Falls squarely into the "should have cut the first 50 pages" basket. The first few chapters contain some fine polemic ("someone should invent a weapon that nullifies other weapons"), but the book really gets going once our narrator stops looking outward, and starts looking at himself. Despite the fascism, the anomy, the picture of disgusting youth (still relevant), the murder, and the turpitude of the narrator, this is ultimately a kind of farcical comedy: the narrator confesses to his wrongdoing, and that confession itself leads, after some time, to a kind of justice. As befits a man who fled the Nazis to Paris but was killed by a falling tree limb in 1939, the justice is bloody and discomforting, but justice nonetheless. The narrator himself enters a life of penitence, which will make very many contemporary readers very uncomfortable, and not in the silly "art must make us uncomfortable" way--instead, in the "life makes me rather too uncomfortable" way. ( )

”En el espejo arde una ciudad”, A. Muñoz Molina, Babelia, 29.02.2020 https://elpais.com/cultura/2020/02/26/babelia/1582712971_040656.html

Al igual que hizo Michael Haneke muchos años después en La cinta blanca, Ödön von Horváth narra en Juventud sin Dios los orígenes del nacionalsocialismo. Nos muestra cómo la semilla del mal ya estaba presente en los jóvenes y en su educación. El narrador de Juventud sin Dios es un joven profesor a quien el director del colegio le pide que no corrija a un alumno que afirma que los negros son infrahumanos, y le recuerda, además, que su obligación es «educar para la guerra». Los valores patrióticos se inculcan en una especie de campamento paramilitar en el que se producirá un crimen misterioso. Horváth escribió esta obra en el verano de 1937, exiliado en Henndorf, en las proximidades de Salzburgo, y se publicó ese mismo año. La novela alcanzó rápidamente una gran popularidad, incluso en el extranjero. Fue traducida a diez idiomas en los dos años siguientes. Las referencias a la realidad del nazismo son el elemento central en una obra en la que el autor describe una curiosa mezcla de la Alemania nazi con la Austria prefascista.

Ein sehr faszinierendes Buch. Schnell gelesen, mit viel Stoff zum Nachdenken.
Ich hatte es vor etwa 25 Jahren als Schullektüre schon einmal gelesen und hatte nur noch Bruchstücke in Erinnerung, und die Tatsache, dass es mich schon damals sehr beeindruckt hatte.
Heute ist das nicht anders, auch wenn die Schwerpunkte etwas anders liegen. Damals war es die Situation im Dritten Reich, die mir zuvor nie so lebendig vor Augen geführt worden war. Heute sind es Gedanken über Ehrlichkeit, Wahrhaftigkeit und Glaubensfragen, die mich besonders zum nachdenken angeregt haben.
Dazu die ziemlich kühle Sprache, fast zu exakt, die düstere Grundstimmung, beklemmend und doch voll von jugendlichem Gefühlsüberschwang: Genial.
Das kostenlose eBook aus Izzys freier Bibliothek wies leider einige Satzfehler auf, aber darüber kann man – bei dem Preis – dann schon hinwegsehen.
Insgesamt sehr empfehlenswert. Auch wenn Viele es aus der Schule noch kennen werden: Lest es noch einmal! Das Buch ist es wert. ( )

I had never heard of Horvath before this year, and now this is the second book I've read by him? I'm totally blaming Neversink Library.

So yes, this is another selection from Neversink LIbrary at Melville House Books. I tell you, their website is dangerous. Six of the books I've read this year were published by them, five of which I bought (one was from the library), and I have at least one more on my shelves and at least two on back-order. (I'm afraid if I check on the back-orders, I'll end up buying five more books, so it's best just to wait.)

Okay, so I loved this one. Much more accessible than The Eternal Philistine, this is a dark, dark story, even without the seedy satire. Youth WIthout God reads more like classic morality tales from Kafka and Camus. It is all the more impressive for its depiction of the heartlessness of the rising Nazi state when one is reminded that it was written before either Germany's annexation of Austria or its invasion of Poland. It's a place where the cruelty of schoolchildren isn't corrected, but encouraged as long as it is in the direction of the scapegoats of the state. Opinions contrary to official propaganda are suppressed and erased. Individual morality and conscience disappear. So where is there room for God?

It would be easy to read this story as simplistic and shallow, because it is so accessible. But there is a lot going on here just under the surface. Mediations on culpability, conviction and man's capacity for evil. A rewarding, but disturbing read. ( )