Alfred Polgar is a name that rings no chimes in the good old Anglosphere. His great fan, Clive James, the Australian essayist, tried to remedy that situation in his mini-encyclopedia, Cultural Amnesia; however, the effect of his article on Polgar is to make him seem untranslateable and forever in the corner pocket of the Habsburg Empire freaks out there. Unfair! From the classic New Yorker talk of the town piece to Nicholson Baker, miniaturism has had an honourable place in English language lit. Polgar has a distinct family resemblance. His great period was in the interwar era – which, for German writers, ended in Germany in 1933, and in Austria a little later. Polgar was resolutely modern, a cinephile, a presence at the great modernist theatre events, Piscator and such. He was, ultimately, a reviewer – except what he reviewed was often a moment of streetlife, a smell from his childhood. The quintessence of his art is in a little piece entitled “Orange Peel”. Here he reviews the reac
“I’m so bored. I hate my life.” - Britney Spears
Das Langweilige ist interessant geworden, weil das Interessante angefangen hat langweilig zu werden. – Thomas Mann
"Never for money/always for love" - The Talking Heads