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the complete review - fiction

Blindly

by
Claudio Magris

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

A- : fascinating approach, impressively textured

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Dieser Roman ist also beides: ein klug komponiertes Werk eines Schriftstellers, das den Leser immer wieder in versteckte Erzählräume lockt und durch verschlungene Labyrinthe treibt, wo ihm entweder unerwartet Einsichten zuwachsen -- oder wo er schnurstracks abstürzt. Mit seiner Fülle von Anspielungen aus Mythologie, Literatur- und Menschheitsgeschichte ist Blindlings aber auch das etwas verstiegene, eigensinnige Opus eines Literaturwissenschaftlers, den die Leidenschaft zum Detail vorantreibt und der den Leser mit einer Überfülle an geballtem Wissen überfährt" - Pia Reinacher, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  
  
• "And herein lies the novel's real strength: the translation by Anne Milano Appel is sublime, the prose rich and lyrical, creating a dreamlike intensity that makes even the more impenetrable passages a joy to wade through. Yes, this is an infuriatingly difficult read. It also might be a work of flawed genius." - Wayne Gooderham, The Guardian
  
  
• "Anne Milano Appel’s assiduous translation. It is apt that most readers will come to the text in a language other than the orignal Italian (.....) Magris is fascinated by such displacements and the waterways that enable them (.....) Magris’s frame of reference is equally wide-ranging" - Thea Lenarduzzi, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "So wie die antiken Epen die größten Schrecken in Schönheit verwandelten, so macht auch Magris’ gnadenlose Vision menschlichen Scheiterns auf wundersame Weise jede Last leicht und das Meer des Lebens schiffbar." - Kristina Maidt-Zinke, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Blindly is an unusually layered first-person account that spans from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth. It is narrated by an institutionalized man, "Tore (Salvatore) Cippico-Čipiko (Cipico)", writing these pages for the institution's yearbook at his doctor's behest. Among the defining experiences of his life was internment in Yugoslavia's notorious Goli Otok island Gulag after the Second World War. He is also convinced that he is: "the clone of a certain Jorgen Jorgensen", the nineteenth century Danish seaman who, like Tore, also has a connection to Australia -- and who is best known for declaring Iceland independent and himself its ruler (in a very short-lived adventure).
       From the beginning, Tore reminds his audience (the doctor, the reader) of the unreliability of any printed record -- something that he has often appreciated, as he has often had good reason to keep information about his 'true' identity or mission away from certain parties (notably the authorities).
       While recorded identity is unreliable, identity itself is not fixed either: in noting that: "my autobiographer embellished things a little, as almost always happens when you write" he shows he has little difficulty with the concept of personal experience channeled through others (or others' experience, channeled through himself) -- or even the autobiographer as other, rather than self.
       As he notes:

nobody can recount his own life or know himself. A person doesn't know what his own voice sounds like; it's others who recognize it and distinguish it.

You see, I was in Dachau, I risked my life to eliminate all the Dachaus from the face of the earth. Dachau is the culmination, the unparalleled apogee of evil, but at least everyone knew immediately what Dachau was, who the murderers were and who the victims, while at Goli Otok it was our comrades who massacred us and called us traitors, while still other comrades didn't want to know anything about it, gagging our mouths and plugging other people's ears. And if nobody's listening, it makes no difference whether you keep quiet or speak out; even raving to yourself in the street, gesturing and grimacing, doesn't mean much.

Gravestones are condensed novels. Or rather, novels are expanded gravestones [.....] My autobiography is one of these expanded gravestones.

- M.A.Orthofer, 2 September 2012

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Links:

• Yale University Press publicity page
• Garzanti Libri publicity page
• Plowing Magris’ Sea: Blindly, With Eyes Wide Open by Anne Milano Appel in Forum Italicum
• Reflections on Blindly by Claudio Magris

• Bookslut
• Buchkritik.at (German)
• Café Letterario (Italian)
• Deutschlandradio (German)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• Die Furche (German)
• The Guardian
• literaturkritik.de (German)
• Literaturzirkel (German)
• The Modern Novel
• The New Yorker
• La Reti di Dedalus (Italian)
• Stradanove (Italian)
• Three Percent
• Die Zeit (German)

• Claudio Magris at books and writers
• Interview at Bookslut

• Snapshots

• See Index of Italian literature
• Other books from Yale University Press - The Margellos World Republic of Letters under review

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About the Author:

       Italian author Claudio Magris was born in 1939.

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