Hi,
I’m looking for a novel which is set in the small city of Trier in Germany…not historical books or anything to do with war. So like fictional works and if there’s any, a love story…anyone know of any?
Since this a question about a book, our forum, Cafe Society is the best place to ask this. Moved.
samclem, Moderator
In German or English?
If you want to read books in German, there is a trove of mystery stories located in the region and/or Trier.
You can find assorted samples at saarkrimi.de. Some of the sites of crime are listed here.
Historical fiction is, not surprisingly, set in the region too and such books seem to have a tendency to include love stories, like Die schwarze Taube.
Unfortunately, I haven’t read any of the books myself, so I can’t tell you anything about their quality.
If you search for books in English, I’d like to know whether you are interested in translations of German books or prefer English writing authors? In any case, I’d have to look around first, so it might take some time.
O.T. but I’m curious, why ?
I’m thinking a plot device, but please put me out of my misery.
I too am curious as to why Trier?
On a side note, Trier was the very first city I ever visited in Germany (quick train trip from Luxembourg) and stayed there for a few nights. Beautiful little town, nice people, great beer and a bunch of local University students to get drunk with.
I suppose it would be a great location to set a novel - the Porta Nigra is there, and certainly a worthy backdrop.
wintertime, thanks for helping! Yes, a translated version is better since I just started taking german classes and wouldn’t be able to understand a thing…Either kind is ok.
DMark, I agree Trier is a beautiful city and this summer was the first time I was in Germany. I spent a bit of time in Trier and stayed with a friend I met some nice people and everything about those 3 weeks were soo great. I guess I’d just like to read something with Trier in it( one of my favorite cities now) and be able to connect with the book. I want it to bring back memories of the places I’ve visited there, ie. the Porta Nigra. Does this somewhat put you out of your misery Lust4Life? 
I don’t know of one, but I would be happy to sell you my memoirs of failed romances while a student at New Trier High School.
Forgot to mention another interesting site in Trier - the Karl Marx house - home where he was born and raised.
I was the only visitor that day - but amazed to find the house was most definitely a home of great wealth and prosperity. I guess I had always incorrectly assumed Karl Marx had been born in poverty. Far from it.
Yes - Trier was a very good city to be my first visit in Germany…a nice little town that had lots of history, but fun to hang out and meet some nice people as well.
Oh, and Clark Cello - coming from Illinois, I remember New Trier High School as well - let’s just say New Trier is not quite as charming as “old” Trier - no offense.
My first search didn’t yield any result, so I called a bookseller I know pretty well and she was disappointed to see that the authors whose stories are set in and around Trier and who are also most likely entertaining to read have not yet been translated into English. But she has promised to look into it and ask some colleagues who might know more about the region in literature.
So, you have decided to learn German? Good choice. Seriously. Sure, German looks intimidating at first but you will soon realize that it’s not as bad as many non-native speakers believe it to be.
I guess, you have heard your share of horror stories about our two monsters: the three definite articles (der, die, das) and the plural forms – the rules of their correct use are so complex that a Unified field theory in physics will be written down in an afternoon by any foreigner who managed to understand them first.
But English speakers - at least the ones I know - mostly do agree that some characteristics of German make it easier to learn than expected: since our languages are closely related, you’ll find many similarities in our vocabulary. Our orthography is far, far simpler than the English one (spelling bee contests are unknown and wouldn’t be that challenging anyway, … well, shouldn’t be) and our grammar follows the same basic ideas, so you don’t have to rewire your thinking to get it right.
We do agree, for example, that you need an “es”, an “it”, when things happen that aren’t done by a person: you say “It rains”, we say “Es regnet”, the French, however, say “Il pleut”, “He rains”. Isn’t this strange, a language without an “it”?
And some areas in Grammar are simpler than the English counterpart: our sequence of tenses, e.g., is more relaxed: you can use the present tense + a word to indicate the time designation quite often to address the past or the future – and Germans are easily spotted by their tendency to say something like “I give you the book later.”
Other aspects of our language seem to delight non-native speakers from the get-go: a lot of German words, especially verbs, are onomatopoetic: you can hear the bees “summen”, the crickets “zirpen”, the thunder “grollen” and metal “klirren” – well, maybe not when you pronouce it like English words but enunciated clearly the German way, the echo of the words’ meaning vibrates in your ears. 
Especially Americans seem to love the impish beauty of words like “Pipapo” and “Eichhörnchen”, the charm of “Augenweide”, the chaos in “Tohuwabohu” and the fitting sound of “Quatsch”.
And more than one has told me that they miss many of our tiny but expressive words in their language: the little “jein” can only be expressed in English with “Yes and no” and “doch”, “alle”, “eben” and many more need even more words in English to say approximately the same; almost non-words like “na”, “ne”, “he”, “tja”, “ach” and “nanu” have no appropriate translation at all, especially when you put them together, like “Ach, ne” – and all are used extensively - and surprisingly appropriately - by foreigners who stumbled upon them.
And they have taught me one thing I hadn’t realized about my mothertongue: it’s a funny language. Well, the French and English quite often say this with some irony but, of all people, the Americans and Russians I know actually mean it.
The bookseller found a lot more books set in Trier than I did – but not a single one was translated into English.
We discussed the options left and came up with three:
-
I’ve already sent an email to the institute of German studies in Trier. Maybe someone is not just able to help you but also willing to do so.
-
Contact the local bookstores
We still have a lot of independent publishers who sell most of their books in their region. And since Trier is not just an old town, frequented by international tourists, but also one with a university, there is a chance that we will find locally what can’t be found afar.
