Die Wand

by Marlen Haushofer, Klaus Antes (Nachwort)

an alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

Eine Frau will mit ihrer Kusine und deren Mann ein paar Tage in einem Jagdhaus in den Bergen verbringen. Nach der Ankunft unternimmt das Paar noch einen Gang ins nächste Dorf und kehrt nicht mehr zurück. Am nächsten Morgen stößt die Frau auf eine unüberwindbare Wand, hinter der Totenstarre herrscht. Abgeschlossen von der übrigen Welt, richtet sie sich inmittten ihres engumgrenzten Stücks Natur und umgeben von einigen zugelaufenen Tieren aufs Überleben ein.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Dystopia, German Literature, Book Club, Literary Fiction

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Marlen Haushofer was born in Frauenstein, Molln, Austria on April the 11th, 1920. She went to a Catholic gymnasium that was turned in a public school under the Nazi regime. She started her studies on German Language and Literature, in 1940 in Vienna and later on in Graz. She married the dentist Manfred Haushofer in 1941, they divorced in 1950 but reunited in 1957. They had a son together, in addition to the one son she had brought to their “second” marriage.

Although Marlen Haushofer won prizes for her work and gained critics laud, she was an almost forgotten author until the Women's Movement rediscovered her, with special attention of the role of women in the male-dominated society themes in her work.

Die Wand (The Wall) can be seen as her main-work. It was published 1963, and it's a novel about a woman cut off from society that made her living on her own in the woods. Not only because of the open ending, the novel allows a big variety of interpretations.
Marlen Haushofer came down with bone cancer and died on March the 21st 1970, she was only 49 years old.

Reviews

[Emily (Books with Emily Fox on Youtube) · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5?) I've been loving character driven survivalist stories following older female characters.
This one left me devastated as they all seem to...

APPARENTLY WHEN NOT ON DESKTOP THE SPOILERS AREN'T HIDDEN SO THIS IS YOUR WARNING


Of course a man had to ruin it all 🙄

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

groundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.

i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kind of a grown-up version of the kind of island of the blue dolphins / boxcar children type kiddie survivalist classics i used to buy three for a dollar from my library booksale with, like, quarters i'd scrounged up from couch cushions.

who knows where kids acquire money, is what i'm saying.

that was a fun ride in and of itself, minus the fact that it had the kind of devastating ending that should make it infamous everywhere around the world. i'm not even of the opinion that animals in books are all that great, or that their deaths are the most upsetting of any character type.

until now, i guess.

sorry for the spoiler? but i'm actually sparing you unexpected suffering. so never mind. you're welcome. welcome to my version of does the dog die dot com.

anyway. in addition to all that, this is a pretty striking exploration of the role of humans in the world, and it made me wish all of us were dead except for maybe one lady who can help the cows and pet cats.

that's my new political perspective. also i'm calling not it.

bottom line: so good, so sad, so special.

----------------------
pre review

WHY WAS THIS DEVASTATING????

(review to come when i'm healed enough)

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walden meets an animal novel that´s throwing around pieces of sexism, social criticism, and truths about human nature and thereby owns patriarchy, tradition, conservatism, and established mental degeneration

Alone in the woods, but haunted by human memories
The protagonist could be happy, especially after having found a work life balance of not dying, but there is still the brainwashing that makes her think that she´s not worthy, incompetent, and just a woman, although she survived DIY Mc Gyver style in the wilderness. So instead of making the best out of an already difficult and dangerous situation, she is questioning her capabilities while traumatic flashbacks, caused by male domination and an education telling her she is inferior, are haunting her.

Great nature and animal descriptions
One feels the author's love for both the alpine mountain landscape and the domesticated and wild animals and pets in it. She jumps inside the cows´, cats´, and dogs´ minds, combines that with assumptions and introspections about their mimic, emotions, and gestures and creates an astonishing study of what animals might feel and think. Especially the contrast to the evil and bigoted human society is so strong that everyone who lives alone with animals in the woods, instead of eating them together with mad, naked apes, seems like a really civilized, enlightened being and has my full appreciation. Back to nature rules.

That´s the female, dark Walden
Although nature is cruel, destructive, and dangerous, the concept stays the same. Animals and environment are epic, pure relaxation and meditation spaces (ok, maybe a bit survival of the fittest too, but let´s just ignore that fact), as long as they are not trying to kill one, and in harmony with them alone a human could find her/his Elysium. If there weren´t that mentioned pesky memories of a before life as a social ape. Switching between these 2 perspectives is the ingenuine main plot of this amazing work.

Read her other works too, especially Schreckliche Treue
It´s similar to Dahls´dark tales, focusing on the terror, agony, pain, and suffering that´s inherent to the madness of all human relationships, from superficial friendships to nightmarish livelong relationships.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlen_...

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

MEGLIO SOLA



Metafora della solitudine, e Robinson Crusoe gli fa un baffo - almeno con il naufrago c’era Venerdì, e poi su quella isola qualcuno approdava, magari per sbaglio, e magari non era qualcuno di cui si desiderasse la compagnia, ma comunque…
Critica al mondo moderno, ritorno alla natura, a una vita più semplice ed essenziale. Oggi diremmo ambientalismo.
Ma il fatto che sia un mondo senza uomini, intendendo senza genere maschile se non per gli animali, il fatto che l’unico personaggio sia una donna protagonista senza nome io narrante, che gli uomini - come peraltro le altre donne - si vedano solo attraverso la trasparenza della parete ma si capisce subito che sono solo statue bloccate dalla rigidità della morte, che l’unico uomo in carne e ossa che compare non rimane vivo a lungo, viene eliminato dalla protagonista, ma dopo essersi macchiato di azioni orribili… ecco, a me ha fatto pensare anche ad altro... Oggi, ma anche allora, diremmo femminismo.


Martina Gedeck è la protagonista del film omonimo, “Die Wand” in originale, diretto da Julian Pölsler nel 2012.

La protagonista ha quarant’anni, è vedova, ha due figlie per le quali a un certo punto sviluppa pensieri in qualche modo critici. Una coppia di amici la invita a passare una breve vacanza nel loro chalet di montagna, in Austria: dopo la prima notte si accorge di essere sola, la coppia è uscita per una passeggiata e non ha più fatta ritorno. Esce per andare a cercare i due amici e scopre che è ormai intrappolata da un muro trasparente che isola la casa e lo spazio intorno. Man mano si accorge che la parete in realtà l’ha protetta da qualcosa, un virus o altro di simile che ha ucciso tutta la popolazione residente: può vederne i corpi rigidi accanto alla fontana della piazza.
Nel suo isolamento totale, l’unica compagnia sono gli animali, feroci e domestici. Questi ultimi sono un cane, una gatta coi micini, una mucca e il suo vitellino.
A questo punto il fatto che rimanga sempre innominata risulta comprensibile e giustificato: è l’unica, chi la chiamerebbe, a che le serve avere un nome?


La donna e il cane Lince.

La donna inizia a tenere un diario per raccontare la sua solitudine, le sue difficoltà, le cose che è costretta a imparare, e man mano le cose che le piace imparare (nella casa trova manuali e libri), i vantaggi che la sua situazione comporta, e che all’inizio non aveva colto. Ed è proprio il suo diario che noi leggiamo.
Diventa allevatrice e diventa agricoltrice. Il tempo passa, le stagioni cambiano, seguono il loro ciclo, la terra e la natura tutta fanno il loro corso: finalmente senza macchine, motori, rumori, emissioni, scappamenti, inquinamento…
La parete rimane un mistero: come mai è comparsa, è un fenomeno naturale o artificiale, e allora chi l’ha eretta, o mandata, e come mai lei è l’unica a essersi salvata…
Poi, un giorno, compare un uomo, e…



Non serbo rancore ai fabbricanti di automobili, del resto hanno perduto qualsiasi interesse da molto tempo. Ma quanto mi hanno tormentata, tutti loro, con cose che mi ripugnavano. Avevo solo questa piccola vita e non me l’hanno lasciata vivere in pace. Tubi del gas, centrali elettriche, oleodotti; ora che gli uomini non esistono più, mostrano infine la loro vera, misera faccia.

Marlene Haushofer mi ha regalato l’indimenticabile ritratto di una donna che è insieme forte e fragile, e raccontato un mondo illuminato da una luce fredda: infatti, leggere il suo romanzo e stato al contempo illuminante e raggelante.

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Original review, Dec 9 2019]

This is a fantastic novel, hard as a diamond and with a premise as unforgettable as Gregor Samsa's transformation into a giant cockroach. The anonymous narrator is visiting friends in a remote area. A few pages in, her hosts leave her alone in their hunting lodge and head into town to get a drink. They never come back. Next morning, she discovers that her part of the mountain is surrounded by an invisible, impenetrable wall which separates her from the rest of the world. Every human being and animal outside it is dead. She adjusts quickly and takes stock. Her host was a survivalist who'd laid in a fair supply of food and other necessities; she's also been lucky enough to inherit his dog and find a cow and a cat that got trapped with her on the inside of the Wall. So her situation is not yet hopeless.

