A review by piccoline
War Diary by Ingeborg Bachmann

3.0

Curious little swatch of history. Bachmann's "diary" is actually a very short excerpt (which is, painfully, all that survives -- oh that there were more!!) about her meeting with the British soldier (of Jewish ancestry, born in Vienna) in postwar Austria. Their meeting was transformative for both of them. She walked the streets of their town with him, in defiance of the (obviously) still anti-Semitic townspeople and her parents. He fell in love with her. The last 2/3 of the book comprises his letters to her from Naples, then from Palestine. He'd clearly fallen for her, rather hard, but the letters also contain interesting historical details of that chaotic time. (One only wishes that her letters to him had been similarly preserved. To have more insight into that 19- and 20-year-old Bachmann would be wonderful.)

This is probably for Bachmann completists only (which I'm not, yet, having still to tackle Malina, Book of Franza, and Fanny Goldman). It's a beautiful little book, though, as an object. Seagull continues to impress.