Lernet-Holenia is a key figure in Twentieth Century Austrian literature, badly underpublished in English translation. I looked on the British Library catalogue and only came up with four of his works in English. I cannot understand this. I jumped at the chance when I saw Count Luna was newly added to Penguin Modern Classics and that Baron Blagge had been republished to keep it company. Waterstones only had Blagge but I was fine with that.
Blagge is a short novella or long short story. The similarities with the stories of Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen are everywhere. Upper class characters who find themselves overwhelmed by a vaguely supernatural situation. Blagge is a junior officer in Count Gondola Dragoons. In 1915 they find themselves in pursuit of the Russians in the Carpathian mountains. There is a battle on a bridge. The dragoons found themselves in the village of Nagy-Mihaly where Bagge is greeted by the beautiful Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, daughter of the best friend of Bagge's mother. The mothers have long conspired to marry their children, but they have never met. Yet Charlotte somehow knew that Bagge was coming today. It's very odd.
And the oddness is the beauty of the book. It is beautifully written and exactly the right length to do the story justice. The characters are wonderfully realised, especially the supporting cast - Bagge's touchy superior Semler, and Charlotte's father with his damp handlebar moustache. I absolutely adored it. Exactly the sort of book I am constantly on the lookout for. I must have more.
Bagge
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