The Maimed

Up early to get on with some French work, working out how to Anglicise a campaign which was full of French puns, jeu de mot and references into English. Something of an impossible task, but sent my best effort for this off at midday.

Knee a bit on the puffy side and am hobbly, but enjoyed myself in the gym for half an hour or so.

Afternoon and evening spent looking blankly at poems, flying over the Channel in a ME 109, and reading The Maimed by Hermann Ungar. Published in 1923. It is as others have pointed out a perfect companion to Die neue Sachlichkeit painters such as Otto Dix and George Grosz. An exhibition of Neue Sachlichkeit I saw in my teens made a lasting impression on me then. The Maimed is repulsively gripping. A post first world war society and its hero Pultz subject to an obsessive compulsive behaviour, an abused childhood, poverty, a fear of women and children, a sexual revulsion, and a cast of other characters who as physically and emotionally crippled.

Below Cardplayers by Otto Dix... Something of atmosphere of The Maimed.



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