[exhibeKed]

I linked an overview of German reviews above.

and I will reread it because as I said I did not finish it the first time around.

Dare I suggest that a skilful English translator may have turned a sow's ear into a silk purse here, and achieved something that improves on the original? The very best translations of the past have often been considerable literary achievements in their own right. But of course a non-German may be blind to defects or superficialities in the original text of this particular book. I often enjoy a novel set in Italy or France or some other country I know superficially, but if it's set in Scotland - especially if written by a non-Scot - I may see things that don't quite ring true.

The Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod won great praise for his Scottish-based novel "No Great Mischief", but I decided not to read it after a critic in one of our newspapers pointed out that the author rather implausibly has his hero coming across a Gaelic-speaking peasant community in mainland Scotland in the here and now, which is a solecism of the first order. Sounds like he stumbled across "Brigadoon". I couldn't suspend disbelief long enough to plough through that book.

Harry