The book is the account the heroine is writing a few years later based on the sketchy diary she has kept. It mixes memories, attempts to reconstruct past episodes that have faded, and reflections from the present. Most of it is about the minutiae of the day to day struggle to survive: how she uses her meagre stock of potatoes to start a potato field, how she mows hay to feed her cow, how she cuts wood to be able to stay warm through the bitter winters, how she sometimes has to shoot a deer to get meat. It is completely uncompromising: the narrator is only writing for herself, there is no one else left in the world, and she doesn't care if she repeats herself or bores you. She just wants to get things straight. The author of the novel believes in her, and after a while you do too. It is astonishing how real her world becomes.

The book resists easy interpretation. I see many different takes on it in other reviews, and I have no idea which ones are right or wrong. Maybe that's not even an interesting question. It is a terrific image that sits there in your mind, the lone woman trapped in her invisible bubble with almost nothing left but still refusing to admit defeat, using all of her determination and ingenuity and skill to get through just one more season because her little family of animals needs her. Sometimes she thinks about the people who created the incomprehensible weapon that has turned everyone outside the Wall into stone, and she wonders how they could have done that. It is not her style. They must be different from her in some way she can't quite understand.
_______________________
[Update, Dec 27 2019]

I decided I had to reread it - among other things, I was sure I had missed a good deal first time round due to my indifferent German. Second time, I liked it even more and felt I had understood most of the language. We also watched the movie, which is unusually true to the book; nearly all of the narrator's monologue is taken directly from the text.

An interesting detail is that there's a moment near the beginning where you see a small pile of books that the heroine has brought with her to the hunting lodge. The one on the top is this book, in the edition I have been reading.

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even now I’m nothing but a thin skin covering a mountain of memories. I don’t want to go on. What will happen to me if that skin gets torn?

Brilliantly unsettling and subdued story. I Who Have Never Known Men, but make it 1960s Austria.

The Wall is a powerfully atmospheric dystopia. For almost the entire book, the unnamed narrator is the only human character, outside of memories, that we encounter. It begins when she is vacationing with friends in the Austrian mountains; her two friends go out for a walk and never return, and when she goes out to look for them, she walks into an invisible wall. An inexplicable boundary cutting her off from the rest of the world, and life as she once knew it.

What follows is part survival story, part philosophical meditation on reasons to go on living, and part love story for the wonderful cast of animal characters surrounding the protagonist.

The challenge of keeping going-- learning new skills, learning to fend for herself in complete isolation, grow food --is strangely compelling. The narrator is painfully aware that her life up until this point never prepared her for survival. Alongside this, she questions why she doesn't just give up. One of the eeriest aspects of the story is her fear of herself and what she might become left alone too long. She says of her journal:

Once I’ve reached the end I shall hide it well and forget about it. I don’t want the strange thing that I might turn into to find it one day.

Though, above all, what seems to keep her going is her devotion to her animals-- Lynx the dog, the cat and her kittens, Bella the cow, and Bella's calf, Bull. In this novel, they are as well-drawn as any human characters, each with their own personality. I won't fully spoil it, but some readers may wish to know that not all the animals survive the book.

The narrator is journalling in the past tense, and so she frequently foreshadows things we don't yet know about. I actually love this style of storytelling; I find it extremely suspenseful to be waiting for the promised tragedy to happen.

A slow-burn introspective book, perfect for fans of I Who Have Never Known Men.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A female Robinson Crusoe finds herself as a castaway in a lonely dystopian forest, and an invisible wall blocks her from the rest of humanity, which has mysteriously turned into stone sculptures, - an absurd reversed Pygmalion creation act.

Well, that could be a great detective story, or an alien monster action thriller. But as apocalypses go, this one is very quiet and factual, and it doesn't offer any explanation for the situation the woman finds herself in. Not even a hint.

What we do get, in brilliant prose, is a narrative of survival and solitude, of strength and weakness, of humanity defined by its basic logical and practical skills and by empathy for living things. While the woman calculates her needs and reinvents agriculture for herself, she also domesticates animals and mourns their loss when they die. She struggles and enjoys her life, and when danger lurks, it is bizarrely from the single other human being that resides inside the invisible wall - a symbolical truth of human destruction and construction, existing side by side.

The story is eloquently and convincingly told, recommended to dystopian Robinson fans who don't mind skipping the fast-paced action of conventional science fiction.

[Agnieszka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead.

An unnamed woman arrives with her cousin and her husband to their alpine hunting lodge. Their staying is planned for a weekend. The same evening the couple go to the nearby village and when they don’t return the next day our heroine sets off to meet them halfway to unexpectedly come across the impenetrable barrier. A wall. A transparent yet impassable wall through it she can see households in the valley and its, now frozen in time, inhabitants. Petrified in their last action farmer, woman sitting on the bench, a cow lying on the meadow. Everything equally calm and apparently not alive. Dead, but hard to know of what disease or hostile deed.



It all seems like a bad joke but there’s no explanation to what happened. Our heroine having not much choice needs to cope with unusual situation. And the novel is a meticulous, detailed report of her actions. And there’s something strangely calming and quieting in these simple deeds, in growing potates and bean, in logging wood, cutting the grass, haymaking, preparing stuff for winter. And caring for her animals, since there’s a dog, cats and cow, and later also a bullock she’s responsible for them too.

I've placed that one on dystopian shelf though to tell the truth I do not care much about that tag. To the end we do not know what really happened. Was it a devilish military experiment that went out of control? Perhaps some foul deed, maybe part of war campaigne that did so wrong. Or maybe some apocaliptic vision of the world ? The novel is everyting above and much more. It’s like a record of adventures of Robinson Crusoe but without company of his Friday; it’s a manual guide on how to survive in wilderness and it’s still much more than that. It’s a quiet meditation on human nature, nature of time and our role on the Earth, our responsibility for beings dependent on us. And about recognition that old life is lost and one need to find another way.

How many things do we need to live ? You would probably say that plenty. We hoard more and more goods but how many things we do really need to survive? One would do without much stuff in fact. And that way the novel may be read as an objection to our greedy politics and unsatiable consumerism. We were told that no man is a separated island, but really? We don’t need any apocalypse for we are already divided and we keep building our walls without restraints. And that way The Wall feels like a critique of our acceptance of loosening interpersonal relationship and moral relaxation, like a statement that maybe world that lack love doesen't deserve to exist. You needed twenty years to bring up your children but it only took mere seconds to kill them. Love seemed to be the only reasonable instict and right thing to do and by rejecting it our chance was irremediably forfeited.

The novel is simply written and I found it beautiful. I especially liked these chapters concerning one unforgettable summer in alpine tundra over her cabin. These days where she had all her animals yet and used to stay long at night, scenting almost intoxicating fragrances of flowers and herbs, looking at the starry sky and experienced such tranquility and communion with the world, something that felt almost transcendental, that even being probably the last human being still could be at ease with herself and surrounding world. Though when she writes her account she doesn't feel it any more, yet still knows there was a beauty in it.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Marlen Haushofer’s ‘The Wall’ through a friend's review of the film version of the book. It looked like a dystopian novel and I also suspected that Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’ was inspired by Haushofer’s book in some ways. Something about the book tugged at my heart, and I couldn’t articulate it then. So, I went and got the book and started reading it last week. I finished reading it yesterday. Here is what I think.

The story told in ‘The Wall’ is simple. The nameless heroine, a forty-something year old woman, goes on a holiday to the forest with her cousin and her cousin’s husband. They stay in a hunting lodge. The plan is to spend a few days there and relax and maybe do some hunting. The cousin and her husband leave our heroine during the evening and go to the nearby village. They leave their dog Lynx behind. It is late evening and the couple still haven’t come back. Our heroine has dinner, feeds the dog and goes to bed. When she gets up the next day morning, there is still no sign of her cousin and her husband. Our heroine and Lynx take a walk and during the course of that, she discovers that there is a transparent wall which has suddenly come up and it has shut her off from the village and from the rest of the world. (I don’t know whether it is true or whether it is just me noticing similarities between the two novels – in Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’ a giant dome suddenly covers a town one day, cutting it off from the rest of the world. Looks eerily similar to Haushofer’s wall.) It is only her and Lynx and maybe some wild animals in her part of the world. She hopes that in the next few days someone will come and rescue her. But nothing happens. As every day passes, the heroine realizes that no one is going to come. She also discovers something strange. She looks through the wall to the other side and discovers that there is no life on the other side. She discovers animals and people who are dead – it looked like some people had died while they were in the middle of doing something. It looked like some major catastrophe had struck the world and she and Lynx have survived it by luck. Then one day a cow walks into her life. And later a cat. And our heroine decides to take care of them and dedicate her life to everyday activities – taking care of her animals, getting food, managing the place like one does a farm. The rest of the story is about what happens in the life of these four characters (and more which join them later).

