Homo Faber begins as an exciting adventure story: swirling snowstorms, a plane crash, stranded passengers barely surviving in a Mexican desert for four days, then unexpected journeys into uncharted ethnically dangerous Central America in search of a lost, white businessman.As the adventure proceeds, Frisch's evocation of the Mexican and Guatemalan jungle is positively Joseph Conrad, done with spare, perfect prose and pace: palpable suffocating heat, dripping sweat and humidity, torrential floods, burning sun, luxuriant yet threatening vegetation: "all this procreation, this stench of fertility, of blossoming decay. Wherever you spat it germinated!"Our characters tortuously make their dangerous way though that jungle in search of a tobacco plantation owned by a German company, managed by a Swiss, and where all the hard labor rightly is done by the "brown" (Frisch uses that word ceaselessly, jarringly throughout) natives. Suspicious cultures and raw nature, both so non-European, dominate Frisch's effective descriptions, and are the symbols which form the basis of his rather obvious allegory.In fact, all this is an often-used plot device: bring uptight, technological, white Europeans from the frigid North, where every human life is deemed irreplaceably precious, yet where sex is inconvenient, into direct contact with laid-back, pre-industrial, "brown" cultures of the tropics, where the fecundity of nature, and the open, naturalness of sex, devalue individuality through quick replacement—and the tragedy emerges easily.For Frisch, again per Conrad, this inevitable, emergent tragedy is death, occurring deep in the mysterious, roadless jungle, surrounded by indolent, uncaring, "brown" natives. The contrast between the two ecosystems, the two cultures, is stark—and the prose exactly matches the drama.Then, about halfway into the book, the fast-moving tropical adventure is abruptly dropped. Frisch's scene and writing shifts to its polar opposite as the now sluggish story moves to colder European climates. Not to spoil the plot—which is full of completely unexpected surprises—it would be safe to say he uses a lot of text to circle round and round a rather unlikely incipient incest and its excruciating consequences.While the book's first half is a classic adventure of conflicting hemispheres, the second half is an updated English romance. We have infidelities, marriages, broken marriages, premarital sex, female and male eroticism, dominant/submissive behavior, brief homoeroticism, children in and out of marriage (weirdly the same child!), single-parent families, broken homes, and moveable homes. Here's Frisch's trick: all this is animated by only four main characters: two living, one always dead, and one who dies midstream. The compression of this into much less than one hundred pages is remarkable, but lacks verisimilitude. It's absurd, while at the same time it somehow accurately portrays real emotions.Does the novel work? Certainly it's one of awkward cultural contrast and strains the reader's trust in predictable reality. Adding to the unreality, the narrator is unreliable. The early expansive adventure is gripping, but this is abandoned in favor of the slow-moving focussed romantic drama of the second half. But, yes, it works, by using a sparse and clinical postmodern technique to coerce the forms of adventure and romance into a sandwich of frozen white bread and succulent "brown" meat.Looking more closely, however, the tropical adventure seems too pat: other authors have previously taken us there and taught us the lessons of cultural relativity. Joseph Conrad in Africa. Malcolm Lowry in Mexico. Herman Melville in Polynesia. Uncountable others. Frisch offers no new insight about that in this book. Then follows the unlikely events of the book's second half, in which the statistical probabilities don't add up, and the narrator/author himself knows this, even states this.Frisch uses this precarious structure to ask a key question: Is a technological culture a trap which dehumanizes us? The book's answer plainly is yes, and is easily predicable from the plot's outline, no spoilers here. Besides, a book advocating technology over humanity would be a science fiction dystopia, another book entirely, clearly not Homo Faber.Yet, there's something uncomfortably wrong in all this, something which doesn't read true to racial equality-minded readers sixty years later. While reading, the book suggests some additional questions, ones forced by its disturbing language and situations. For example: Are the "beautiful brown" people of the jungle (Cuba's erotically portrayed Havana, too), superior to Europeans and Americans? Do white cultures have the manifest right to destroy the "brown" cultures with "turbines" manufactured by the eminent, but unfeeling, Swiss? And the one that's heard loudly throughout: Who's better: white or "brown"? Ah, yes, here's the sought-for trouble, and we must tread carefully. Without using a direct personal accusation, there's racism in this book, just as there is with Joseph Conrad. There are, within, all too many racial words we are circumspect to use today. In the 1950s when Frisch wrote Homo Faber, society was not so much concerned, as we are now, of implicit racism, those means of expression which, while nevertheless accepted publicly, were actually polite examples of explicit racism. So, in judging this book, the reader must answer for himself this new question of racism the book raises, one that emerges from the progressive political evolution away from the 1950s, but one which is not Frisch's original question of technology versus humanism. To the point: is his racism deliberate, done ironically to expose racism itself, in which case we have art. Or is it unintended, an example of implicit racism, in which case we have offense. This, you, the reader, need decide.
