Reviews - The Wall by Haushofer, Marlen (2013) Paperback

the no chapters and no page breaks made it feel like this took foreverrrr to read. It felt like a chore in the sense that I was happy to be done reading it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.

lunaliz's review against another edition

3.75

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mmirjamm's review against another edition

3.25

mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

violetskully's review against another edition

5.0

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Woman lives alone with her animals. Finds it is far better to speed-run all the griefs of life and carry that burden herself than to live in a world with men. Dark, but intensely comforting.

5 stars.

deannalmac's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Yes

relami's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional sad slow-paced

annaarchived_'s review against another edition

4.0

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

literarypolitic's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer is a story about a woman’s survival in the face of total isolation. After waking one morning in the small Alpine hunting lodge she’s visiting, she discovers that a transparent wall has arisen between her and the rest of civilization. With no clues as to the wall’s origin or how to break through it, she must learn to survive with only the meager tools she has available. Over the course of the novel, she cares for a small menagerie of animals and her relationships with these creatures are one of the most compelling features of the novel.

Written in a time when a woman’s solitary existence was practically unheard of and always highly suspicious, Haushofer wrote her way to freedom in this narrative. The commentary on womanhood and the performance of gender is poignant and timely, even over 50 years after the book’s publication.

Early in the novel, the protagonist remarks “I’ve suffered from anxieties like these as far back as I can remember, and I will suffer from them as long as any creature is entrusted to me. Sometimes, long before the wall existed, I wished I was dead, so that I could finally cast off my burden. I always kept quiet about this heavy load; a man wouldn’t have understood, and the women felt exactly the same way about it as I did. And so we preferred to chat about clothes, friends and the theater and laugh, keeping our secret, consuming worry in our eyes. Each of us knew about it, and that’s why we never discussed it. That was the price we paid for our ability to love.” Repeatedly throughout the narrative, this burden of love brings her much pain. But it is that very burden that enables her to survive. Every time our protagonist hits a low, she is revived by her innate need to care for the creatures around her, from her dog Lynx, to the deer in the woods surrounding her home. In these moments, Haushofer makes it clear that a woman’s burden of love is not only a weakness, it is also her greatest strength.

An incredibly impactful read, The Wall will mean something different to everyone who reads it. It is a story of isolation and the struggle to survive. It is about love and how it devastates you even as it saves you.

hyperfixd's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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