The bookseller has given me some contact phone numbers and I’m gonna try them.
- Foreign authors
If some American or some other author whose mother tongue is English has written a book about Trier, it might not be available in Germany. In that case, I quite likely won’t find it – but maybe someone else reading this thread might already know the answer. You could also post a question in a literature-centric forum; I don’t know any American ones but maybe someone else here can help you. Guys?
And one addendum to my previous post:
It shows the perils of cutting two paragraphs into one sentence – and I’m surprised that the German speaking crowd has not pointed out my mistake. I stupidly included the past when I wrote that you only need the “present tense + a word to indicate the time designation” to address the time. :smack: This is only true when talking about the future. You still need to indicate the past in the verb too. Bet even the past tense is a) not so difficult for Americans to learn because the most problematic one, the pluperfect tense, works pretty much the same way in German and b) you are rarely wrong when you use the perfect while talking to someone. 
I don’t want to sound lecturing (since that’s what we Germans often sound like :)), but: reading German stuff (watching German stuff, listening to German stuff) will help you learning much better than learning German in the classroom and later reading etc. Even if you have to look up some words (and guess some words from context), as long as you are interested in the subject (Which seems to be the case), you will increase your passive vocabulary. It’s more fun reading stories than just memorizing the flash cards (though that’s necessary, too).
How about if you start with some kids books on the history of the city, like the Porta Nigra, or the Roman times? Kids books are written on an easier level and serve as an entry to the more complex stuff. You can also watch parts of German TV shows and news on the Internet. If you stumble across unknown words, you can use dict.leo.orgto translate, and you have google and wikipedia for slang. (I remember how frustrating it used to be for me when reading an American book to not get some current culture reference, and having no possibility to ask - another thing that’s easier with the internet!)
Also, take wikipedia articlesand compare the english and the german versions (they are usually not translations, but from different authors and different perspectives, even with common or science content! Very interesting).
You can try and go to the pages of Trier, run them through Babelfish or Google translator, and see how much you can make from this and your own knowledge. Learning can be made more interesting than before.
constanze, you’ve got a point and i will definitely try some of the things you mentioned. Thanks for your input.
wintertime, thank you so much for trying to help me find a translated book but if there’s no luck with that, and taking into consideration of what constanze suggested, it would be just as good if i got some of the novels you’ve found already; even if they are in German. i am gonna read them sooner or later in German so might as well start now. i,too, am also looking around for something but with no luck so far.
In your OP, you said “not historical books”. Do you mean “no non-fiction history books” or did you mean “no historical novels”? Because I thought you meant the latter, but if it’s the former, there are several historical novels set in medieval Trier. I understood you want to primarly re-live your experiences in contempary Trier, is that right? I would still not discard the historical novels outright, because Trier was always an important town, and reading about medieval German society might be interesting for you.
Another update:
Sorry for the delay, I was abroad.
I’d have never thought that I could come up with, well, nothing, but that’s exactly what happened. I called three different book stores in Trier and not one of them was able to find a novel set in the town or the region that was translated into English.
I’ve given them my contact information but I doubt that it will be of any use.
If you want to try a book in German, I’d suggest not to start with a historical novel because of the more … obscure vocabulary you might find there. Contemporary mystery novels are usually an easier starting point, so are lighthearted, entertaining novels: snytax and vocabulary are not just simpler but also more likely in use.
Thanks constanze and wintertime! I tried this bookstore last week but they did not have anything on Trier either…however, I found a novel called Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada which, even though is not set in Trier, seems like an interesting read. Maybe something about Trier will turn up in the future.
This is a very good book and not a bad starting point for a bi-lingual experience ;). Fallada prefered a no-nonsense style of precise syntax and unpretentious vocabulary.
If you like the book, give it a try in German too.
Oh, and if you are interested in more German literature, just ask; I’m sure we’ll find something to your liking.
Rocket, that’s a bit of a jump - Fallada is a modern classic. If you like reading that kind of stuff, you could try the "dtv zweisprachig"series - blue edition. These are pocket books where on the left hand side is the original - in that case german - and on the right-hand side the translation. They have both classical english authors translated into german, and german classics translated into english. That’s a good way to learn without having to stop every ten words to look a word up.
Note: since these books are aimed at Germans trying to learn a foreign language, the bulk are original stories translated into German, not German stories translated into foreing language, but you can find some of the latter ones, too. I have here an elder book “Deutsche Erzählungen/ German stories” (ISBN 3-423-09128-2), which has Kafka, Musil Rilke etc.
And for something yet again completly different. Harry Potter. As he’s been transalted into a lot of languages, you can find a German translation easy and you already know the main ghist. (There are a few translation errors that slipped in, either because of haste - several months for 500+ pages is not a lot of time - or because the translator didn’t catch the cultural reference).
Geez constanze and wintertime, for native German speakers your command of the English language is pretty incredible!
It makes this American more than a little embarrassed by his pitiful fluency in Spanish!
FoieGrasIsEvil, you only say this because we abuse the good old English grammar in a way that suits you Americans just fine.
In other words: It’s hard to thank someone for kind words when you know you don’t deserve them.
Isn’t Spanish a beautiful language? The grammar is so clear and yet the spoken words are full of life and the expressions are simply charming … I love German but I adore Spanish.
I would seriously not recommend Kafka in German. Its confusing enough in English, but in German? Oh boy. (The native German speaker sat here next to me agrees with me on this one!)