This biography was a very quick and easy read. It's not an academic work and its intended audience is not a professional one, and that was what I was looking for: A book containing the most important facts and aspects, not a lengthy and extensive work.
However, I do feel that this was a little too superficial and somehow missed its mark. After reading it, I still feel that I missed something, that I don't know why Kleist is such an important German writer or what makes his works so special.
The story of his life is told in an interesting way: The many failures as a writer, as an employee of the Prussian state and a publisher, his private hardships which meant that he lost his fiancée to another man and was rejected by his family. He was burdened by unnamed illnesses (probably depression), tried to start a new life many times, and in the end took is life to flee from the pressure and the disappointment and keep his independence.
Kleist's works are frequently mentioned, but as I said, this book fails to make clear (or even to mention) just what makes them so special and why Kleist is one of the lone wolves of German literature who can never be really included in one movement or literary epoch. And even throughout the story of his life I feel that I am missing the real man behind the whining and the sadness - why did he really want to write and what drove him to sit in a room for months and work on the same manuscript? Although this book was a pleasant read and an easy introduction, I guess I'll need to read another Kleist biography to find out. ( )