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Großes Solo für Anton
When Anton wakes up one morning and discovers that he is the only person left in the world, he accepts the situation with remarkable ease. Soon, he finds himself on the trail of a group secretly searching for 'The Book', a text that contains all knowledge of the world. But when he discovers it, he comes to some shocking conclusions.
- GenresGerman Literature
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
6 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Herbert Rosendorfer
122 books18 followersHerbert Rosendorfer was born in the village of Gries (currently in the province of Bolzano) in the South Tyrol. From 1939 to 1943, he lived in Munich. In 1943, he was evacuated to Kitzbühel, returning to Munich five years later.
After finishing school, Rosendorfer spent a year studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich but then entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Munich.
Between 1967 and 1993, Rosendorfer served as a judge in Munich, after which he was a Justice at the High Court of Appeal in Naumburg. Also, from 1990, he was an honorary professor of the history of Bavarian literature at the University of Munich.
Following his retirement, he lived in Eppan, in the South Tyrol, till his death on 20 September 2012.
Rosendorfer was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) in Mainz. He received the 1977 Toucan Prize, the 1991 Ernst Hoferichter Award, the 1992 Upper Bavarian Cultural Prize, the 1999 Jean-Paul Prize, and the 2010 Corine Literature Prize for his lifetime achievements.
He was honoured with the Order of Merit, First Class (2000), the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class and the Bavarian Order of Merit in 2004.
Works
After finishing school, Rosendorfer spent a year studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich but then entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Munich.
Between 1967 and 1993, Rosendorfer served as a judge in Munich, after which he was a Justice at the High Court of Appeal in Naumburg. Also, from 1990, he was an honorary professor of the history of Bavarian literature at the University of Munich.
Following his retirement, he lived in Eppan, in the South Tyrol, till his death on 20 September 2012.
Rosendorfer was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) in Mainz. He received the 1977 Toucan Prize, the 1991 Ernst Hoferichter Award, the 1992 Upper Bavarian Cultural Prize, the 1999 Jean-Paul Prize, and the 2010 Corine Literature Prize for his lifetime achievements.
He was honoured with the Order of Merit, First Class (2000), the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class and the Bavarian Order of Merit in 2004.
Works
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 23, 2019
This is a digressive, petit bourgeois and ironically humorous version of the post-apocalypse. The antihero protagonist is not easy to like but he is evidence of Rosendorfer's powers of creation. It is still one of the more original visions of the end of humanity.
September 23, 2014
Anton L. awakes to find that the rest of humanity has disappeared and he is the only one left (though it takes him some time to realize and accept this turn of events). This is not the first time this premise has been explored, as there is an entire collection of short stories edited by Asimov called The Last Man on Earth, furthermore I Am Legend comes to mind, many castaway stories essentially fit the bill, the excellent nonfiction book The Earth Without Us takes a scientific perspective on the topic, and the idea has appeared on television and movie screens since at least 1959 with the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough At Last. I found the take on the premise that Rosendorfer presents here to be notable for two reasons: first, the narrative meanders along rather aimlessly for most of the story. Unlike many such stories there is no goal that Anton is trying to accomplish or message about the environment or society that the story is attempting to convey. Second, Rosendorfer chooses to make the last man of his story rather disgusting and unsympathetic. Humanity ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with a smelly ass of a man with an undeserved sense of superiority. Together these two features make Grand Solo for Anton interesting in the abstract, and there are passages and points that I liked, but overall I couldn't recommend this book very strongly.
