The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

Overview

With his epic trilogy, The Sleepwalkers, Hermann Broch established himself as one of the great innovators of modern literature, a visionary writer-philosopher the equal of James Joyce, Thomas Mann, or Robert Musil. Even as he grounded his narratives in the intimate daily life of Germany, Broch was identifying the oceanic changes that would shortly sweep that life into the abyss.
   Whether he is writing about a neurotic army officer (The Romantic), a disgruntled bookkeeper and would-be assassin (The Anarchist), or an opportunistic war-deserter (The Relaist), Broch immerses himself in the twists of his characters' psyches, and at the same time soars above them, to produce a prophetic portrait of a world tormented by its loss of faith, morals, and reason.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307789167
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/20/2011
Series:	Vintage International
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	656
Sales rank:	254,927
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Hermann Broch (1886–1951) was born in Vienna, where he trained as an engineer and studied philosophy and mathematics. He gradually increased his involvement in the intellectual life of Vienna, becoming acquainted with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, and Robert Musil, among others. The Sleepwalkers was his first major work. In 1938, he was imprisoned as a subversive by the Nazis, but was freed and fled to the United States. In the years before his death, he was researching mass psychology at Yale University. The Death of Virgil originally appeared in 1945; his last major novel, The Guiltless, was published in 1950.

What People are Saying About This

Aldous Huxlet

The Sleepwalkers bear[s] witness to Broch's possession of something more than acute psychological insight, something other and much rarer than a gift for storytelling. Reading them, we are haunted by the strange and disquieting feeling that we are at the very limits of the expressable….Broch performs with an impeccable virtuosity.

Stephen Spender

One of the few really great original and thoughtful novels of this century.

Milan Kundera

One of the greatest European novels.

Editorial Reviews

Spanning some 20 years, Broch's epic trilogy of daily life in Germany established him as an important modernist innovator. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"The Sleepwalkers bear[s] witness to Broch's possession of something more than acute psychological insight, something other and much rared than a gift for storytelling. Reading them, we are haunted by the strange and disquieting feeling that we are at the very limits of the expressible. . . . Broch performs with an impeccable virtuosity." —Aldous Huxley

"One of the greatest European novels," —Milan Kundera

"One of the few really great original and thoughtful novels of this century." —Stephen Spender

From the Publisher