Though the story is quite simple, ‘The Wall’ is much more than this simple plot. It is about what a human can do when she is the last person on earth. It is about the relationship between humans and animals and the environment. It is about parents and children and letting go. It is about the relationship between women and men. It is about freedom and the lack of it. It is about love, loss and death. It is about renewing oneself. It is about the small joys of everyday life. The cover of the book quotes Doris Lessing on this :

“It is not often that you can say only a woman could have written this book, but women in particular will understand the heroine’s loving devotion to the details of making and keeping life, every day felt as a victory.”

‘The Wall’ is also a commentary on the human condition. It is a commentary on modern civilization. It is all these and more. I liked very much what the blurb said about the book :

‘The Wall is at once a simple and moving chronicle – of growing potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one’s name – and a disturbing meditation on 20th-century history…The Wall is a haunting study of what a person can love when everything has been taken away.’

I loved Marlen Haushofer’s book. ‘Loved’ is an understatement. It deeply touched me and pulled all kinds of strings in my heart. I read it very slowly to make the reading experience last longer. I didn’t want it to end and I was sad when I crossed the last page. Normally after I finish reading a book, I take it to the next room (I keep unread books in one room and read books in another) and put it on top of the latest read pile. I look at that read book pile once in a while and try to remember which books I liked and which were my favourite scenes and passages. Sometimes I take out a book and read some of my favourite passages. But I rarely re-read a book. So, once a book reaches the next room, it almost always stays there. But, once in a blue moon a book comes along which resists that move. I am unable to take that book to the next room. My heart refuses to let go of the book. I carry the book everywhere and keep it with me and re-read my favourite passages many times. I keep that book on my study table or on my nightstand and keep looking at it. ‘The Wall’ is that one book which comes once in a blue moon. I don’t think I will be able to let go of it, anytime soon. I am not sure I will be able to let go of it, ever.

While reading the book, I felt that the Marlen Haushofer had poured her heart and soul into every page of the book and the whole book glows with her inner beauty. It made me think of the kind of beautiful person she must have been. There is beauty in every page of the book and in every scene. When I read the sentence – ‘So there I was in a wild and strange meadow in the middle of the forest and suddenly I was the owner of a cow’ – it makes me smile again, like it did when I read it the first time. When I read this passage – ‘The little one’s nature was rather different from other house-cats; more peaceful, gentle and tender. She would often sit for ages on the bench in front of the house watching a butterfly’ – it makes my heart glow with pleasure, like it did the first time.

The author gives the reader an idea of what is going to happen at the end of the book, and so I was dreading when I reached the last part of the book. My dread increased with every page, because joy, beauty and happiness continued to flow from the pages of the book and I was hoping against hope that what the author was hinting at was not to be. Well, the heartbreaking thing did happen at the end. But the ending of the story was life affirming too. I finished reading the book yesterday, but I still can’t stop thinking about the heroine, Lynx the dog, the cat, Pearl the kitten, Tiger the tomcat, Panther his brother, Bella the cow, Bull her son – they haunt me in my dreams in gentle ways.

I have read some wonderful books this year but I have no hesitation in saying this – ‘The Wall’ is my favourite read of the year. I am planning to read some wonderful books in the coming months, but I don’t think there is any book which is going to nudge it even gently from that position. It is also one of my favourite books ever. I am planning to read it again later this year.

If you haven’t read ‘The Wall’ yet, I am jealous of you. Because when you get to read it, you are going to experience the pleasure and delight and joy of reading it for the first time. But I hope that you don’t keep me jealous for long. I hope you go out and get the book and read it now.

I hope to watch the film version of ‘The Wall’. I can’t imagine how a film can be made of this beautiful book, but I would like to find out. I also discovered that there are two other Marlen Haushofer books available in English translation – ‘The Loft’ and ‘Nowhere Ending Sky’. I hope to read them sometime.

I will leave you with some of my favourite passages in the book. It was very hard for me to choose a few passages and leave others out, because every passage was beautiful and quotable.

Lynx the dog

Lynx was very cheerful, in very high spirits, but an outsider probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference. He was, after all, cheerful almost all the time. I never saw him stay sulky for more than three minutes. He simply couldn’t resist the urge to be cheerful. And life in the forest was a constant temptation to him. Sun, snow, wind, rain – everything was a cause for enthusiasm. With Lynx nearby I could never stay sad for long. It was almost shaming that being with me made him so happy. I don’t think that grown animals living wild are happy or even content. Living with people must have awoken this capacity in the dog…Sometimes I even imagined there must be something special about me that made Lynx almost keel over with joy at the sight of me. Of course there was never anything special about me; Lynx was, like all dogs, simply addicted to people.

That summer I quite forgot that Lynx was a dog and I was a human being. I knew it, but it had lost any distinctive meaning. Lynx too had changed. Since I’d been spending so much time with him he had grown calmer, and didn’t seem constantly afraid that I might vanish into thin air as soon as he went off for five minutes. Thinking about it today, I believe that was the only big fear in his dog’s life, being abandoned on his own. I too had learned a lot more, and understood almost all his movements and noises. Now, at last, there was a silent understanding between us.

The Cats

If it’s raining, or if there’s a storm, the cat tends to become melancholy, and I try to cheer her up. Sometimes I succeed, but generally we both sink into hopeless silence. And very rarely the miracle happens : the cat stands up, presses her forehead against my cheek and props her front paws on my chest. Or she takes my knuckles between her teeth and bites at them, gently and daintily. It doesn’t happen terribly often, for she’s sparing with proofs of her affection. Certain songs send her into raptures, and she pulls her claws over the rustling paper with delight. Her nose gets damp, and a gleaming film comes over her eyes.

All cats tend toward mysterious states; then they are far away and entirely impossible to reach. Pearl was in love with a tiny red velvet cushion that had belonged to Luise. For her it was a magic object. She licked it, scratched runnels through its soft nap and finally rested on it, white breast on red velvet, her eyes narrowed to green slits, a magnificent fairy-tale creature.

All my cats have had a habit of walking around their bowls after eating and then dragging them along the floor. I don’t know what it means, but they do it every time, without fail. In general, cats obey a practically Byzantine series of ceremonies and take it very badly if you disturb them during their mysterious rites. In comparison with them, Lynx was a shameless child of nature, and they seemed to hold him rather in contempt for that.

Bella the cow

When I combed Bella I sometimes told her how important she was to us all. She looked at me with moist eyes, and tried to lick my face. She had no idea how precious and irreplaceable she was. Here she stood, gleaming and brown, warm and relaxed, our big, gentle, nourishing mother. I could only show my gratitude by taking good care of her, and I hope I have done everything for Bella that a human being can do for their only cow. She liked it when I talked to her. Perhaps she would have liked the voice of any human being. It would have been easy for her to trample and gore me, but she licked my face and pressed her nostrils into my palm. I hope she dies before me; without me she would die miserably in winter.

The Heroine

In my dreams I bring children into the world, and they aren’t only human children; there are cats among them, dogs, calves, bears and quite peculiar furry creatures. But they emerge from me, and there is nothing about them that could frighten or repel me.

The White Crow

This autumn a white crow appeared. It always flies a little way behind the others, and settles alone on a tree avoided by its companions. I can’t understand why the other crows don’t like it. I think it’s a particularly beautiful bird, but the other members of its species find it repugnant. I see it sitting alone in its spruce-tree staring over the meadow, a miserable absurdity that shouldn’t exist, a white crow. It sits there until the great flock has flown away, and then I bring it a little food. It’s so tame that I can get close to it. Sometimes it hops about on the ground when it sees me coming. It can’t know why it’s been ostracized; that’s the only life it knows. It will always be an outcast and so alone that it’s less afraid of people than its black brethren…I want the white crow to live, and sometimes I dream that there’s another one in the forest and that they will find each other. I don’t believe it will happen, I only wish it very dearly.

The Adder

Only much later, up in the pasture, did I actually see an adder. It lay sunning itself on a scree slope. From that point on I was never afraid of snakes again. The adder was very beautiful, and when I saw it lying there like that, entirely devoted to the yellow sun, I was sure it had no intention of biting me. Its thoughts were remote from me, it didn’t want to do anything but lie in peace on the white stones and bathe in sunlight and warmth.

The Forest

It’s never entirely silent in the forest. You only imagine it’s silent, but there is always a whole host of noises. A woodpecker taps in the distance, a bird calls, the wind hisses through the grass in the forest, a big branch knocks against a tree-trunk, and the twigs rustle as little animals scurry around. Everything is alive, everything is working. But that evening it really was almost silent.