Usually a story about the last person on the planet makes the disappearance of all other people a major point of the narrative, but here the overnight depopulation of the globe is never depicted or explained. There are some hints that the rest of humanity has disappeared because Anton is all that is necessary to complete the purpose of mankind, the discovery and reading of The Book, but this is more likely an explanation arising from the addled mind of Anton than it is an actual reason for the disappearances. Instead the early parts of the story deal with Anton wandering the empty city and adjusting to the new state of affairs, confirming that everyone is gone, then gathering food, candles, and guns. This early section was the part of the book I enjoyed the most, as it hits all the predictable but enjoyable beats of Anton's growing realization that he is truly alone, his first forays into exploring the depopulated world, and his immersion in the material pleasures that remain. A part of the setting that I particularly liked was that the world after the disappearance is no pristine place- with all of their human masters gone pets are left to starve or grow feral, rats colonize the grocery stores, and bears take up residence in the strip clubs. In this world Anton quickly devolves into savagery, never bathing, destroying things just for the fun of it, and eventually eating raw meat. Stories of the world before make clear that Anton was not too far off from a savage before he became the last man on earth, the circumstances have merely given him the ability to unleash his savagery completely. I can understand why a reader might be turned off from the story by Anton, as he is disgusting in more ways than one. This essentially leaves the reader with no one to root for, a tricky situation for a narrative to be in.
This potential problem is magnified by the fact that there is no larger plot or narrative stakes for the story to fall back on. Usually a story like this can fall back on the struggle to survive that naturally comes with being the last person on the planet. Here, however, Anton is unsympathetic enough that his struggle for survival is rendered devoid of tension. It's natural to desire that mankind continues to survive, but if the last piece of mankind is Anton, then extinction for our species doesn't seem too bad an idea. Besides the day-to-day life of Anton, Grand Solo's only other narrative thread is Anton's search for a book that is mentioned in notes he finds and letters he seeks out after the disappearance has occurred. At first this thread struck me as even more problematic than the narrative just following Anton around, since I always hate the type of coincidences authors must write in to let a single random man uncover what has happened. Here, however, there is a good chance that Anton is not actually uncovering what has happened to the world, but merely seeing patterns in chaos at first and then suffering from full-blown hallucinations later on. Mankind invents explanations so as to avoid being surrounded by mysteries, and here Anton does so as well.
Because of the lack of narrative, message, or sympathetic character Grand Solo for Anton is left as a meditation on the return to savagery and the descent into madness suffered by someone cut off from human contact. There are other books that use this premise to do something more, but here Rosendorfer was content to follow the wanderings of Anton for a while and explore little else. His writing is not strong enough to make such depictions memorable, and there is little resolution. Even if this premise sounds interesting to you, you are probably better-off exploring another work that explores it in a more interesting way. Perhaps try that short story collection edited by Asimov, if you can find a copy.
Usually a story about the last person on the planet makes the disappearance of all other people a major point of the narrative, but here the overnight depopulation of the globe is never depicted or explained. There are some hints that the rest of humanity has disappeared because Anton is all that is necessary to complete the purpose of mankind, the discovery and reading of The Book, but this is more likely an explanation arising from the addled mind of Anton than it is an actual reason for the disappearances. Instead the early parts of the story deal with Anton wandering the empty city and adjusting to the new state of affairs, confirming that everyone is gone, then gathering food, candles, and guns. This early section was the part of the book I enjoyed the most, as it hits all the predictable but enjoyable beats of Anton's growing realization that he is truly alone, his first forays into exploring the depopulated world, and his immersion in the material pleasures that remain. A part of the setting that I particularly liked was that the world after the disappearance is no pristine place- with all of their human masters gone pets are left to starve or grow feral, rats colonize the grocery stores, and bears take up residence in the strip clubs. In this world Anton quickly devolves into savagery, never bathing, destroying things just for the fun of it, and eventually eating raw meat. Stories of the world before make clear that Anton was not too far off from a savage before he became the last man on earth, the circumstances have merely given him the ability to unleash his savagery completely. I can understand why a reader might be turned off from the story by Anton, as he is disgusting in more ways than one. This essentially leaves the reader with no one to root for, a tricky situation for a narrative to be in.
This potential problem is magnified by the fact that there is no larger plot or narrative stakes for the story to fall back on. Usually a story like this can fall back on the struggle to survive that naturally comes with being the last person on the planet. Here, however, Anton is unsympathetic enough that his struggle for survival is rendered devoid of tension. It's natural to desire that mankind continues to survive, but if the last piece of mankind is Anton, then extinction for our species doesn't seem too bad an idea. Besides the day-to-day life of Anton, Grand Solo's only other narrative thread is Anton's search for a book that is mentioned in notes he finds and letters he seeks out after the disappearance has occurred. At first this thread struck me as even more problematic than the narrative just following Anton around, since I always hate the type of coincidences authors must write in to let a single random man uncover what has happened. Here, however, there is a good chance that Anton is not actually uncovering what has happened to the world, but merely seeing patterns in chaos at first and then suffering from full-blown hallucinations later on. Mankind invents explanations so as to avoid being surrounded by mysteries, and here Anton does so as well.
