paris. End of December — I’ll try to see you, if you have time.
Once again: my best thanks!
Please give my regards to your wife.
I remain, as always, your
Joseph Roth
1. my book: Flight Without End.
2. Rohan: presumably Prince Karl Anton Rohan (1898–1975), editor of the European Review, and a proponent of good Franco-German relations.
3. noveclass="underline" Right and Left (Berlin: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1929).
55. To Georg Heinrich Meyer
Paris 16e
152–54 rue de la Pompe
27 December 1927
Esteemed Mr. Meyer,1
you will have heard by now that I have concluded a new contract with Kurt Wolff. I had hoped to see you in Munich, and talk to you once more. I’ve been more convinced than ever, since Frankfurt, that your memoirs would be an important book. If you do write them, then be sure to mention me as your newest acquisition in nonpareil at the back.
Are you pleased with my book? Happy New Year, and a great success for Flight Without End from your old
Joseph Roth
1. Meyer: Georg Heinrich Meyer (1869–1931), editor with Kurt Wolff. The book JR asks after — already, before exile, before Friedl’s diagnosis, he is knocking them out at a dangerous rate — is Zipper and His Father, which Wolff brought out the following year, 1928.