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78th out of 100 books
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8 voters
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Malina
Ingeborg Bachmann's novel Malina, presented here for the first time in English, in a translation by Philip Boehmm, is not a book one picks up--or puts down--lightly. Narrated in an unremittingly fragmented stream-of-consciousness, filled with references to Austrian history and culture, to psychoanalysis, twelve-tone music and contemporary philosophies of language, this pas...more
Paperback, 244 pages
Published
June 1st 1999
by Holmes & Meier Publishers
(first published 1971)
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Funny to read this book whilst actually residing in Vienna; between the lines there actually is the city crumbling.
Also, 100 stars. This is so cruel, funny, sad, beautiful; strange and heart- tugging pushing pulling boxing kissing scratching and all that. An extra 100 stars for the definitions of here and now and for everything else in for pointing out the preverbal where previously you weren't even aware it was there, the delicate and the cruel, and outlining it so wonderfully.
...more
Also, 100 stars. This is so cruel, funny, sad, beautiful; strange and heart- tugging pushing pulling boxing kissing scratching and all that. An extra 100 stars for the definitions of here and now and for everything else in for pointing out the preverbal where previously you weren't even aware it was there, the delicate and the cruel, and outlining it so wonderfully.
...more
Malina was a challenging, but rewarding, read for me that seemed kind of like an abstract version of Written on the Body. Written in the 70s by an Austrian feminist scholar, the novel follows an unnamed narrator as she lives in her "Ungargasseland" in Vienna with a mysterious roommate named Malina and tries to build a relationship with Ivan and his two sons. The middle section is comprised entirely of dream sequences that explore the narrator's inner conflicts with a variety of charact...more
Ingeborg Bachmann writes:
In the Psychological Institute in the Liebiggasse we always drank tea or coffee. I knew a man there who always used shorthand to record what everyone said, and sometimes other things besides. I don't know shorthand. Sometimes we'd give each other Rorschach tests, Szondi tests, TAT, and would diagnose each other's character and personality, we would observe our performance and behavior and examine our expressions. Once he asked how many men I...more
I'm having a really hard time rating this book. It take a LOOOONG time to get into. It's postmodern in a way that doesn't quite grab me, not like Angela Carter's work, which I absolutely LOVE. Still, it's interesting and, despite being very tedious for a very large portion, pretty good. I give it a 3 here because I can't say that I "really liked" it or "really liked" the experience of reading it, so I can't say 4 stars. Maybe someday, if I read it again, knowing what I know n...more
9/10
Certainly not the easiest book for me to get back in to reading with :P It is at times frustrating, at times intentionally very vague and oblique (as regards the titular Malina in particular), whilst at times so startlingly clear in its presentation of the main character's thoughts - her neurotic nature, her desperate emotional dependency on Ivan, her doubts, all the weight of the world crushing on her - that the book can become exhausting (even more so because the stream of cons...more
Certainly not the easiest book for me to get back in to reading with :P It is at times frustrating, at times intentionally very vague and oblique (as regards the titular Malina in particular), whilst at times so startlingly clear in its presentation of the main character's thoughts - her neurotic nature, her desperate emotional dependency on Ivan, her doubts, all the weight of the world crushing on her - that the book can become exhausting (even more so because the stream of cons...more
This one literally hurt to read - just not at all my world (or how I see the world). Such doubts, such misery, such an effort to live, to breathe, to think......Surely a very biased review and rating, but what can I do ?
I am extremely glad that I read this book in a class rather than trying to tackle it on my own, since I found it beautiful but difficult.
What struck me about this book was the words themselves. I found the language itself to be somehow violent in itself, without the aid of violence in image or plot (which does appear later in the images). This story drove home the power of language itself, something that I've always believed in, but continue to realize I've yet to actually explore.
...more
What struck me about this book was the words themselves. I found the language itself to be somehow violent in itself, without the aid of violence in image or plot (which does appear later in the images). This story drove home the power of language itself, something that I've always believed in, but continue to realize I've yet to actually explore.
...more
صحنه زجرآوری از به لجن کشیدن تمامی زندگی یک زن پاک توسط جامعه تنها به جرم زیبایی و تفاوتی که با دیگران دارد ...
این تصویر آشنا نیست ؟؟؟ در کوچه بازارهای خودمان ... در همان پستوهای آپارتمان شده شهرهایمان ... قصه بیوه زنهای زیبایی که حق زندگی کردن و دوباره خوشبختی تجربه کردن را ندارند؟؟؟
این تصویر برایتان کهنگی ندارد؟
این تصویر آشنا نیست ؟؟؟ در کوچه بازارهای خودمان ... در همان پستوهای آپارتمان شده شهرهایمان ... قصه بیوه زنهای زیبایی که حق زندگی کردن و دوباره خوشبختی تجربه کردن را ندارند؟؟؟
این تصویر برایتان کهنگی ندارد؟
Hard to read fiction.
Crazy but so insightful.
Crazy but so insightful.
I remember taking strong issue with the inconsistencies in this novel while reading it as a junior in college. My professor (perhaps the one who left the least impression on me overall) offered that "the books that are truly difficult, that challenge us the most, will be the ones that leave the greatest impressions on us when we complete them." Interesting thought. In this case, it didn't hold true, as I remember little of this narrative 10 years later. I do recall feeling proud fo...more
This is one of those books that with a little more liesure time I think I could get into, but can't right now (so, for the time being, no rating). This particular narrator I can only take in limited installments--intense in her odd way and unalloyed as she is, and I don't feel entirely comfortable wading in her thoughts. But I would like to return to her at some point and try again; there's much to take away her if you have the energy for it.
در صورت تمایل، جهت مشخصات فیلمی که بر اساس این کتاب ساخته شده است؛ میتوانید از لینک زیر استفاده بفرمایید
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213847
Men and women seem to receive this book very differently - which makes me wonder if that was part of her intention. I am looking forward to reading it a second time.
Neurotic and partly unreadable, her only novel is an ode to the nightmare love can be.
recent fiction (boyers)
Simon
marked it as unfinished
Couldn't get on with this.
Nathaël Molaison
marked it as to-read
Esra Koyun
marked it as to-read
Amanda
added it
Dustin
marked it as to-read
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