Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Book: The Wall
Author: Marlen Haushofer, Translator: Shaun Whiteside
Group Leader: katzenfreund
Discussion Thread Open: on/about Noon, June 2, 2008
Discussion Thread Open: Indefinitely
Rules of Engagement:
Enjoy, discuss, exchange ideas, opinions, make allusions, references to similar plots and themes, but otherwise try not to introduce unrelated topics.
General off topic comments will be permitted as they relate directly to the reading group and the book under discussion.
This is intended as a "fun" experience and not school!
The leader(s) will keep the discussion moving.
We will keep the thread open, indefinitely, so that the members of our group who have not had a chance to procure it or read it can join the discussion at any time.
Members who have not read this book, please take your time and try to resist reading the thread (unless you wish to hear about the book beforehand ) and trust that the discussion will be on-going as members can and will join the thread.
I do think we can assume that one or more City-Data members, who did not sign on, might join us in our discussion. As this is a public forum, this is inevitable and permissible. Only posts that do not conform to CD ToS will be monitored and/or deleted.
[+] Rate this post positively
________
Last edited by ontheroad; 06-01-2008 at 08:18 PM..
Hello, dear book club members... it is time to discuss the next book:
THE WALL by Marlen Haushofer.
I first read this book over 20 years ago, in my native language, German. The book made a huge impression on me, especially because the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl had just happened. Being in Europe at the time, made the whole thing a lot scarier. The book was unlike any I had ever read, bringing the reader to ask themselves, how would I react if my life were over, as I knew it... how would I survive? Would I want to survive if a natural disaster happened and killed everyone that I loved? How would I deal with the complete isolation?
In the Wall, the woman learns how to adapt to life alone, with no humans, only some animals as companions. She has lived in a city and has difficulty adapting to the harsher country live... but succeeds in providing the things necessary for herself and her animals to survive.
A little information about the Author. Marlen Haushofer was born in Austria in 1920. She earned her first literary awards in 1953 and published her first book in 1955. The Wall was her most well known book and achieved a kind of "cult status" in the 80's. Sadly, she died of bone cancer in 1970.
I recently reread the book for this discussion and was still taken with it, I can still identify with so much written in the book! The love of animals and the shallowness of modern society for example. The book was categorized as a feminist book, but I didn't perceive it as such. It will be interesting to hear all your views!!!
__________________
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
What a treasure The Wall is. This is a "gem" I choose to keep.
Katzenfreund, I found this book fascinating and, like you, have never read another quite like it. The reflection through the woman's journal demonstrated the determination and resilience of this remarkable character. She had the foresight to keep a very detailed record of every important - and mundane - detail. And, all of this after the fact. I developed an admiration and awe toward our main character by her every reaction, implementation, unflagging courage and wisdom.
Unlike The Road where I did not see a need to give the characters names, I had a name for this character. She was Eve to me, the one able to sustain life. I think I wanted her named because other characters in the story had names. Her supposedly deceased friends had names throughout the story and of course, the beloved animals that Eve, sorry, the woman cared for with great effort and love.
I don't know how others viewed the mystery of the wall. I imagined a terranium style glass dome one night being forced into the landscape to seal off hundreds of square miles from the destruction that was about to take place on the rest of the earth. I pondered throughout the story whether this was a man-made planned disaster (unlikely), or perhaps a extraterrestrial experiment on that strange planet, Earth. I gave no consideration to this being from God because my personal beliefs would not support that.
I did not need to know what actually happened. I didn't miss an explanation or even hope for one by the book's end. Personally, most books do not have an ending because the story carries on long after I have read it. The Wall falls into this arena for me. I am still imagining that life is continuing within that domed cage over the woman's present world.
This is a woman that I would be proud and honored to know. She came from what seemed to be an easy, privileged life in the city to become one who intuitively learned to sustain her own life and the lives of her animals. I don't know if I could pull my available resources together to live on as she did. I think that her craftiness and resourcefulness impressed me as much as her emotional fortitude. Would I think to plant potatoes to provide for myself the next year? Would I realize that nutrition and not just a full belly was important to be able to go on? I think I would now after reading The Wall.
The Wall and Marlen Haushofer were a gift to me. I grew up in an era and must associate still with those who view women as quite helpless without men. This is something that I have never believed and have refused to internalize my whole life. Haushofer just reinforces that determination for me that a woman is as whole-souled and strong as a man. She had wits, cleverness, compassion, and strong determination. This book has been a "hooray" story for me because I don't think that this character will end tragically, but persevere and continue on.
I loved the book. Can you tell? Thank you, Katz! I am quite anxious to hear what others have to say about the characters (as there were many) and the events of this story.
The book was like a series of musical notes--some were chilling, others filled with grace. Overall, it is a book that should be read for its attempt at honesty in exploring the self in light of larger events.
The Wall as a symbol, a separation from all else, is a simple yet fascinating device.
It seems if my notes and memory are correct that it was only into page 170 or thereabouts that the narrator addresses:
A life without fear and without hope is introduced. Is the narrator speaking of the cows, or is she speaking of herself. Nikos Kazantzakis said these words in “Toda Raba “ – I have no fear; I have no hope. I am forever free
Thereafter, (pg 174) the narrator appears to move forward, and takes
A fresh look not only at fear, but also at escape, escape from the valley, escape from the mountain—getting around The Wall.
Earlier passages of which I made notes appeared to be alive in the sense of accuracy. The simple steps of first surviving, then the handling of daily challenges, and the simplicity itself speaks volumes for what I remember of my own experiences in isolated and potentially hazhardous environments.