April 20, 2011:I bought this book in 1979 and read it sometime in the early 80's.It's only a couple of hundred pages, so when Praj asked me to review it, I thought, hey, why not re-read it (even though I very rarely re-read books).April 22, 2011:Re-reading this novel has been a total revelation.Firstly, I had previously rated it four stars from memory. Now I have upgraded it to five stars.It's not just good, it's great, one of the best books I've read.Secondly, I haven't seen the Volker Schlonforff film "Voyager", which is based on the novel.If it is anywhere near as good as the book, I will seek out the film with a passion.About the Right LengthI have read numerous books that were anywhere in length between 300 and 1,000 pages long.However, there is something in me that feels that 200 pages is just the right length.In the early days of the internet (when grazing seemed to have superseded dining), I thought everybody would head in this direction, and that the days of the epic were over.I was clearly wrong, but I still feel that, if an author has a 600 page book in them, they should write three 200 page novels (or at most two 300 page novels).Hit the ground running, say what you want to say, don't subject us to the risk of boredom, finish it and move onto the next novel.It's ironic that I'm about to start "The Pale King".But "Homo Faber" does just this.Some Short, Sharp ExamplesI have read a few novels that more or less live up to my prescription and are perfect as well.Camus' "The Stranger" is one.Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" is another.Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".Nabokov's "Lolita"."Tourmaline" by Randolph Stow.To these great novels, I would now add "Homo Faber".Towards Crystalline PerfectionGiven the relatively small canvas, what matters to me is the crystalline perfection of the prose.Not a word wasted, not a word that I would change.Circumnavigating the PlotI don't think it is fair to you to summarise or hint at the plot.It is not a detailed or hyperactive plot.The narrator (Walter Faber) finds himself in a number of related predicaments that conspire to reach a resolution, almost despite Faber's reluctance or inability to seize the initiative and direct or change the course of his life.In retrospect, each predicament is an existentialist challenge to the certainty of his worldview and the way he (and we) live our lives.Walter's Tanned and TonedPart of the novel's appeal is the tone that derives from the unlikely character of Walter.He is no hero, but neither is he an anti-hero.He is a thin, wiry, 1950's Swiss engineer, a technologist, a believer in the reign of rationality over sentiment.The Age of Aquarius isn't even on the horizon.The tale is by him as well as about him.His tone is dry and clinical, like an engineer's report.Initially, he is world-weary, detached, disengaged, sarcastic, resigned.You laugh at his interaction with the world, but it's not in your face comic farce per se, it's a serious farce scaling its way up to an immodest tragedy.He's hanging on in quiet desperation (not just the English way, but the Swiss way as well).Then things start to happen to him, some good, some bad.Bit by bit, he becomes more engaged, more interactive, more hopeful.Only to experience the greatest sadness I can conceive of.Walter's WomenIt's not giving anything away to say that Walter's plight revolves around the women in his life.Given the relative absence of women friends, he is typical of many men in that he can only relate to a woman in one of three ways: in their capacity as mother, lover/wife or daughter.This not only shapes the relationships in his life, it shapes him and the women as well.The Feel, the Craft, the FinishThe novel starts dry, but builds quietly and confidently towards its end.Max Frisch is a master of his craft.An architect himself, Frisch's novel is immaculately conceived, flawlessly constructed and consummately delivered.On time, on budget.Ultimately, it defines the existentialist plight with both a rational and an emotional sensibility. I realise that I haven't given you much to go on but my enthusiasm, but if you can find a copy, I guarantee that you will be hooked from the first sentence and you won't be able to stop.Many thanks to Praj for prompting me to revisit the book and re-discover a classic of the second half of the last century.P.S. Volker Schlöndorff Discusses His Film "Voyager [Homo Faber]" in 2011http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb52Ii...
What do You think about Homo Faber (1994)?
I can't believe this book is under the category "unpopular books"!!! this is one of books that have influenced me the most. The story of this man destined to become a robot, ignoring his emotions, trying to avoid suffering and depending always on logic and system, is a story of people in the 20th century. What we know now about emotional intelligence is what Max Faber lacks. If someone is interested in the depths and miseries of the human soul, he should read this book. Morover the language is so clear and direct, he doesn't need a very baroque language to express the horror mr faber is feeling.
—Blanca Mazón
“There aren't any prehistoric monsters any more. Why should I imagine them? I'm sorry, but I don't see any stone angels either; nor demons; I see what I see – the usual shapes due to erosion and also my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts.”Walter Faber is a pragmatist and he lives as if he is blown by the wind – he is a ship without an anchor and there is no haven for him in the sea of life and there is no place he can call his own. And in this endless roaming and his genuflection before the soulless technological progress he is slowly losing his human qualities and himself turns into a mechanical being.And one day clockwork stops ticking…
—Vit Babenco
A friend of mine, originally from Lichtenstein, read my first book and then immediately suggested that I read Max Frisch's "Homo Faber". He described it as a standard lit class novel in German language high schools throughout Europe, and I cringed with the notion that it would be boring as hell. When he told me that it was from one of the most famous Swiss authors and that it would be interesting to read his 1950's take on Switzerland, México and the US (all places I've lived) as well as some of the same psychological, philosophical and cultural subjects I had broached in my own book, I became enticed. After all, I live in Switzerland - the least I could do is read a national icon's most famous book.All I can say is wow, I had no idea. Frisch's novel is a classic for a reason, and not a word is wasted. It's a simple premise - a man describes his interactions with people: a woman, some co-workers, some people in foreign countries/cultures - but nothing is as it seems and the way he lays it all out for you is absolute, precise perfection. There's no need to even tell you anything else about the plot - it's a relatively short book and easy read, but you will be left with much to contemplate.
—Gregory Tkac