The Flowers

In cyclamen flowers the red of summer combines with the blue of autumn into a pinkish purple, and their fragrance recaptures all the sweetness of the past; but as you inhale it for longer, there is a quite different smell behind it : that of decay and death. I have always considered the cyclamen a strange and rather frightening flower.

Have you read Marlen Haushofer’s ‘The Wall’? What do you think about it?

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise

This is the “report” of an unnamed, middle-aged widow, “clinging to the remnants of human routine”. In spring, 2.5 years earlier, she went with her cousin and cousin’s husband to their hunting lodge in the Austrian alps. One night, the cousin and husband went to a bar in the village, and she woke to find an invisible, impenetrable barrier a little way down the hill. There are no signs of human activity on the other side, and the only two people she can see are like statues, one drinking from a stream.

“I was neither concerned nor desperate, and there would have been no sense in forcing myself into either state.”

Thereafter, it’s a survival story. Food and warmth are paramount and the lodge has some useful supplies, but she has to be creative, physically strong, and resilient. Limiting factors include matches, a saw getting blunt, shoes, and the fact she was a city-dweller. She occasionally muses on the beauty of the Alpine forest and meadows, her “unsatisfactory” life (including a poor relationship with her adult daughters), and how and why the wall appeared, but mostly she focuses on survival in a pragmatic, self-deprecating, and practical way. I don’t think she ever prays or calls to God.

The first third kept my attention, but after that it was repetitive, uneventful, and uninteresting: caring for animals, planting and harvesting, a bit of hunting and foraging, guilt and distaste at hunting, and living in the present but also planning ahead. Monotony of life and diet is something she contends with, but as a reader, I wanted something more, even if it was just her flights of fancy. Repeated foreshadowing of the fate of some of the animals wasn’t sufficient, and the only significant event was wasted.


Image: The narrator and cow, from the film (Source.)

Surviving lockdown - again

Seven months ago was our first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. I started this book when measures had been relaxed a little, but cases were rising. I finished it after the announcement of a month-long (minimum) national lockdown.

Both the pandemic and book involve developing a new way to live and work, with new constraints: deciding priorities, ensuring supplies (loo rolls are flying off the shelves again), and evaluating risks and life itself.

(A trivial effect of Covid, is that I was momentarily puzzled by her reading old magazines with “page-long articles about face masks, mink coats and porcelain collections”. I’d forgotten that a face mask can be a beauty treatment rather than a nose/mouth covering to reduce infection!)

Why strive to survive?

“I was sensible enough not to abandon hope at first.”

A lone woman battling to survive will inspire some readers, but it led my thoughts down a darker path of questions about why one would want to live at all. I think it’s a combination of some of the following:

• Hope of future happiness, whether in general or a specific event. ("One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats." Iris Murdoch.)
• Curiosity about what will happen (like wanting to finish a good book).
• Love for, or obligation to, others that exceeds one’s own pain (her animals: “I was the owner and the prisoner of a cow.”).
• Fear of attempting, but failing, to end one’s life painlessly (not considered in the book).
• The belief that life is a sacred gift, to be preserved at all cost (not her opinion, nor mine).

Gradually, her perspective changes and she envies the cow and calf their “life without fear and without hope”. She later comments that after one of her animals died, “Sometimes the desire to go into the white and painless silence is very great”. Meanwhile, she writes to retain her reason and “to keep the endless conversation with myself alive”.

For more thoughts on hope, see Emily Dickinson’s poem, Hope is the Thing with Feathers and, more ambiguously, Niall Willaims’ novel History of the Rain (my review HERE, with quotes, including “The more you hope the more you hurt”.)


Image: ”Hope”, blinded, seated on a globe, and clutching a lyre with a single remaining string, by George Frederic Watts (Source.)

Inspiration?

This is a bit like Robinson Crusoe written by a woman, about a woman, and set on a mountain, rather than an island.

Any similarity with Stephen King’s Under the Dome is minor, and this came first: published in German in 1968, and in English in 1990, whereas King’s came out in 2009. The transparent but unbreachable wall, of sudden but unknown origin is the only similarity. In King’s book, a whole town is enclosed, and life continues as normal outside: it’s about a community, not individual survival.

The film is better

After finishing the book, I watched the 2012 film, Die Wand.

The simple story is further simplified with less detail of hardship, fewer practicalities, and more introspection (using many lines directly from the book), and even less hint of her backstory. It’s set now, rather than when the book was published (not that that makes much difference). The scenery is gorgeous and makes it more real.


Image: Hope is the thing with feathers (Source.)

See also

A rather different take on a solitary woman's survival in some sort of dystopian scenario is the beautiful and haunting I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, which I reviewed 5* HERE.

[Maggie Stiefvater]

A slippery, vaguely speculative novel from 1960s Austria about an invisible wall that descends to separate the narrator from everyone else; impossible to not read through the lens of postwar ennui—Haushofer would've been a wide-eyed liberal arts student when WW2 upended every plan she thought she had for her life. Haushofer's naturalistic attention to detail reminded me, strangely enough, of I Capture the Castle and My Side of the Mountain more than any older speculative titles.

Am I happy I read it? Yes. Would I recommend it? I don't know; it's too long, for starters, and deeply pessimistic, for finishers. Haushofer didn't live long enough to see the war disappear from the rearview mirror, and you can feel it on every page. But the mood of the novel has lingered with me for weeks; I suspect that means it was great.

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me And My Shadow

The protagonist is a middle-aged woman trapped in an Alpine valley by an invisible but impenetrable wall, the origin of which is unexplained (how appropriate then for COVID lockdown?). Her only companions are a cow, a dog, and a cat. She has some supplies but must make her way by determination and inventive skill in an unfamiliar environment. After two years, she writes of her experiences in excruciating and often repetitive detail. The reader must decide what this insistent rapportage might mean. Here’s my interpretation:

There is no man or woman without his or her Other. Even when we’re alone, we can reflect on being alone, and therefore create our own Other. We experience, but we also are capable of reflecting on this experience. We can’t experience and reflect simultaneously perhaps. But we can alternate between the two so rapidly that, as with household electricity, we don’t even notice the continuous transitions in polarity that are taking place.

Getting stuck on one pole or another of this flip-flop between experience and reflection is a condition of madness, typified by blind, manic activity or morose, deadening depression. In the first condition, we have no conscience; in the second, we have only insistent stories which we can’t resist.

There is a therapy that many have found useful to avoid either insanity. The writing of one’s experience is itself reflective experience. Like all writing, it is talking to oneself. But by making it about oneself - one’s thoughts, reactions, emotions, fears, satisfactions, and regrets - the other becomes visible. I suppose that some psychological theories would classify this as ‘integration,’ the literal melding of the objective and subjective self.

Such writing might be assisted by a diary - which is pure reporting - but it necessarily moves into the domain of meaning. Pure facts are not what is most relevant. We demand a theory of our lives which encompasses the facts but goes beyond them. That is to say, we are by nature metaphysical. There is something beyond what we can say about ourselves. We generate possibilities, hypotheses perhaps, about what we actually are. If we’re lucky, we are able to test these hypotheses with other people. In isolation, we can only observe ourselves more intently.

Metaphysics has been criticised as a pseudo-science - something like an astrology for intellectuals. ‘Hard’ scientists and philosophers don’t like it because of its indeterminacy. After all, who’s to say that there’s anything at all beyond that which can be said? Doesn’t metaphysics quickly deteriorate into arbitrary religious belief? On the other hand, metaphysics is perhaps the hardest, and most revealing area of thought. It is also the most empirically verifiable since what is always and everywhere beyond what can be said about it is that term which we must fail to understand in order to survive - Death.

[elle]

i've had six people recommend this to me so here i go

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am going to be in the minority when it comes to reviewing this book. After reading the reviews and the synopsis on the back of the book, I thought I was in a for an “I can’t put this down” kind of book. Instead I got a “Wow, is this book ever going to end” book.

I love post-apocalyptic stories, which is why I was drawn to this one. Unfortunately what I got was a woman rambling on and on about the sameness of her life. In the story, the nameless character is somehow trapped in a rural area when an invisible wall comes down and cuts her off from humanity. She can see that the life outside the wall is dead and that the only life left in the world is in her little bubble… life that includes cats, a dog, a cow, a bull and the author.

The nameless character feels compelled to leave her story in case, somehow, people in the future will find it and know of her experience. She is losing her sense of being an individual and writing is a kind of catharsis for that. As I read in another review, there is no action. There is no resolution. There is just rambling.

I received this book through Librarything.com Member Giveaway. This did not affect my review.

