Book description
Early this century Enrico, a young intellectual, leaves the abundantly
diverse Austro-Hungarian city of Gorizia with its mixed population and
culture, to spend several years living on the Patagonian pampas, alone
with his ancient Greek texts, his flocks and every now and then a woman.
He has been taught by his closest friend, Carlo, a philosopher/poet who
commits suicide in his early twenties, to search for an authentic life,
free of social falsehoods. But in his search for this unattainable goal,
Enrico destroys every chance he has of a normal existence; even after
his return to live a life of ever-increasing isolation by the Istrian
seashore, his attempts at human intercourse, at meaningful love, are
thwarted. In recounting the life and character of Enrico, ostensibly one
of Life's failures, Claudio Magris paints a remarkably shrewd and
observant picture of a whole world in ferment, that of the decaying
Austro-Hungarian empire, shaken to its foundations by the Great War, and
emerging from the German occupation and the Communist revolution ripe
for disintegration and forever seeking, as does Enrico, for a reason to
go on living. Claudio Magris is the author of
Danube
, a work described as a masterpiece by a great number of critics, and
which has been translated into most major languages. He previously
taught German at the University of Turin. He has translated the works of
Ibsen, Kleist and Schnitzler and currently lectures in the faculty of
Literature and Philosophy at Trieste University.
