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A review by msand3
The Man Outside: Play & Stories by Wolfgang Borchert
3.0
If Beckett writes, “...you must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on,” then Borchert counters with “...you must go on. I can’t go on. I won’t go on.” Except “I won’t go on” is not necessarily an existential cry of defeat, but rather a declaration that we as a society simply can’t go on if we continue down the road of mechanized, dehumanizing warfare and the alienating social order that preaches nationalism at the price of universal equality. It’s a societal warning more than a personal plea, as the protagonist of Borchert’s heavily Expressionist play/radio drama, Beckmann, is the canary in the coal mine, showing us a potential path to destruction in the second half of the 20th century. (Looking back from 2021: we made it...but at what continuing price?)
This book also contains much of Borchert’s short fiction, including the entirety of Dandelion. These pieces are depressing, Expressionist, fatalistic, and oppressively bleak. I don’t advise reading this book unless you are in a frame of mind to understand the crushing, overwhelming hopelessness that war leaves in its wake.
This book also contains much of Borchert’s short fiction, including the entirety of Dandelion. These pieces are depressing, Expressionist, fatalistic, and oppressively bleak. I don’t advise reading this book unless you are in a frame of mind to understand the crushing, overwhelming hopelessness that war leaves in its wake.