Customer Reviews (2)

brilliant novel on a desperate subject
Ingeborg Bachmann is a truly great and underappreciated writer, and this is her masterpiece. It is also the earliest novel I'm aware of on the subject of the lasting impact of child abuse in adult life, written at a time when the possibility of such an experience was almost unspeakable. Her approach is never polemical, but dreamy and suggestive, and the ending is one of the most devastating in literature. Check out her poetry, too.

A cocktail of thoughts
Malina is a strange book that provoked my interest in what it means to love and live -- is the love-obsession justifiable? When there is noone else but a single person in your life, because you are just this way, doesit mean that there are many people like this one but you have not foundthem yet. Because Bachmann's stream-of-consciousness style, the book isreally difficult to follow, especially the part 'The third man' but onceyou have the patience to read and think continuously, to be shocked andstill know who you are -- it gives an enormous pleasure to know a littlemore of the world that is inside! ... Read more

Book Description

The Last Living Words consists of works of poetry and fiction published during the life of the great Austrian writer. Brilliantly translated by Lilian Friedberg (winner of the Kayden Translation Award) presents a new perspective on this important, internationally renowned figure. Friedberg's Bachmann is no longer the frail and tortured writer presented in so many previous translations, but she stands as a woman and writer.

Book Description

Darkness Spoken gathers together Ingeborg Bachmann's two celebrated books of poetry, as well as early and late poems not collected in book form, over 100 of them appearing in English for the first time, as well as 25 poems never before published in German. Bachmann is considered one of the most important poets to emerge in postwar German letters, and this volume represents the largest collection available in English translation. Influencing numerous writers from Thomas Bernhard to Christa Wolf to Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature), Bachmann's poetic investigation into the nature and limits of language in the face of historical violence remains unmatched in its ability to combine philosophical insight with haunting lyricism.

Customer Reviews (1)

A haunting exploration of consciousness andlanguage
Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann

The hauntingly beautiful poems in this volume give expression to a deep and often brooding poetic consciousness which is one and the same as language. Set free--the word is not casually chosen--language reconfigures itself in an act of renewal, achieving a new vitality. Thus, ultimately, no matter how somber they may be, in their very existence, the poems strike a note of historic victory over all of those forces of darkenss that surround the poet.

"Libraries," a poem from 1945 - 1956, is revealing of the quality and historic importance of the poems:

"The shelves sag./The volumes are weighted down with the past./Their sweat is dust./ The impulse is rigidity./ They no longer sturggle./ They have saved themselves/upon the island of knowledge./Soometimes they've lost their conscience./Here and there, protruding/from them, human fingers/point directly towards life/or twards heaven.

Clearly, language is mired in the past, is petrified, no longer engaged in any vitality-giving struggle, and no longer engaged in acts of conscience. The final four lines are mysterious; but one possibility is that even within this stagnant heap of language, encouraging human signs are to be found. These, surely, are the inspiration for Ingeborg Bachmann's poetry, here collected.

This reviewer is in no position to comapare Filkins' translations with the original German texts that accompany them.In their own right, at the very least, they are pleasant enough. However, they should really serve as a crutch for the naive German reader to enter the original texts. With just a little preparation in the pronunciation of German the translations help to open up the richness of the original language.

Ingeborg Bachmann's poetry is not well enough appreciated in the USA, though she may be the foremost German language writer of the post war period. This collection should prove her value. The poetry is not easy, but it is fascinating and reawarding to read.

Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann ... Read more

Book Description
Alongside Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann was THE major postwar German-language poet, as well as the author of prose fiction as feminist and ahead of its time as Virginia Woolf's.Uwe Johhson was Bachmann's close friend, and in this tender commemoration Johnson mourns Bachmann's passing by accumulating information.Quoting extensively from city plans, timetables, guidebooks, newspaper articles, and history books, Johnson presents the reader with material enough to, in Heinrich Boll's words, "secure the evidence of finding out where someone comes from."By factually depicting Klagenfurt, Johnson is successful in his attempt to approach the truth of Ingeborg Bachmann. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Modern Language Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association on April 1, 2003. The length of the article is 581 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: 'Uber die Zeit schreiben' 2: Literatur- und wissenschaftliche Essays zum Werk Ingeborg Bachmanns.(Book Review)
Author: Erika Swales
Publication: The Modern Language Review (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2003
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
Volume: 98Issue: 2Page: 519-520

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) was one of the major writers of the 20th century: a poet who turned away from poetry, and a prose writer whose great project remained unfinished at the time of her death by fire. Letters to Felician came both chronologically and conceptually just before the fork in the road which divides Bach-mann's career, making it an important document for reading her later work. Passionate declarations of love to a male figure, Felician, these fictional letters are also a hymn to the beauty of southern Austria, underlying Bachmann's utopian visions of her later work.

Product Description
This a boxed set containing the hardcover special edition of the book. The paper dust cover protected in plastic covering. Also comes with a small booklet about the life of the author. Everything is in german ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Ingeborg Bachmann, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2281 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author