Sunday 26 February 2012

Travellin' Penguin meets Carl & Anna in Germany

Carl & Anna by Leonhard Frank

Penguin book no. 134

Carl and Anna was one of the earlier Penguin books published during Allen Lane's reign at Penguin Books.
Originally written in Germany in 1927 by Leonhard Frank, translated into English in 1929, Allen Lane published it in Penguin books in 1938 with credit for translation going to Cyrus Books.


I thought I may have to shield the eyes of my Travellin' Penguin from entering this story as it would have appeared to be quite erotic during 1930's England.

Carl and Richard befriended each other whilst prisoners of war, digging a trench in an area referred to as " above the far distant curve of the earth, which was the horizon of the steppe, on the frontiers of Europe & Asia." The trench was shaped as a crucifix, many miles long and broad. The men did not know the purpose of their four years of digging but presumed it was related to a dam that was to have been built previoiusly and the trench could be flooded to check the advance of hostile troops.
The reader is not fully aware that the men are Germans until later in the story but can work out the time is in the lead up to the great War.

As Travellin' Penguin learns, the men work alone, are desperately lonely and Carl can do no more than completely learn about Richard's wife, Anna from the long, neverending conversations about her. Richard misses her dreadfully and worries he will not remember her face but he continually recounts the life he had with her before he went to war.Carl's questions of minute details are never ending which Richard happily responds.

Saturday 25 February 2012

Travellin' Penguin

Welcome to Travellin' Penguin. Although I have an existing blog on travelpod about how I find the vintage Penguin Books it is now time to start reading and talking about some of the Penguin book activities as well as sharing the rest of my library. I recently completed a two week trip to England and have now returned with approximately 200 more Penguin Books. I have a fairly large library in the house and although I have more than 1100 Penguin books, mainly first published, I also have other book interests I would like to share.


I don't plan on just writing book reviews. I want to look at all the locations characters visit in many books. I think one of the biggest joys of reading is to discover new places and cultures that are different to my own and of course it is always fun to revisit other areas of the countries I have lived in (USA & Australia). There is so much to see in the world and although I will never have enough time to visit all of the places I'd like to, it is fun to do a bit of armchair travelling.

To help illustrate this point will be my Penguin friends who will appear in the photos I find of the many places I will visit in a book. I hope it will keep it entertaining for me to write about the places in my books as well as to illustrate them a bit with the use of the Travellin Penguin. I will not use the Penguin Books penguin simply because of copyright laws.


I am looking forward to starting the world journey of Travellin'Penguin. I have already travelled 56,905 kms travelling the world looking for Penguins, now it is time to enjoy the bounty of the hunt.


http://travelpod.com/members/penguinhunter