[Anja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein Buch,welches mich ganz tief berührt hat und umgehauen hat. Mir fehlen wirklich die Worte um dieses ruhige aber doch so laute Buch zu beschreiben. Wir dringen hier ganz tief in das Wesen der Erzählerin ein und haben dadurch ein Blick auf das Leben mit all seinen Hürden und Wendungen. Man kann als Leser soviel in die Geschichte hinein interpretieren und daraus ziehen,das ist wirklich so beeindruckend. Die Autorin hat mich mit diesem Werk so beeindruckt und das Buch werde ich so schnell nicht mehr vergessen.
Die LR hier auf Goodreads hat das Buch so intensiv wirken lassen, ein grosses Danke an euch Alle.🤗❤️

[Guille · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No es que tema convertirme en animal, eso no sería tan malo; pero el ser humano nunca se convierte en animal, sino que lo sobrepasa y se precipita en un abismo.”

Lo primero que habría que advertir a los que leyendo la sinopsis se pueden llevar una impresión equivocada de la novela es que la pared invisible que le da título y que aparece de la nada aislando a una mujer del mundo exterior y dejándola a su suerte en una cabaña en medio del bosque y entre montañas no es más que el punto de apoyo ideado por la autora para crear el contexto necesario para el desarrollo de su relato.

Bajo mi punto de vista, lo que la autora plantea con esta situación es la importancia que las circunstancias, y muy especialmente la presión de las personas de nuestro entorno, tienen en nuestras elecciones vitales y cómo estas nos pueden entorpecer la búsqueda de nuestro verdadero camino, aquel en el que poder desarrollar todo nuestro potencial y, por tanto, ser felices. Obviamente, los roles de género han sido, y los son todavía, condicionantes importantes en este proceso de crecimiento personal, pero no son los únicos. Por ello, creo que, aunque en casi cualquier comentario que encontrarán sobre la novela se resalta su carácter feminista, el hecho nos afecta a todos.

Y otro apunte importante más es que quizá la novela no pudiera haber sido escrita de otra manera sin perder su esencia, pero lo cierto es que la vida diaria de la mujer y la forma en la que hace frente a sus problemas, sin apenas sucesos que rompan el desarrollo lineal y periódico de la historia, se vuelve monótona y repetitiva en exceso, y solo la gran calidad de la escritura de Haushofer, junto al calado de las reflexiones que en pequeñas dosis va desperdigando por el relato, así como la curiosidad por resolver el misterio de la pared y de ese terrible suceso que en más de una ocasión nos anticipa, te mantiene en la brecha hasta el final.

Pues bien, la mujer protagonista, de cuya historia pasada apenas sabremos nada, de la que desconocemos hasta su nombre, con la única compañía de unos pocos animales, siente la necesidad de escribir un informe, qué será la propia novela («no escribo por el placer de la escritura; tal como son las cosas, tengo que hacerlo si no quiero perder la razón»), en el que dejará constancia de su proceso de autoconocimiento.

“Fui una buena madre para niñas pequeñas. En cuanto crecieron y empezaron a ir a la escuela fracasé… muy pocas veces era feliz con ellas. Entonces volví a dedicarme mucho a mi marido, que parecía necesitarme más… nunca volví a ser feliz. Todo cambió de forma desoladora y, en realidad, dejé de vivir.”

En el aislamiento en el que se encuentra, no solo tendrá que cuidar de sí misma, también, y esto es lo que parece salvarla, de los animales a su cargo; las escalas de valores saltan por los aires; casi todo lo aprendido hasta ese momento deja de tener valor y desconoce casi todo lo que ahora necesita saber; cambia su sentido del tiempo («Nada atosiga ni urge; yo soy la única ansiosa del bosque, y sigo sufriendo por ello»), sus ritmos («desde que me he vuelto más lenta, el bosque a mi alrededor se ha llenado de vida»), las necesidades del cuerpo, de su cuidado, hasta cambiar completamente la percepción que de él tiene («lo espantoso que es depender de un cuerpo insatisfecho»)…

“No quiero decir que esta sea la única forma de vivir, pero sin duda es la más adecuada para mí. Y cuantas cosas tuvieron que suceder para encontrarla…aquí, en el bosque, estoy en el lugar adecuado para mí.”

No, realmente no es la única forma de vivir, para estar conforme con la suya hay que amar a los animales con la intensidad con la que ella los ama («mientras haya en el bosque una criatura a la que amar, la amaré; y si alguna vez de verdad no queda nada, mi vida habrá llegado a su fin») y además, y esto es mucho más complicado, no echar en falta la compañía de otras personas. De hecho, resulta bastante extraño el poco espacio que dedica al recuerdo de su familia, de sus hijas, de su marido, de sus antiguos amigos, como extraño es que en ningún momento expresara la necesidad de contacto humano, la cercanía de otro cuerpo, por muy poca consideración que guardara a nuestra especie.

“…los humanos merecen más compasión porque poseen raciocinio suficiente para resistirse al curso natural de las cosas. Eso los volvió maliciosos y desesperados, poco dignos de ser amados. Y habría sido imposible vivir de otra manera. No hay emoción más sensata que el amor. Hace más soportable la vida del amante y del amado. Pero claro, tendríamos que haber reconocido a tiempo que esa era la única posibilidad, la única esperanza de una vida mejor. Para un incontable ejército de muertos, esa única posibilidad está ya perdida para siempre. No puedo dejar de pensarlo. No comprendo por qué elegimos el camino errado; sólo sé que ahora ya es tarde.”

P.S. ***No lean esto si no quieren que les chafe el misterio de la pared*** Si aun así han querido seguir leyendo, lamento decirles que el misterio de la pared no se resuelve, ya dije al principio que es solo el motivo para el relato, por lo que deja abierta su interpretación. La propia protagonista no puede resistirse a hacer la suya, bastante vaga, por cierto, y de la que aquí no diré nada.

“Las cosas suceden sin más; yo solo intento, como los millones de personas que me precedieron, encontrarles un sentido porque mi vanidad se niega a admitir que el único sentido de un acontecimiento radica en el acontecimiento mismo… solo nosotros estamos condenados a perseguir un significado inexistente…”

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Here, a little story about cats”, that was the laconic note with which the Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) sent the manuscript of this novel to her publisher in 1962. That is typical for her dry, non-sentimental yet precarious approach to her own work and to life in general. Haushofer is one of those underestimated authors who are rediscovered every few decades by a select group of readers but - unjustifiably - still fail to secure a place in the literary pantheon. In her case, perhaps this was due to her gender, her deliberately chosen invisibility, but also her non-spectacular style.

This booklet, for example, tells the story of the survival of an almost 50-year-old woman in an Alipine mountain region after suddenly being closed off from the outside world by a huge glass wall; the rest of the world seems extinct. The woman (we will never learn her name) tells how, after her initial bewilderment, she makes every effort to stay alive within her secluded domain. She succeeds with perseverance, ingenuity and hard work. So this looks like a variation on the Robinson Crusoe story, and it certainly is. But it is also very different.

Only little by little do we learn a bit more about the history of this woman and her view on life. Seems that she was at the stage where she no longer had any illusions, and might have fallen into a depression; she writes very derogatory about her past life, and, actually, she is happy that she no longer has to face other people. In that sense, the wall is also a desirable event, a blessing. The gender aspect is also regularly touched upon: she occasionally muses about her subordinate, caring role in her family, and the fear that in her isolation a man would show up who would treat her again as a servant.

Instead, she develops a close bond with the few animals that happen to surround her: especially the dog Luchs, a cat that gives birth to a few young, and the cow Bella with her bull calf. This book is a wonderful example of a topic that has become very fashionably these days within a posthumanist framework: "The barriers between animals and humans fall very easily", she writes. That is what makes this 60-year-old book so topical, next to the form of isolation we are experiencing during the current Covid-pandemic.

Much of the text the unnamed protagonist is writing down, is dedicated to the precise description of her practical activities, mowing the lawn for hay, planting a potato field, picking berries, shooting game, sitting in the sun or in the forest for hours…. The style is sober and above all chronicle-like, not at all sentimental, on the contrary, rather sobering. This expresses the woman's state of mind very well, but it makes the reading sometimes quite tough, bordering tedious (perhaps also because I read this in the original German).

Yet the book continued to captivate me. Because there are regularly touching passages about the interaction with her animals, descriptions of the great mountainous views, and occasional reveries about her special situation. Her 'standing out of time', the senselessness of embellishing yourself now that there are no other people to look at you, and the eternal conversation that every person has with himself, are just a few philosophical musings that spice up this story. “Basically, these thoughts are completely irrelevant. Things are just happening, and I seek, like millions of people before me, a meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow one to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in itself. "

And then there’s the sudden and quite shocking end, that really touched me (no spoiler here). It emphasized the poignant situation of the woman - and by extension of mankind in general - once again. What remains is entering into a dialogue with yourself (“der Selbstsprache”), in order not to go mad. Curiously enough, this novel starts with precisely that reasoning, when the woman offers the motive for writing down her memories: “I took on this task because it is supposed to save me from staring into the twilight and being afraid. Because I am afraid. That fear tickles toward me from all sides, and I don't want to wait for it to reach and overwhelm me. I will write until it gets dark, and this new, unfamiliar job is supposed to make my head tired, empty and sleepy. I'm not afraid of the morning, only of the long, dim afternoons.” This does hit a sensitive chord, doesn't it: aren't we all afraid of the long, dim afternoons? This book sometimes is a tough chunk, but it is a beautifully written and a succinct, very modern story.
Rating 3.5 stars

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There was something planted deep within me that made it impossible for me to abandon something that had been entrusted to me.”

