Couples, Passersby
by Botho Strauss | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0810112426 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0810112426 Global Overview for this book
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Donated by Ithaca books when they went out of business.
From Publishers Weekly
The frustrated but never-ending search for meaning and emotional connection finds hyper-intellectual expression in this collection of vignettes by German writer and playwright Strauss. In six linked sections, couples both longstanding and temporary cling together only to find greater loneliness and despair. Even the section titles are lower-cased, as if to designate the ephemeral nature of even lifetime relationships. The section titled "couples" features, among others, an old married couple who travel to Iceland in order to commit suicide safely away from home, and an American army deserter who hides in his German girlfriend's apartment from 1949 until her death. Strauss's alienated individuals are more likely to collide briefly, pointlessly or violently, as in the questioning of a repeat-offender junkie by a judge nicknamed "Mother Treats" ("by ourselves"), a pedestrian's flirtation with a Citroen driver that ends in an accident ("traffic flow") or the ambiguous police shooting of a terrorist in 1978 (also in "by ourselves"). Strauss's voice is stronger in these bleak vignettes than in either his musing, surrealistic descriptive passages or his grumblings about art and society. His mini-portraits and short-takes flow from the anonymously guilty Volk of the Third Reich to the historyless individuals of the Cold War and beyond. Some of the pieces are so undilutedly alienated they read almost as parody-German intellectualism at its most grim. Yet, others are truly haunting, reminding readers that postmodernism can translate as historical and emotional homelessness.
Translated from the German by Roslyn Theobald; Copyright date: 1981.
From Publishers Weekly
The frustrated but never-ending search for meaning and emotional connection finds hyper-intellectual expression in this collection of vignettes by German writer and playwright Strauss. In six linked sections, couples both longstanding and temporary cling together only to find greater loneliness and despair. Even the section titles are lower-cased, as if to designate the ephemeral nature of even lifetime relationships. The section titled "couples" features, among others, an old married couple who travel to Iceland in order to commit suicide safely away from home, and an American army deserter who hides in his German girlfriend's apartment from 1949 until her death. Strauss's alienated individuals are more likely to collide briefly, pointlessly or violently, as in the questioning of a repeat-offender junkie by a judge nicknamed "Mother Treats" ("by ourselves"), a pedestrian's flirtation with a Citroen driver that ends in an accident ("traffic flow") or the ambiguous police shooting of a terrorist in 1978 (also in "by ourselves"). Strauss's voice is stronger in these bleak vignettes than in either his musing, surrealistic descriptive passages or his grumblings about art and society. His mini-portraits and short-takes flow from the anonymously guilty Volk of the Third Reich to the historyless individuals of the Cold War and beyond. Some of the pieces are so undilutedly alienated they read almost as parody-German intellectualism at its most grim. Yet, others are truly haunting, reminding readers that postmodernism can translate as historical and emotional homelessness.
Translated from the German by Roslyn Theobald; Copyright date: 1981.
Journal Entry 2 by LettersCafe at Sent to an OBCZ in OBCZ, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, March 13, 2008
Released 16 yrs ago (3/15/2008 UTC) at Sent to an OBCZ in OBCZ, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases
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Your amazing box made it here yesterday. Thanks so very much! This will help fuel the next five or six trips to the OBCZ!
Journal Entry 4 by 
nimrodiel
at Tapas Barcelona - 1615 Chicago Ave in Evanston, Illinois USA on Thursday, June 5, 2008
nimrodiel at Tapas Barcelona - 1615 Chicago Ave in Evanston, Illinois USA on Thursday, June 5, 2008
Released 15 yrs ago (6/5/2008 UTC) at Tapas Barcelona - 1615 Chicago Ave in Evanston, Illinois USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
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Left propped up by the sink in the ladies room.
Left propped up by the sink in the ladies room.
