Swiss Review 2/2019

Swiss Review / March 2019 / No.2 17 Literature Knut Hamsun – except for the fact that all the expansive- ness of the landscapes, psychological subtlety of his char- acters and humour are lacking that certain abysmal, pes- simistic flair that the Norwegian evoked in “Hunger”, for example. Even though the collapse of civilisation or the arrival of speculation and profit-seeking threatens the peace of the isolated villages and farms, order is restored in the end and the optimism of the author prevails, for whom, as it says in the “Die goldeneWoge”, there is “some- thing that is in humans, which floods cannot destroy, and that the swamp with its fever cannot destroy: the great and eternal, which sets them as masters over all things”. No character conveys this better than the silent little farm- hand Monrad in “Tyra, die Märcheninsel”, when he sud- denly starts to sing and hum, and one day builds himself a violin and begins to fill the loneliness in his heart with music. Karl Friedrich Kurz’s books can only be found at an- tique bookdealers today, even though he introduced his fellow Swiss not just to Japan but also to his adopted home of Norway in an exciting and still very readable manner. CHARLES LINSMAYER Kohana, a type of “Madame Butterfly”, is just as seductive as she is strange to the young man who lived with her for a period of time in Yokohama during 1906–07. And similar to Yoko and the Swiss Buser in Adolf Muschg’s “Sommer des Hasen” 60 years later, the tea girl with her shy devotion introduces a European to Japanesementality, customs and traditions in away that no tourist experience could ever do. Kohana is a character from the book “Vom Nil zum Fuji- yama”, published in 1910 by Huber in Frauenfeld. The au- thor is Karl Friedrich Kurz, born in 1878 and raised in Ba- sel. The son of a German shoe-polish manufacturer, he established himself as an author just like his brother Her- mann (1880–1933) after attending the Karlsruhe Kunstakad- emie and gathered material from his travels and sojourns around the world. Japan was also the setting for “Doktor Siegels Ostasien- fahrt“ (1911) and “Sayonara” (1937). From 1916 to 1922, Kurz was the editor of the “Der Bund” newspaper in Bern, which is why three of his 29 books ended up being set in Switzer- land: “Die Krummbacher und der Katzengusti” (1913), “Zwischen Aare und Rhone” (1920) and “Der Mooshof” (1922). By 1914, two of his books – “Der Held von Björnnäs” and “Mitternachtssonne und Nordlicht” had been set in Norway. Just like his contemporaries Hermann Hiltbrun- ner and Hugo Marti, Kurz was one of those Swiss authors who was always inspired anew by Norway, its fjords and forests. He was a permanent resident there from 1924 un- til his death in 1962. Love, money and betrayal The novel “Die goldene Woge”, published in 1927, portrays howthe spoils ofwar brought unpleasantness to thisneutral countryafter 1914, andKurzallows city-dwellerOline todrive thefishingvillageofMjelvikand its youngmen todistraction in theveryentertaining “DasKönigreichMjelvik”, published in 1930. “Tyra, dieMärcheninsel” is a lively novel of farmers and fishers featuring many original characters and won the Wilhelm Raabe prize in 1934, while “Herrn Erlings Magd” (1936) describes the secret affair between a farmer and his maid, who gives hima son and heir in the end. The indisputable hero of this Nordland-Swiss author, who also consistently illustrated his books himself, was Japanese tea girls and Norwegian farmers The one-time “Der Bund” editor Karl Friedrich Kurz was a storyteller and fascinating chronicler of foreign worlds and cultures. “Through books I learned per- haps somewhat more quickly to understand that there is more to life than just work and money,” commented Johannes. “We lead lives like carriage horses, whipped forward day in and day out. Pulling, always pulling; pulling with all our strength, dulled, plodding, restless… I am not afraid of work, but too much work turns people into beasts of burden!” BIBLIOGRAPHY: K. F. Kurz: “Die Fischer am Fjord”. Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus, Zurich 1941. Available as e-book. CHARLES LINSMAYER IS A LITERARY SCHOLAR AND JOURNALIST IN ZURICH