In contrast, survival in The Road is a quest, immediate and palpable in its extremity--there exists just the man and the boy, the boy and the man, and hope is as slender as their next steps.
The main character in the Wall builds up small tensions, the Road is total tension.
I at first started the book a wee bit uneasy as it came on the heels of my finishing The Road which I forced myself to finish!
I was totally in awe and engrossed with this story until I completed it.
My heart was breaking when poor Lynx and Bull were killed...more so Lynx her faithful companion...I really wish there had been a sequel to this book as there are many loose ends.
Loss appears to be central to the novel. Here are some of the notes I made while reading:
• 100 – the plaintiveness of loss—the simple words to describe the presence and absence of Lynx, a prospective event, a retrospective memory. The description is among the most poignant for its sense of accuracy (as I lost an animal and I always felt him at my feet long after he was gone).
• 105 – Pearl, the Cat’s first kitten dies. The blood on the floor never disappeared; Lynx searched for the cat; the mother cat grieved alone by disappearing; the narrator never forgot Pearl—and this was her first loss.
I saw those, njkate, as steps along the way, painful steps, but part of the narrators separation from attachments.
Njkate, I am glad that you enjoyed the reading of The Wall. It holds so much wisdom and human emotions that is would be a loss not to share it. The fact that the impending death of Lynx was mentioned so far from the book's climax left me puzzled and changed my outlook to one of gloom. I believe that this may have been Haushofer's method of allowing us to truly experience for ourselves the emotional place from which our woman was recording her wall-era life. A life she wanted to continue, but one that had lost much of its contentment.
Ontheroad, first of all, I must commend you for taking notes on The Wall. I, unfortunately, having read most of the book in my car, doctors' offices, and in the local park, have dog-eared so many favorite passages that now I am trying to recall what struck me so about each of them. Not too mention that it is now difficult to keep my book closed.
It's interesting that you mention that the wall stands for a separation from all other things. I picked up on that same thought throughout the story. At one point, pg. 130 in my edition, the woman says that "The wall is a thing that is neither dead nor alive, it really doesn't concern me, and that's why I don't dream about it."
She did recognize the wall as a simple separation from her old self and had allowed the new self to emerge. At another point in her reflection, she stated that she wasn't sure which self she actually was, but that everything she had thought and done prior to the wall was an imitation of the actions and thoughts of the people who surrounded her. Now, she had to think, act and live on her own. It was a time of revelation that constantly made her uneasy - a feeling of undefinable doom.
I enjoyed your comparison, ontheroad, to The Road. The Road did represent an ever present danger and tension to me, as well. Haushofer took deliberate care to let us live each moment of our character's life in The Wall that we were permitted refreshing pauses between the frights of coping with aloneness and survival.
My heart was breaking when poor Lynx and Bull were killed...more so Lynx her faithful companion...I really wish there had been a sequel to this book as there are many loose ends.
I was grateful, however, that we were forewarned about the impending death of Lynx and Bull although the manner of their demise was still shocking.
I didn't perceive it as a feminist book until the end, when the enemy took on the face of a man. At that point, I did feel that man was responsible for the Wall. If the author had not wanted it to be perceived as such, she could have made the killer of Bull and Lynx a woman. Even the way the perpetrator is dressed leads us believe man is the weaker sex unable to adapt to his new surroundings. The book showed women as being the stronger sex.
Although the woman was not named, I always though of her as the "survivor". Were her husband and children named? I don't remember.
I didn't participate in The Roadthread, but it seems "the survivor" at least had pleasant surroundings as compared to the "dark and grey" colors of The Road
I liked this book very much although I did find myself at times skipping through the repetitious daily tasks.
There are multiple separation(s) as I recall. Now separated from the world, so to speak, the narrator's old self, she also appears to describe divisions within herself even behind the wall. From my notes:
• 160-162 – The two selves, one in the lodge, the other in the Valley at the Alm, separate yet one, one yet one with nature. What association is the narrator making that sets her apart in each of the two dwellings?
And where is the old Cat?
Although the Wall itself is a divider, and perhaps as katzenfreund referred a political divide, it appears the narrator is sorting herself out--and at the same time splitting herself apart--one with nature; one with memory; one afraid; one fearless...so many selves.
And it is only recently, after reading another book, or just ruminating that I thought of the Wall between East and West Germany, and the differences between the two similar but disparate selves that Germany had to contend with and face.
Interesting thought about man and woman and could bring us to the Cleft.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigerlily
.
I didn't perceive it as a feminist book until the end, when the enemy took on the face of a man. At that point, I did feel that man was responsible for the Wall. If the author had not wanted it to be perceived as such, she could have made the killer of Bull and Lynx a woman. Even the way the perpetrator is dressed leads us believe man is the weaker sex unable to adapt to his new surroundings. The book showed women as being the stronger sex.
There are many references to colour in the book: the colour of apples, violets, and more. It was subtle but a reminder of life rather than the darkness of the Road.
Quote:
Although the woman was not named, I always though of her as the "survivor". Were her husband and children named? I don't remember.
I didn't participate in The Roadthread, but it seems "the survivor" at least had pleasant surroundings as compared to the "dark and grey" colors of The Road
Fascinating. It was the mundane that captured me and enthralled me for its seeming accuracy in how a life is lived and would be lived in isolation.
Quote:
I liked this book very much although I did find myself at times skipping through the repetitious daily tasks.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.