How would you or I go on with this life if we were to wake up one morning to find there was no human left on earth but oneself? That’s exactly what our unnamed narrator grapples with in this beautifully written, reflective novel. She finds that she has been divided from the rest of the world by a wall, beyond which no human or animal seems to have survived. She’s left alone at a hunting lodge in a little section of the Austrian Alps with only a dog, a cat and a cow for companionship. On the surface, it’s a post-apocalyptic story, but really, it’s a journey of survival. I found a great dose of existentialism woven throughout. A lot of the reader’s time is spent in the mind of the narrator as she contemplates both her former and her current existence.

“On the long walk back I thought about my former life and found it unsatisfactory in all respects. I had achieved little that I had wanted, and everything I had achieved I had ceased to want.”

She had grown children, which both the narrator and the reader must assume are no longer part of this world. I found it very moving when I read these sections. This one struck a chord with me as I too have adult children:

“If I think about my children today, I always see them as five-year-olds, and it strikes me that they’d left my life even then. That’s probably the age at which all children begin to leave their parents’ lives; quite slowly they turn into strangers. But that all happens so imperceptibly that you barely notice it. There were moments when that terrible possibility dawned on me, but like any other mother I very quickly suppressed the thought. I had to live, and what mother could live if she recognized this process?”

Like any of us would certainly do in a situation like this, the narrator sometimes falls into the feeling of hopelessness. But always she finds some reason or something new to help her carry on. It made me think about how I felt during the times of the pandemic, when our freedoms were so limited. Even now, while I am in a life transition, where some days it’s difficult to find that ray of light, I still get up and carry on each day with the knowledge that life always does and will get better.

“I was practically clinging to the meagre remnants of human routine left to me. Incidentally, I’ve never abandoned certain habits. I wash myself daily, brush my teeth, do my laundry and keep the house clean. I don’t know why I do that, it’s as if I’m driven by an inner compulsion. Maybe I’m afraid that if I could do otherwise I would gradually cease to be a human being, and would soon be creeping about, dirty and stinking, emitting incomprehensible noises. Not that I’m afraid of becoming an animal. That wouldn’t be too bad, but a human being can never become just an animal; he plunges beyond, into the abyss. I don’t want this to happen to me.”

Routines are what get me through some of my days as well. And if I’m lucky, that day turns out to be more than just a routine. And if it doesn’t, there’s always the next day. And so it goes. I might not be out milking the cow or growing potatoes for sustenance. I’m not alone - I do in fact have people to talk to. And yet, I felt that I could understand this woman so completely. The time I spent in her company was valuable to me. At times I felt filled with sadness and other times I felt renewed with possibility.

“… I’m only a simple person who has lost her world and is on the way to finding a new one. That way is a painful one, and still far from over.”

As an aside, this novel has apparently been adapted into a film. I think it’s one that would be well worth watching if I can find it. And the film director, Julian Roman Polsler, leaves the reader with this comforting message in the Afterword:

“I hope that this novel allows you to find the strength and courage to go beyond your own wall and discover your own version of inner freedom, whatever that might be…”

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+
Set in the Austrian Alps, a dystopian story..
A middle age woman goes to a hunting lodge with her cousin and cousin’s husband and the couple’s dog Lynx.
The couple goes into the village and never come back..
When the woman goes out to look around with the dog, wondering where the couple are she finds she is cut off by an invisible wall a bit away from the lodge.. everything she can see on the other side of the wall is still … the few people she can see on the other side of the wall look like stone.
She realizes she is the sole survivor within her enclosed area which includes forest, meadows, and mountains… just her and the dog Lynx and some other animals who appear who where in the vicinity prior to the wall appearing…a cow, cat, crows, deer, trout in the stream.
The entire book is a survivalist story from there on out.
The woman’s isolation is both terrifying and enlightening with many changes about how she viewed life prior to this event.
some may find this book boring… I thought it was great.

[Great-O-Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Die Wand" von Marlen Haushofer ist eine Dystopie über ein Waldgefängnis, das durch eine gläserne Wand plötzlich entsteht. Die Wand ist ein "kühles, glattes und ganz unüberwindliches Hindernis", das die Protagonistin in die Isolation zwingt. Mögliche Bedeutungen sind quasi endlos. Einige Leser wird diese vage Offenheit eher abschrecken. Ich war fasziniert. Das Buch ist als Bericht angelegt. Entsprechend nüchtern und sachlich ist die Sprache. Durch die Bildhaftigkeit ist der Roman zugleich aber auch sehr lebhaft. Es ist eine Mischung aus Beschreiben und Nachdenken. Gewöhnliche Ereignisse können auf einmal ganz besonders sein, wie beispielsweise die Begegnung mit einer Kuh.

Auch Ermüdung wird spannend erzählt. Wenn die Protagonistin irgendwann von der körperlichen Arbeit so geschafft ist, dass es heißt: "ich schlief ein, sobald ich mich auf die Bank setzte", dann ging es mir im übertragenen Sinne ähnlich beim Lesen. Dann gab es aber kurz später kleine Szenen und Beschreibungen, die mich aus dem Dämmerzustand herausgerissen haben. Meist versucht man Gedanken über den Tod zu verdrängen. Die Gedanken, die Frau Haushofer dazu formuliert, lassen das nicht zu. Es ist schmerzhaft derartig intelligente Einlassungen zu lesen. Es geht im Roman um ganz viele grundsätzliche und existentielle Themen, aber der Tod ist das Allgegenwärtigste.

Die Lektüre dieses Klassikers hat mich erschöpft, in einer guten Art und Weise. Wer sich auf eine ungewöhnliche Erzählung ohne eine einzige Zeile Dialog einlassen kann, wird aus diesem Roman großen Gewinn ziehen können. Manchmal sind es die kleinen Dinge, die für mich ein Buch groß machen. Die Beschreibungen von Gewittern haben mich beispielsweise auf eine unerklärliche Weise gepackt. Das nächste Gewitter werde ich vermutlich anders erleben. "Die Wand" gilt zurecht als großes Meisterwerk der deutschsprachigen Literatur. Es ist ein Roman, den ich in einigen Jahren sicher wieder aus dem Regal ziehen werde.

Ich habe die schöne Ausgabe aus der kürzlich erschienenen Werkausgabe gelesen (mit der Kuh Bella auf dem Cover). "Die Wand" ist der dritte Band und enthält ein Vorwort von Antje Rávik Strubel und ein Nachwort der Herausgeberin und Literaturkritikerin Daniela Strigl. Letzteres ist eine große Bereicherung.

[Semjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine 43jährige Österreicherin schreibt zu Beginn der 60er Jahre einen Roman, in dem eine Frau plötzlich durch eine unsichtbare Wand rund um ihre Jagdhütte in den Bergen von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten wird. Als ich vor ein paar Jahren das erste Mal von diesem Buch hörte, fand ich diese Konstellation schon ziemlich ungewöhnlich. Was sollte das sein? Eine Dystopie? Ein Kalter-Krieg-Roman? Ein Psychogramm? Ein Survivalbuch? Auf jeden Fall klang es so interessant, dass ich mich einer Leserunde hier auf Goodreads anschloss.

So vorfreudig ich auch war, so unzufrieden bin nun nach der Lektüre, denn ich kann die Fragen über die Art des Buchs eigentlich nicht beantworten. Aber vielleicht ist es ja gar nicht schlimm, wenn man ein Buch nicht in einem Schublade steckt, sondern einfach darauf schaut, was das Buch mit einem gemacht hat. Und dies ist einfach zu beantworten: Die Geschichte um die namenlose Frau in den Bergen hat mich lange auf die Folter gespannt, hat mich teilweise aufgrund von Gegebenheiten und Schreibweise anständig unterhalten, aber oft hat sie mich aufgrund der Längen und Wiederholungen einfach gelangweilt. Und das Ende fand ich dann zur Krönung noch ärgerlich.

