A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.
Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.
| Main |
 |
| the Best |
| the Rest |
| Review Index |
| Links |
to e-mail us:
support the site
Good & Safe
by
Liesl Ujvary
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Good & Safe |
| Author: | Liesl Ujvary |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 1977 (Eng. 2025) |
| Length: | 173 pages |
| Original in: | German |
| Availability: | Good & Safe - US |
| Good & Safe - UK | |
| Good & Safe - Canada | |
| Sicher & Gut - Deutschland | |
| directly from: World Poetry Books |
- German title: Sicher & Gut
- Translated and with afterword-Notes by Ann Cotten and Anna-Isabella Dinwoodie
- Introduction by Fatima Naqvi
- Return to top of the page -
Our Assessment:
A- : an impressive and nicely-varied collection
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
The pieces in Liesl Ujvary's Good & Safe are grouped in six different parts -- variations on various themes, such as 'Poems about Poems' or the autobiographical 'I' -- but there are similarities across the entire collection, most notably in the use of repetition -- including pieces which are just slight variations on other pieces.
As one of the co-translators, Ann Cotten, nicely puts it: "Good & Safe includes numerous examples of serial texts, lists, litanies, repetition and ritual, swiftly installed and swiftly taken back down again".
The most basic example -- yet also serving as a good summing-up for the collection -- is the inspired:
poem(This is then followed by 'new poem' -- identical except that the sixteen-times-repeated line is: "I want to write a poem that does not yet exist".)
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
I want to write a poem in which every line is different
There are quite a few sequences of variations, such as the quartet 'this is better' (first two lines: "democracy is better than dictatorship / butter is better than margarine"), 'this is the same' ("democracy is like dictatorship / butter is like margarine"), 'this has always been like this' ("democracy has always been like this / butter has always been like this"), and 'there will always be this' ("there will always be dictatorship / there will always be margarine"). The longer poems in the sequence all titled 'the lovely city' are identical except for the dedications and the city in question -- with, for example, the first "dedicated to all the men and women of vienna", which begins: "vienna is dead / vienna is ahead /vienna's fun / vienna's done"; the next is "dedicated to bodo hell and thomas bernhard" and offers the same litany for Salzburg ("salzburg is dead / salzburg's ahead" etc.), etc.
Elsewhere, the variations and contrasts push the reader more strongly to (re)consider various dynamics and correlations, as in:
Various Explanations'Collected Knowledge' even more pointedly considers our easy acceptance of so much as given, from the banal, such as:
pleasure comes from work
dust comes from cleaning
streets come from traffic
books come from reading
wine comes from drinking
weapons come from the enemy
nonsense comes from reason
the church comes from faith
borders come from other countries
pleasure comes from god
dust comes from god
streets come from god
books come from god
wine comes from god
weapons come from god
nonsense comes from god
the church comes from god
borders come from god
pleasure comes from the economic system
dust comes from the economic system
streets come from the economic system
books come from the economic system
wine comes from the economic system
weapons come from the economic system
nonsense comes from the economic system
the church comes from the economic system
borders come from the economic system
no pleasure—no work
no dust—no cleaning
no streets—no traffic
no books—no reading
no wine—no drinking
no weapons—no enemies
no nonsense—no reason
no church—no faith
no borders—no other countries
we need work
we need cleaning
we need traffic
we need reading
we need drinking
we need the enemy
we need reason
we need faith
we need other countries
we are against pleasure
we are against dust
we are against streets
we are against books
we are against wine
we are against weapons
we are against nonsense
we are against the church
we are against borders
Yes, it's true that Coca-Cola quenches your thirst. Coca-Cola quenches your thirst because we know that Coca-Cola quenches your thirst.But many of the examples touch on the social and political, such as:
Yes, it's true that the police maintain order. The police maintain order because we know that the police maintain order.Leading also to nice concluding verse, the biggest presumption of them all:
Yes, it's true that we are free people. We are free people because we know that we are free people.A great deal here is, in various ways, political -- with Ujvary's approach not necessarily always subtle but often sly. For example, a poem of lines asking "Do you want to [...] ?" -- "Do you want to eat ? / Do you want to see ? / Do you want to learn ?" etc. (and concluding "Do you want to speak ?") -- takes on a different feel simply because of its commanding title: 'That's an Order !" Yet she can still surprise in the turns the poems take, as in a sequence of four that share the same alternating lines but in which each has a different refrain -- the first being:
poem (for marxists)The next in the sequence is 'poem (for nature lovers), where it's "the may sun shines warm" that's the repeated line, rather than "class struggle is intensifying" -- followed by 'poem (for the suicidal) 1' ("it can't go on like this") and then finally 'poem (for the suicidal) 2' ("there's always a way out").
I still have to go to the bank
class struggle is intensifying
maybe I'll stop by this evening
class struggle is intensifying
I'll call you wednesday or thursday
class struggle is intensifying
I'll write you
class struggle is intensifying
I'll be back again in a week
class struggle is intensifying
alright then
class struggle is intensifying
The two final sections are more autobiographical -- very clearly so in the case of the last one, 'Autobiography with Instructions', which includes twelve numbered prose-pieces, short sequences about Ujvary and her life (the first one beginning: "My name is Liesl Ujvary. I am 36 years old"), each with a set of a dozen or so questions at the end that were more or less answered in the piece itself. A further quartet of 'Out with It !'-pieces provides additional autobiographical information -- including the difficulties she has with her family, because they: "don't accept my lifestyle" -- as:
My way of life seems suspect to them because it doesn't seem to lead to external success in the bourgeois sense.While the use of repetition and (slight-)variation in many of the pieces in the collection stands out most obviously, there's a great range and variety here, including prose-piece (including a sequence of several page-long, single run-on sentence pieces) or, for example, the practically documentary 'The Spoon as Hero', an outline for a study of a/the spoon (from: "1. the spoon is bought: date and location of purchase" to: "6. quotes about “spoon”: various"). The variety of lists also concludes nicely with the final piece in the collection, '"Sealed Object with List of Contents"' -- a hundred items (beginning with: "1. Sealed Object / 2. List of Contents") that include both the abstract ('grammar') and a wide variety of objects (including: "19. objects") -- from "dogs", to "porn magazines" to "dumplings" --, places ("Vienna", "the universe", "hospitals"), and classes of people ("Marxists", "teachers", "women").
In her translator's Note, Ann Cotten writes that Ujvary has been: "a generous mentor and guide" -- including stylistically, advising Cotten: "always write so that it sounds like a translation". In fact, in the original, Ujvary's poems likely don't -- but the basic-seeming simplicity of many of the pieces is one of the things that poses difficulties in actual translation here. Cotten and co-translator Anna-Isabella Dinwoodie do, however, navigate most of this reasonably well, and the effect of the poems comes through well. (The translators note some of the translation-difficulties they had to deal with in their afterword-notes.)
Good & Safe is an impressive collection and it's clear why this is something of a (if still under-appreciated and not well-enough known) modern classic in German; it's very good to see it English (though, yes, a bilingual edition would have been great too ...).
- M.A.Orthofer, 25 August 2025
- Return to top of the page -
Good & Safe:
- World Poetry Books publicity page
- Klever Verlag publicity page
- Return to top of the page -
Austrian author Liesl Ujvary was born in 1939.
- Return to top of the page -
© 2025 the complete review
Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links