Der Ritt auf dem Ochsen (i)

from Dietrich Thalbaum at K. Fischer-Verlag

Judge a book by its cover. What it is for.

Dietrich has been a German name since well before the Romans when it suggested a ruler of the people. Later one Ostrogoth king went by Theodoric as a child at the Greek court of the formerly Roman empire even before he ruled Italy.

That first Theo looks like Greek for god as in theology but isn’t, as the -doric is not a column. The final syllable of Dietrich and Theodoric is the same word as the familiar Reich.

Dietrich is a distinguished name in a common as dirt kind of way, like Duke or Earl in English, suggesting a remarkable man of the people. Stahlbaum?

Steel tree? I have no midrash on that but standing in a forest strong as a sword goes nicely with Dietrich.

Der Ritt auf dem Ochsen. The Ride on the Ox. Der is a definite pronoun.

We are hearing about a ride that exists in some mood or tense. Ritt is nominative singular. One ride.

Auf sounds like off but means on, taking the dative. Dem is singular when dative. Again, there is, should, was, will or would be

an ox, although both creature and ride could be rather a scene from the often-taught Zen parable. Ochsen sounds like the English plural oxen but here in German means one ox only.

That oder introduces a subtitle, as “or” has in English although lately we have used a semi-colon. Oder must be the same word as other. These days we might archaically, as at court, or archly say “otherwise” between two names for the same thing.

Auch Moskitos töten wir nicht. “Even/mosquitoes/kill/we/not.” An umlaut! Oööö scary and indeed that töten means kill. The search engine gives me:

Chúng tôi cũng không giết muỗi. Nous ne tuons pas non plus les moustiques. We don't kill mosquitoes either. We don’t even kill mosquitoes?

We don’t kill even mosquitoes? Subtitle as puzzle rather than clarification, or perhaps clarity through a koan? Something about ahimsa, doing no harm?

Ein Roman. Ein is one. One ride, one ox, for sure, and one novel only, if indeed that many. Ein is the indefinite article.

But this novel is German so it is a Roman. As in French a romance, a journey, perhaps a quest. The ride on the ox.

That imprint K. Fischer Verlag evokes but is distinct from the monumental S. Fischer Verlag, where Samuel Fischer began publishing a string of moderns from Berlin in 1881. Karin rather started at Aachen after 1989.

So I take it that K. Fischer is a top-drawer Verlag, publisher, but not yet an aged monument on the market-place. Aware of the 20C but not of it.

This was the first Viet Nam letter of 2 so far addressed to Der Ritt auf dem Ochsen by Diedrich Thalbaum. The second posted on October 26, 2022.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.