Because of the lack of narrative, message, or sympathetic character Grand Solo for Anton is left as a meditation on the return to savagery and the descent into madness suffered by someone cut off from human contact. There are other books that use this premise to do something more, but here Rosendorfer was content to follow the wanderings of Anton for a while and explore little else. His writing is not strong enough to make such depictions memorable, and there is little resolution. Even if this premise sounds interesting to you, you are probably better-off exploring another work that explores it in a more interesting way. Perhaps try that short story collection edited by Asimov, if you can find a copy.
May 21, 2025
Großartige Plotidee, sehr mittelmäßige Umsetzung. Der Hauptcharakter kommt mir überhaupt nicht nahe. Das Buch verliert sich in zu viel Beschreibung und zu wenig Handlung, also ich war am Ende etwas ungeduldig.
September 11, 2017
Der Verwaltungsangestellte Anton L. wacht eines morgens auf und stellt fest, daß alle seine Mitmenschen spurlos verschwunden sind. In den folgenden sehr unterhaltsamen 337 Seiten macht er sich auf, die Ursache der Katastrophe, seine Umwelt und sich selbst zu erkunden. Von der einen oder anderen unappetitlichen Stelle mal abgesehen, habe ich lange kein Buch mehr in der Hand gehabt, daß sich so gut an einem Stück lesen läßt.
March 15, 2023
:-) My bestbook
May 14, 2024
re—read po latach, który dał mi dziesięć razy więcej radości niż za pierwszym razem. po niektóre lektury warto sięgnąć jednak w wieku pogimnazjalnym…
prawda objawiona, unieważniam się!
prawda objawiona, unieważniam się!
May 13, 2025
erfreulich bizarre Wiederentdeckung
August 8, 2010
What does the last man on Earth do? Not very much it would seem but it is fun in doing so.
I would like to have awarded a star for each of the four constituent parts of this 'Robinson Crusoe' type mystery: numerous detailed day to day survival techniques; a 'where did everybody go?' plot; some anecdotal stories from the main character's past and a few theological discussions with a bronze statue of the Elector and Jacob the hare (or rather with Anton L. himself). Alas, the balancing of these four elements wasn't quite right for me and I was reading plenty of the first two and not enough of the latter two.
Originally in German and translated into English showing an efficient description of events rather than scenery.
I would like to have awarded a star for each of the four constituent parts of this 'Robinson Crusoe' type mystery: numerous detailed day to day survival techniques; a 'where did everybody go?' plot; some anecdotal stories from the main character's past and a few theological discussions with a bronze statue of the Elector and Jacob the hare (or rather with Anton L. himself). Alas, the balancing of these four elements wasn't quite right for me and I was reading plenty of the first two and not enough of the latter two.
Originally in German and translated into English showing an efficient description of events rather than scenery.
February 8, 2014
The premise sounded interesting (last man on earth), and I had no trouble accepting the lack of explanation for the circumstances (to be fair - I didn't finish the book, maybe it is explained later on. It is a quirky, unusual book. But I did not enjoy the story. I did not like the main character.
January 22, 2009
Well, I thought the book was interesting. The idea is fairly simple, Anton, the main character, is the last human in his town, presumably, the world, and I'm pretty sure it was stolen from a Twilight Zone episode… Eventually, the story turns to religion and talking rabbits, sooo…
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2007
I like it when a translator can keep the feel of the original language. I read this in English, but it felt very German.
June 7, 2010
Started so well: Anton is the last person on Earth, all other humans have mysteriously disappeard over night. This part of the story was so much fun to read, but the ending was disappointingly weak!
July 3, 2024
keine ahnung was das war👩🏼🚀
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews