The Undying Past is an 1894 novel by the German writer Hermann Sudermann. Its German title is Es war which means "it was". The novel tells the story of how a German man, Leo, returns to his homeland after several years in South America, only to find that Ulrich, his beloved childhood friend, has married a woman with whom Leo has a dark past. The book was published in English in 1906, translated by Beatrice Marshall.

Reception

The 19th-century English novelist George Gissing read the novel in the original German edition in 1895, writing in his diary "it is the work of a playwright, and, as such, strong. But the character-drawing seems to me superficial".[1]

William Lyon Phelps wrote about The Undying Past in his 1918 book Essays on Modern Novelists:

The most beautiful and impressive thing in Es War is the friendship between the two men—so different in temperament and so passionately devoted to each other. A large group of characters is splendidly kept in hand, and each is individual and clearly drawn. One can never forget the gluttonous, wine-bibbling Parson, who comes eating and drinking, but who is a terror to publicans and sinners.[2]

Film adaptation

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adapted the novel into the 1926 film Flesh and the Devil. The film was directed by Clarence Brown and starred Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson and Barbara Kent.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, pp.380 and 383.
  2. ↑ Phelps, William Lyon (1918). Essays on Modern Novelists. Library of Alexandria.
  3. ↑ American Film Institute (1971). The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States. University of California Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-520-20969-5.


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