The Honditsch Cross
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A powerful historical work about war and its victims, never before in English, from the celebrated author of Malina
Written when Ingeborg Bachmann was only eighteen, The Honditsch Cross, her second-longest completed work of prose, is a historical novella set during the final days of the Napoleonic occupation of Austria in 1813.
A young theology student, returning from Vienna to his family home in Carinthia, finds the invading troops stationed there, led by a despotic officer, who has been exploiting and terrorizing his family and friends. He is immediately thrown into the center of the conflict, torn between defending his homeland, the pull of physical desire, and the pursuit of his theological studies...
In this gripping work, Bachmann begins to explore themes that will pre-occupy her for the rest of her writing career: complex notions of nationality and patriotism, the roles and rights of women in patriarchal societies, the meaningless destruction of war and its aftermath, and the bitter moments of disillusionment that lead to intellectual maturity
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Austrian writer Bachmann (1926–1973), who's best known for her 1971 novel Malina, wrote this evocative and surprising novella of nationalism and its follies when she was 18, near the end of WWII. During the Napoleonic Wars in 1813, Jakob Unterberg, the innkeeper in a Carpathain village occupied by the French, reluctantly boards enemy soldiers, while his son, Kaspar, organizes meetings for the resistance. After the Unterbergs' young waitress, Fini, fights off a French general's rape attempt, the general levies ruinous taxes on the villagers, who then blame Fini for not going along to get along. Fini also attracts attention from seminarian Franz Brandstetter, a farmer's son who forfeited his rights to the family farm in exchange for a Viennese education. He's not sure about his faith; whether he wants Fini or the older widow Vaba Mölzer, who's also the subject of cruel gossip; or whether he should take up arms against the French. When he meets Kaspar and other members of the resistance, he feels like he's finally found his purpose. Bachmann's historical tale is elevated by clear-eyed insights into the impossible standards set for women and the toxic effects of groupthink. It's an intriguing window into the early development of a master.