Erst im Nachwort wurde mir einiges klarer, denn da wurde die Autorin mit ihren psychischen Problemen näher beschrieben. Sie fühlte sich auch als Außenseiterin, hatte zwar Familie, aber konnte an den täglichen Routinen eines Familienlebens keinen rechten Gefallen finden. Tja, wenn man das weiß und die Wand als Symbol der Trennung eines introvertierten Menschen von seiner Umwelt sieht, dann kann man schon mehr Verständnis für diese Geschichte aufbringen. Denn als reines Abenteuerbuch kann es keine Spannung aufbauen und als Dystopie funktioniert es nicht, da es überhaupt keine Rolle spielt, was auf der anderen Seite der Wand sich abgespielt hat. Wenn mir aber ein Nachwortschreiber erst das Buch erklären muss, dann ist irgendetwas zuvor zwischen Autorin und Leser schief gelaufen. Frau Haushofer lässt ihre Protagonistin nur sehr selten philosophieren über ihre Isolation. Das Buch, welches in Form eines nachträglichen Berichts der Frau geschrieben ist, besteht nämlich hauptsächlich aus Beschreibungen der Aktivitäten, die für ein autarkes Leben in den Bergen erforderlich sind. Dabei steht die Beziehung und die Versorgung zu ihren Tieren Kuh, Hund und Katze im Vordergrund. Tier- und Naturliebhaber können in den entworfenen Bildern schwelgen. Doch nach dem ersten Jahr wiederholt sich die täglich Routine und das Buch ermüdet. Zu allem Überfluss verrät die Autorin schon recht früh im Buch, welches Tier sterben wird, so dass eigentlich jeglicher Überraschungseffekt in der Berichterstattung fehlt. Die Frage ist immer nur: Wie wird das eine oder andere Tier sterben? Auf den letzten Seiten erfährt man es und am Ende entstehen noch mehr Fragen, als Antworten geliefert werden können.

Ein zwiespältiges Lesevergnügen. Und daher gibt es zunächst unentschlossene drei Sterne.

Nachtrag nach vier Wochen Reifeprozess: Inzwischen denke ich doch recht gerne an das Buch zurück und bin vor allem von der entspannten Erzählweise trotz apokalyptischer Verhältnisse nachhaltig beeindruckt. Ich empfinde es nunmehr als ein außergewöhnliches Buch. Von daher vergebe ich nun 4 statt 3 Sterne.

[Piyangie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Wall is a dystopian novel that could be interpreted according to how you view the story. For me, literally, it is a woman's struggle for survival, being the last human on earth. But allegorically, it can be seen as a woman's struggle to come to terms with her loneliness. The story flows in the style of a "report" written by the unknown woman narrator, and goes back and forth from the time it was written and her reflections about it afterward.

I'm not a fan of dystopian novels, but this book interested me in the beginning. It was beautifully and sympathetically written. The writing never slackens, and until the very end, its beauty and sympathetic tone were preserved. However, because of the depressing note and the monotony of the story, it lost its sparkle on me by halfway. Then onwards, it was a tedious trudge till the end. There is nothing wrong with the story or the writing if one is in the mood for it, but I wasn't.

The story had its moments, of course. There were parts I enjoyed, especially the natural setting of the Austrian Alps and the efforts of the woman to adapt herself to the natural surroundings, having been cut off from the luxuries and the technology that she is used to. Also, the parts that beautifully describe the relations between the woman and her animals, the bond that they have come to form, and her grief when some of them die were greatly touching. And there were instances that I felt keenly about the woman's misfortune and her struggles that I grew emotional. Only, the moments weren't enough to keep my whole attention, which wandered considerably towards the end chapters.

I've found that this is an important work of women's literature, and happy to have been able to read it. We often talk of men's survival in the wild and in isolation, but hardly of women's, since they are seen as delicate creatures that will perish right away in such situations. But Marlen Haushofer shows that even though a woman may lack in physical strength, her courage parallels or even surpasses that of a man. For that, she deserves kudos.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sevmek ve başka bir varlık için çaba harcamak çok yorucu bir iş ve öldürmekten ve yıkmaktan çok daha zor."

Of, bu neydi ya? Neydi? Bu ara hangi kitaba elimi attıysam çok iyi çıktı, edebiyat tanrıları beni gözetiyorlar sanırım. Avusturyalı yazar Marlen Haushofer'in Duvar'ı müthiş, müthiş, müthiş bir metin - insan bu kitabın 1963'te yazıldığına inanamıyor.

Orta yaşlı bir kadın olan isimsiz anlatıcımız, kuzeninin av köşkünde birkaç gün geçirmeye gidiyor. Kuzeni ve eşi yakındaki köye gidip geri dönmüyorlar, anlatıcımız da ertesi sabah onları aramak üzere yola düştüğünde aşılamaz, görünmez, saydam bir duvara çarpıyor. Duvarın ardındaki herkes ve her şeyin öldüğünü anlıyor ve o cam duvarın içinde bir inek, bir köpek ve bir kediyle hayatta kalması gerektiğini idrak ediyor.

Bu hayatta kalma sürecini kadının yazdığı "rapor"dan okuyoruz. Çok sürükleyici bir anlatı olmakla beraber son derece klostrofobik olduğunu söylemem lazım, zira anlatıcımız bize ileride başına gelecekleri en baştan işaret ediyor, neler olacağını, ne tür felaketler yaşanacağını bilerek, büyük bir iç sıkıntısıyla takip ediyoruz hikayeyi. Ve tabii kendisine eşlik eden kaygıyı da iliklerinde hissediyor insan okurken. Böyle bir hikayenin kaygısız olması beklenemez ancak bence bu kitabı bunca güçlü kılan şeylerin başında kadını kuşatan asıl kaygının hayatta kalma kaygısı değil, sevdiklerini yitirme kaygısı olması geliyor. Ve zaten metin bu sayede bir tür modern Robinson Cruose değil çok daha katmanlı, başka bir şeye dönüşüyor. Haushofer anlatısının bir yerinde "sevebilme becerisi için ödenen bedel buydu işte" diye yazmış, kitabın meselesi bence tam da bu.

Ama altında nice başka katman var, özellikle anlatıcımızın bedeniyle kurduğu ilişkinin dönüşümü, geri dönüp çocuklarını ve kocasını hatırladığı bölümlerdeki akıl yürütmeleri, hele ki sonlara doğru yüzüne artık nasıl ihtiyaç duymadığına dair söyledikleri üzerine feminist bir perspektiften bakılarak çok şey söylenebilir.

Çok sevdim. Beni mahvetti, yüreğimi düğümledi, nefesimi kesti, ağlattı, korkuttu ama işte zaten: tam da bunun için okumuyor muyuz?

[Fionnuala]

The Wall was the perfect book for this strange time when I find myself enclosed inside the walls of my home, and have to count my supplies carefully and make them last as long as possible.
Thank you for reminding me of this book, Julie.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book2moviechallenge 2012
12/12 Ein Film der 2012 aus einer Literaturvorlage veröffentlicht wird

Buch 5 Sterne
Eines jener Bücher, das mich beim erstmaligen Lesen vor mehr als 10 Jahren am meisten beeindruckt und gleichzeitig extrem verstört hat. Die Hauptdarstellerin ist zu Gast auf Sommerfrische bei Freunden in einer einsamen Jagdhütte, wacht am Morgen auf und muss feststellen, dass sie in einer relativ weitläufigen gläsernen Kuppel gefangen ist. Ihre Gastgeber wollten am Vortag kurz ins Dorf gehen und sind nicht mehr zurückgekommen. Langsam findet sie heraus, dass hinter der Wand alle tot sind.

Es ist furchtbar sich auszumalen, was passiert wenn man der "letzte" Mensch auf der Erde ist und sich voll mit dem Überlebenskampf beschäftigen muss. Atmosphärisch sehr dicht und in wunderbarer Sprache wird die Freude an der Natur, die Einsamkeit, die Furcht, die Entbehrung, die harte Arbeit und die Annäherung an die Tiere, die ihr geblieben sind, geschildert. Auch das überraschende Finale läßt sehr viel Raum für Spekulationen, über das Warum und Was Wäre Wenn. Grandios! mehr kann ich aber nicht verraten, ohne Spoileralarm auszulösen.

Fazit Sprachlich und inhaltlich ist das Buch ein Hit!

Film 5+ Sterne
Der Film ist wirklich die perfekte optische Umsetzung eines an sich schon fabelhaften Werkes und setzt mit seinen beeindruckenden Bildern der Natur des Salzkammergutes qualitativ dem Buch noch die Krone auf. Sowohl die Idylle als auch die Bedrohlichlichkeit, die Einsamkeit der Natur wurde mit Bildern perfekt inszeniert und interpretiert. z.B. sind einsame Sequenzen im Winter in Schwarzweiss oder mit Schatten gedreht und fröhliche Szenen extrem farbenfroh. Auch die Darstellung der Glaswand wurde großartig umgesetzt, die Hauptdarstellerin Martina Gedeck hat sich da bei Pantomimen sicher einiges abgeschaut.

Sogar die sprachliche Stärke des Buches konnte in den Film miteingebaut werden. Die vereinsamte Hauptdarstellerin schreibt am Ende Tagebuch und durch die Stimme aus dem Off wird in Rückblenden sehr lyrisch erzählt, was passiert ist. Dadurch wird auch gleich offensichtlich, wie sehr sie sich auch optisch verändert hat. Eine grandiose schauspielerische Leistung von Martina Gedek, die den gesamten Film eigentlich alleine bestreitet und nie langweilig ist.

