I wrote this as part of the celebrations for the tenth edition of German Literature Month hosted by Caroline from ‘Beauty is a Sleeping Cat’ and Lizzy from ‘Lizzy’s Literary Life’.
Marlen Haushofer is my favourite German author. She was Austrian and wrote in German. I first discovered her through Caroline’s (from ‘Beauty is a Sleeping Cat’) post about the film adaptation of ‘The Wall’. I got inspired and got the book, and when I read it, I didn’t want it to end. When I finished reading the book, it became my alltime favourite book, at that time. It is still one of my alltime favourite books. It is one of my treasured possessions and a book I refuse to lend to anyone. If you are curious about the plot, it goes like this. A forty-something old woman goes on a holiday with her cousin to the countryside. She goes to take a nap in their cabin. She wakes up to an eerie silence. She discovers that she has been separated by a transparent wall from the rest of the world and everyone on the other side is dead. She has a dog, a cat and a cow for company. This is revealed in the first few pages. What happens to this one human character and three animal characters is revealed in the next 250 pages. We would think that with just one human character, the story would have nowhere to go, but what Haushofer does with this minimalist cast is absolutely magical. I’ll let you read for yourself and find out what happened. After I read ‘The Wall‘, I wanted to read all of Haushofer’s books. But there were just two more of her books available in English translation – ‘The Loft‘ and ‘Nowhere Ending Sky‘. I got them and read them across the years. One would except that after reading a profound book like ‘The Wall‘ one would almost experience a sophomore slump while reading the next Haushofer book, but when I read ‘The Loft‘, I found it beautiful in its own way and it had one of my favourite lines, which goes like this –
“I hate that alarm…I am convinced this wretched thing is slowly killing us – a fraction every day. Merely waiting for it to start ringing is in itself a torment…Before the day can slip noiselessly into the room it is shattered to pieces by this vulgar rattling noise.”
I kept ‘Nowhere Ending Sky‘ aside for a long time, because I didn’t want to read my last Haushofer book in a hurry. Sometime back I felt that I had waited for too long and I read that too. It is a beautiful coming-of-age story and one of my favourite coming-of-age stories. If I hadn’t read ‘The Wall‘ before, ‘Nowhere Ending Sky‘ would have been my favourite Haushofer book. It still is one of my alltime favourite books.
I don’t know much about Marlen Haushofer. Information about her is hard to come by on the internet. The Wikipedia page in English devoted to her has just the basic facts about her. She must have been well-known in her time in the German-speaking world or in Austria atleast, but after her death in 1970, she seems to have slipped into obscurity. She came again into prominence and burned brightly like star, briefly, a few years back when ‘The Wall‘ was adapted into a film which won lots of acclaim. Since then she has slipped back into obscurity again. I know only a few people who have read ‘The Wall‘ and half of them are friends to whom I recommended it to. ‘The Wall‘ is one of the great masterpieces of twentieth century literature. It deserves more readers.
Though we don’t know much about Marlen Haushofer, she reveals herself through her books. Atleast, I think so. If we try peeking behind the beautiful sentences, we find someone who is warm and affectionate, introverted, and who loves animals. How can someone who wrote this –
“The laurel is flowering. I don’t pick any because I’m afraid the plant might cry out in pain and I wouldn’t hear it. True, I don’t remember ever hearing laurel cry out, but everything is possible, and every sound is possible to a person who cannot hear.” (From ‘The Loft‘)
or this –
“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.” (From ‘The Wall‘)
be anything but warm and affectionate, and a beautiful soul?
I am glad that Marlen Haushofer walked on earth once upon a time. I am glad that she was a beautiful soul. I am so happy that she wrote these beautiful, exquisite masterpieces. I wish our times had overlapped. I would have loved to meet her. But I am glad that she lives through her books. As they say about Beethoven and Mozart, that they didn’t die, but they became music, Marlen Haushofer didn’t die, she became her stories.
Beautiful post Vishy – I can tell she’s an author who means so much to you!
Glad you liked the post, Kaggsy! She is such a beautiful writer! Love her so much! Have you read any of her books?
I haven’t but I’ll certainly keep an eye out after your glowing recommendation!
Hope you get to read it and like it, Kaggsy 😊
I’m so pleased I finally read Haushofer this year and, like you, completely fell in love with her. I also want to continue to read her other books, although they are not thst easy to find even in German. She also wrote children’s books and I did get to read them in the 1980s or so.
I loved your review of ‘The Wall’, Marina! So beautiful it was! So glad you loved it too! Hope you are able to find more of her books. I remember you sharing pictures of some of her books which were in German but which have not been translated into English. So nice to know that she has written children’s books and you got read them. Wish I could read them.
I’ve read one of her other books for German Lit Month earlier this month – The Jib Door. I think there has been a translation of it, but not entirely sure.
Thanks so much for telling me about it, Marina! This is so exciting! Will stop by and read your review soon. I don’t know how I missed it!
Beautiful post, Vishy! It’s funny, I was reminded of The Wall just this morning when I went on Goodreads and was notified that someone had commented on your review of the book recently. So I reread your review, decided I really should give the book a try, and then a few hours later I found this, which definitely helped me make my mind up! Unfortunately, her books don’t seem to be available as ebooks in English, but I’m sure I can get my hands on a copy somewhere.
Glad you liked the post, Andrew. So nice to know that you remembered ‘The Wall’ and went and read my review 🙂 Sorry to know that her books are not available as ebooks. Hope you are able to find a copy. Will look forward to hearing your thoughts. Happy reading!
Beautiful post, Vishy. I loved The Wall so much that I never dared reading another of her books but you’ve convinced me that I should. I’m not sure I will reread The Wall though. It’s a shame the publisher didn’t do anything for this double anniversary. Fifty years since her death and, I think, 100 since her birth.
Glad you liked the post, Caroline. Thank you so much for introducing me to ‘The Wall’ 😊 Totally indebted to you for that 😊 I don’t think anyone had reviewed the book online before you posted about it. Now a few of us have read it and are trying to spread our love for it. I was telling Marina the other day that it all started with you 😊 I’m also scared of reading it again. But hoping to get over that someday and read it again. I think you’ll like her ‘Nowhere Ending Sky’. It is very beautiful. It can’t match ‘The Wall’, of course, but I think it is her second best book. I read somewhere that it is based on her own life. It is sad that the publishers didn’t do anything for her centenary. They should have. It would have spread awareness about Marlen Haushofer and her works.
I saw a few German bloggers writing quite angry posts about the almost sacrilegious omission. I don’t know anyone who has read her who didn’t love her. Spreading the word – that just gives me an idea. Maybe I’ll do a giveaway of The Wall.
I am with those German bloggers. It is very sad that the publishers missed this opportunity to celebrate Marlen Haushofer. It is a great idea to do a giveaway of ‘The Wall’ 😊 Thank you for thinking of this 😊
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