Customer Reviews

Die Ausgesperrten: Roman (German Edition)

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This is a disturbing novel by the Austrian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004. It revolves around an unlikely group of 4 youths in Vienna who band together, each for different reasons, to mug people. Two are fraternal twins, the third a blue-collar worker, the fourth the privileged daughter of wealthy parents who "needs a little dirt in her life". The father of the twins is a war amputee with blood on his hands, who beats his wife and has his son drive him to assignations. The son imagines himself to be a deep thinker, an Ubermensch, but feels the need to lie about his background and circumstances to his schoolmates. He is in love with the rich girl. His sister is bulimic, in love with the blue-collar worker, an intelligent girl with musical gifts who is deeply traumatized by her family situation. The blue-collar worker desperately wants to lift himself above his dead-end social and economic status and imagines that he will do this by marrying the rich girl. The rich girl loves only herself. The novel provides penetrating insights into the Austria of the 50s, in which some enjoyed the benefits of the "Economic Miracle", while others were shut out. It repeatedly references Austria's Nazi past and the numerous ways in which it influences the present despite the conspiracy of silence which surrounds it. The writing is excellent and the final scenes shocking and thought-provoking. I recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in post-war European social and economic issues and German language literature.