Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Paperback | Pages: 208 pages Rating: 3.73 | 8225 Users | 340 Reviews
Itemize Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
| Title | : | Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1) |
| Author | : | Friedrich Dürrenmatt |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 208 pages |
| Published | : | June 23rd 1972 by Houghton Mifflin Company (first published 1951) |
| Categories | : | Classics. Fiction. European Literature. German Literature. Mystery. Crime |
Narration Concering Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
"The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder."
-Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990), Swiss novelist and dramatist
In his short review of this extraordinary novel, my good friend Mark Hebwood from London wrote: "Loved it! This is a bit like taking the essence of detective novels and distilling it down to concentrate. Great plot, excellent twists, and great finale. I immediately bought all other detective novels he wrote."
Thanks, Mark! Likewise, all Friedrich Dürrenmatt detective novels are now on my to-be-read list. And I’m not usually a fan of detective mysteries, to say the least - other than a handful of those old classics like Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Hammett’s The Thin Man, no dick fiction for me, thank you. But I am a big fan of tight, penetrating existential novels such as The Stranger and Nausea, and, let me tell you, The Judge and His Hangman is every bit as tight and as penetrating and as existential as these two French classics.
To say anything about plot more than a brief sketch would be to say too much since nearly every page contains subtle turns and developments that will keep a reader mesmerized from beginning to end. And that’s not overstatement as I’m not the only one to pass such a glowing judgement - literary critic and acclaimed author, Kay Boyle, likewise wrote how this Swiss novel holds the reader mesmerized. Usually I take my time with a novel but once I read the first page of The Judge and His Hangman I was hooked – I finished its one hundred pages in one evening, in one sitting.
Anyway, Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s work features old, stogy, fatally ill Commissioner Barlach working on the case of a murdered police officer. The location is in Switzerland, in and around the capital of Berne. There is an element of political intrigue; there’s tension between new school criminology and old-school, small town Barlach; there’s a string of intriguing characters, including a pompous Congressman-Colonel, a bureaucratic chief of police and, one of my personal favorites, a novelist. But, above all, there is the philosophic: the battle of good versus evil, nihilism versus any moral sense, and what it means to live an authentic human life. An absolute must read for anyone attracted to either existentialism or detective novels.
Berne, Switzerland, location of this Friedrich Dürrenmatt novel published in 1950Specify Books In Favor Of Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
| Original Title: | Der Richter und sein Henker |
| ISBN: | 0395044995 (ISBN13: 9780395044995) |
| Edition Language: | German |
| Series: | The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1 |
| Characters: | Kommissär Bärlach |
| Setting: | Bern,1948(Switzerland) |
Rating Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
Ratings: 3.73 From 8225 Users | 340 ReviewsWrite Up Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
It was really amazing! Actually, I can make a list of favourite detective stories by now and the name of Hans Bärlach will be the frist in this list (ahead of Holmes and etc). First of all, I was my first experience in reading german literature without using a dictionary very often or without any help from my teachers. To tell the truth, I'm proud of myself) Secondly, it's my first german book about crime, detectives and police. I think it's great! Now I can use my new vocabulary from universityhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nh722#1 A policeman is dead and Inspector Barlach has a hunch about the murderer. Bernard Hepton reads Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella.
Such a good, satisfying read! It doesn't matter that it is blink-of-the-eye short. Of course I picked this up knowing it is a mystery novel, and although the murder is discovered on the first page, I almost didn't feel as if I should be trying to solve it alongside Inspector Barlach. Barlach knows things we don't, unlike many detectives in other novels. The specific details of what he knows aren't ever revealed, but the core of what he knows is peeled back so that we see the dirty underneath.
3.75 stars! ✨ this actually wasn't too bad? 🤷♀
This is a perfect novella. Dürrenmatt wrote The Judge and his Executioner around the same time as the play The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi. Both stories revolve around the theme of two antagonists who are reunited by circumstances that occurred decades apart.In 1948 a colleague of Swiss police inspector Bärlach is found murdered, shot and hunched over the steering wheel of his car on a rural highway in the Alps. As he takes up the case, Bärlach is near the end of his career and has a year to
Terrifically entertaining. A good first novel for those studying German who are ready to tackle something longer. I have a copy published in the 50's where the publisher compared Dürrenmatt's style to G.K. Chesterton and Graham Greene, which at first seemed strange (since these three authors seem very dissimilar to me) but on reflection they all employ a subtle, wry humor that makes their sentences and meanings land in unexpected ways.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt was one of Switzerlands leading writer-intellectuals, along with Max Frisch and much earlier Gottfried Keller. After studying art history, German literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences at the University of Basel, Dürrenmatt decided to pursue writing as a career and painting as an avocation. Dürrenmatt is known not only for his plays, including The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame) and The Physicists (Die Physiker), but also for his detective novels, of which The
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