Zurich Transit

by Max Frisch

This screenplay by Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch was developed from an episode in his 1964 novel Gantenbein , or A Wilderness of Mirrors . At the center of both works is Theo Ehrismann, a man who cannot seem to change his life no matter how many times he resolves to do so. Chance comes to Theo one day upon returning from a trip abroad—he arrives home to read his own obituary in the paper. He shows up just on time for his own funeral and observes the attending mourners, and yet he is not able to reveal himself to them, and especially not to his wife. “How does one say that he is alive,” wonders Theo. Life, as Frisch said, “is the sum of events that happen by chance, and it always could as well have turned out differently; there is not a single action or omission that does not allow for variables in the future.” Zurich Transit presents Frisch at the height of his dramatic powers and exemplifies his ardent believe in a dramaturgy of coincidence rather than causality.

84 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1993

About the author

Max Rudolph Frisch was born in 1911 in Zurich; the son of Franz Bruno Frisch (an architect) and Karolina Bettina Frisch (née Wildermuth). After studying at the Realgymnasium in Zurich, he enrolled at the University of Zurich in 1930 and began studying German literature, but had to abandon due to financial problems after the death of his father in 1932. Instead, he started working as a journalist and columnist for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), one of the major newspapers in Switzerland. With the NZZ he would entertain a lifelong ambivalent love-hate relationship, for his own views were in stark contrast to the conservative views promulgated by this newspaper. In 1933 he travelled through eastern and south-eastern Europe, and in 1935 he visited Germany for the first time.

Some of the major themes in his work are the search or loss of one's identity; guilt and innocence (the spiritual crisis of the modern world after Nietzsche proclaimed that "God is dead"); technological omnipotence (the human belief that everything was possible and technology allowed humans to control everything) versus fate (especially in Homo faber); and also Switzerland's idealized self-image as a tolerant democracy based on consensus — criticizing that as illusion and portraying people (and especially the Swiss) as being scared by their own liberty and being preoccupied mainly with controlling every part of their life.

Max Frisch was a political man, and many of his works make reference to (or, as in Jonas und sein Veteran, are centered around) political issues of the time.

information was taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Frisch

Reviews

[Dhanaraj Rajan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is actually a film script.
But it does not look like a script for a full length feature film.

The premise is actually interesting. A person is presumed dead and his family prepares for the funeral and conduct the funeral. Meanwhile the person presumed dead is actually alive and he even secretly attends his own funeral. He is confused as to 'how to say that he is alive.'

It had the potential. But I think the potentials were not exploited to the maximum. Or may be the fault may lie elsewhere. For the flyleaf of the book states that it is actually an episode taken from Frisch's another work (novel) - A Wilderness of Mirrors. This episode had been reworked as a film script by the author himself. Having read the novel, may be, I could end up liking the story/script better.

[Himali Kothari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book which delves into a topic which probably intrigues us all... How will my near and dear ones speak of me and think of me after I die. Intriguing. The book was adapted into a movie after the author's death because in his lifetime he was not happy with the adaptations proposed to him. Wonder what he would have said if he had floated in on opening night of the film?

[Pallavi Aggarwal · Rating 4 out of 5]

there is so much beauty in this book, the concept is so intriguing and I find myself envious of ehrisman.

[Private · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schade das er die idee nicht als Roman ausgeführt hat sondern als Stück