Fazit: Film und Buch 5 Sterne da gibts nix zu kritisieren.

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Sometimes my thoughts grow confused, and it is as if the forest has put down roots in me, and is thinking its old, eternal thoughts with my brain.”



Marlen Haushofer's The Wall feels like a dystopian meditation channeling Henry David Thoreau's Walden (if Thoreau had been the lone survivor of mankind on Walden Pond) and sometimes the grittiness of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I vacillated between really liking this and being intrigued by how our heroine was going to survive on her own and the feeling like it had already run its course. Still, an interesting read. 3.25 stars

[Tomasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Piękna, bardzo humanistyczna, ludzka, pozostająca blisko natury. Nie da się jej zinterpretować jednoznacznie i ja się tej interpretacji nawet nie podejmuję, ale książka była zadziwiająco wciągająca jak na taki suchy, powolny monolog, pozbawiony właściwie akcji i napędzany wyłącznie cyklem życia przyrody. Nie zestarzała się nic a nic, a być może nawet z czasem nabrała szczególnego znaczenia.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version of this book, but couldn’t find that edition on here. I also listened to an English translation. The book was originally published in German in 1963.

The novel might be described as a “dystopian robinsade”. Circumstances lead the unnamed female narrator to spend a night in a rural Austrian hunting lodge, alone except for the owner’s dog. The next day she awakes to find her valley and surrounding mountains cut off from the rest of the world by a sort of invisible force field, “the wall” of the title. She can see people and animals on the other side of the wall but they are all dead – they appear to have been petrified. No real explanation is offered for the existence of the wall, and indeed there is no way for the trapped narrator to know. Really the wall is just a device for creating the setting. Apart from her dog, the narrator finds, within her little mini-world, a pregnant cow and a feral cat, and the four of them form a new mini-society.

The novel is written in the style of a “report”, set down by the author in the third year of her time within the wall, and relating all that has taken place. It’s written in chronological order but the narrator makes frequent references to events she has not yet described, so she will say things like “after X happened” and “before Y took place”. This means the readers knows what is to come but has to wait to hear the detailed description. I’m not sure this technique particularly appealed to me.

“In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread” isn’t a quote used in the novel, but the biblical stricture does sum up the survival story element of the book. The narrator is left a good stock of supplies, but her long term survival still requires intense and unremitting physical effort. She comes to enjoy this though. For one thing the work keeps her from brooding on the past (or the future). As with many books of this type, the novel contrasts the narrator’s new life with her past one, and she finds her old life to have been shallow and superficial. In her new life there is nobody to lie to, and no-one to impress. Instead she and her animals come to rely on each other. Water from a stream that initially was dammed by the wall appears to seep through underneath it, suggesting that the narrator may be able to dig her way out. She considers but rejects this option, partly because she may die on the other side, but mainly because of her responsibilities to her animals. Milk provided by the cow is vital to the group’s survival, and that animal seems to symbolise motherhood, becoming a sort of giver of life to all of the rest. I think there was some symbolism in the ending as well.

This isn’t a novel offering high excitement. There are occasional incidents, mainly affecting the animals, but otherwise there’s a lot of self-reflection by the narrator, and a lot about the day to day chores required for living in the narrator’s world – milking the cow, cutting wood, planting potatoes, collecting raspberries, and so on. At times I found some of these sections a little bit of a chore myself.

I will say that the prose was extremely good, but on the whole I found the novel to be only moderately engaging.

[Anna Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 Sterne

Die Gesamtkomposition geht weitestgehend auf. In ihren reduktionistischen, simplifizierten Reflexionen erhält die Thematik dennoch eine gewisse Schieflage.
Haushofer entwirft eine Protagonistin die sich in einer Art existentiellem Stoizismus bewegt.
Das Buch bearbeitet die Vorstufe der Subjektivierung. Die Wahrnehmung der Welt. Das einfache Erkennen. Man könnte auch sagen, die „sinnliche Gewissheit“ nach Hegel.
Die Protagoistin bewegt sich in einer pragmatischen Notwendigkeit durch ihre bewändete Welt. Sie spricht davon, dass sie der Lebenslust ihres Hundes nicht gewachsen sei. Sie vermeidet Tagträume.
Haushofer liefert uns eine Person, die ohne Begehren durch die Welt geht. Der die treibende Kraft des Eros fehlt. Sie ist müde, resigniert. Erlaubt sich keine vollständige Subjektivierung.
Dies dient der alten symbolischen Ordnung der Welt zu entsagen. Die Ordnung die zählt, ist der Lauf der Natur, das Wetter. Hier ergibt sich eine Person der Natur ohne ein entdeckendes Ich zu sein. Sie ist lediglich ein erfahrendes Ich.
Gebrochen wird dies in Situationen, in denen sie über die Liebe reflektiert und wie sie Freiheit definiert. Wie die Welt sein sollte.
Reflexionen erlaubt sie sich nur sehr selten. Und wenn, dann in einer äußerst vereinfachten Kausalitätsvorstellung. Insbesondere ihre Gedanken über Liebe oder die Natur des Menschen erhalten durch diesen Reduktionismus natürlich eine besonders pathetische emotionale Intensität, hinterlassen bei mir jedoch ein abgeschmacktes, undifferenziertes, unterkomplexes Weltbild, mit dem ich nichts anfangen kann, das auch keinerlei tiefgründiger, philosophischer oder existentialistischer Betrachtung dienlich ist.

Ich freue mich durchaus einen Roman zu lesen, dem die Wahrnehmung der Welt ohne vorzeitige Bedeutungszuschreibungen am Herzen liegt. Haushofer bekommt es auch sehr gut hin, dem Alltag eine unterhaltsame Note zu verpassen. Das Buch liest sich flüssig weg, ohne dass es Längen bekäme.
Das Buch lediglich als Chronik zu verfassen ist mir zu dürftig. Es schmort in seinem eigenen Saft, da das Fehlen des Begehrens als Prozesstreiber die vollständige Subjektivierung in ihrer Umgebung unterbindet. Es bleibt in der hoffnungslosen Notwendigkeit verhaftet, die der Figur unendlich viele Möglichkeiten beraubt. Vielleicht als freie Handlung des Nein, zur Identitätsausbildung zu sehen.
Letztendlich konsequent. Eine Konsequenz die mich nur kognitiv erreicht, zu wenig in mir wütet, weshalb ich das Buch nicht besser bewerten kann.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deadly act of terrorism has been committed by one of the world powers, and an invisible wall has fallen in the Austrian countryside. On one side, everyone is frozen, dead. On the other side is our protagonist, a woman who is visiting a family member's rustic hunting lodge at the foot of a mountain. She is alone, as her family had gone into town (wrong side of the wall), and must find a way to survive. We get to read her journal which documents how she gets through the days and years.

This post-apocalyptic survival tale reminded me a bit of the fascinating I Who Have Never Known Men, which I read earlier this year, although The Wall is more grounded in a familiar setting, time and context. Both protagonists are women, and both write a journal that they believe will likely never be read, but the writing of the journal is their human exercise. It's what's left.

The woman in The Wall has no human companion, but she finds friends in animals. In Lynx, her devoted canine friend (oh, how I loved Lynx!!) and Bella, her cow, and a number of cats, all who have distinct personalities and habits and purity of character.

The woman spends the bulk of her time doing what needs doing in order to survive, grieving the great loss of the world she knew, and building and accepting her new one.

I found myself thinking about this woman when I wasn't reading, and wanting to get back to her story as soon as possible. Would her potato crop yield a good harvest? Would she have enough wood for winter? Would an accident befall the beloved Lynx? Would she find other people like herself?

This story is remarkable. It's a tale of survival, but it's also a meditation on human nature, and what makes humans different from animals. I can see how it's also seen as a feminist text. This woman doggedly faces challenges and stays alive for the animals more than for her own self. And in doing this, discovers a true fullness of living.

I came upon this book later than a lot of my Goodreads friends. Earlier this year I read Haushofer's newly-translated-to-English edition of Killing Stella and that's how I became aware of The Wall, which has been highly regarded by some elite literati, including Doris Lessing. I think it's a beautiful philosophical text, and I will be thinking about it for a long while.

Loving and looking after another creature is a very troublesome business, and much harder than killing and destruction. It takes twenty years to bring up a child, and ten seconds to kill it.

The only creature in the forest that can really do right or wrong is me. And I alone can show mercy. Sometimes I wish that burden of decision-making didn't lie with me. But I am a human being, and I can only think and act like a human being. Only death will free me from that.

Human beings had played their own games, and in almost every case they had ended badly. And how could I complain? I was one of them and couldn't judge them. It was better not to think about human beings. The great game of the sun, moon and stars seemed to be working out, and that hadn't been invented by humans.