Homo Faber: A Report [Paperback]

Max Frisch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1994

Walter Faber is an emotionally detached engineer forced by a string of coincidences to embark on a journey through his past. The basis for director Volker Schlšndorff’s movie Voyager. Translated by Michael Bullock. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

About the Author

Max Frisch was born in Zurich in 1911. His reputation rests equally on his novels and his work for the theatre. A collection of three of his most enduring and contentious plays is published by Methuen Drama. He died in 1991. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (May 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156421356
• ISBN-13: 978-0156421355
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ought to be rated PG-42..., October 22, 2006

By 

Mark Nadja "Literary Outlaw, author *Hardcore... (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Homo Faber: A Report (Paperback)

--because to truly appreciate this beautiful novel you really need to have lived through at least four decades or so.

It strikes me that so much great literature goes unread by those to whom it is ultimately directed. The `classics' are generally written by writers in their 40s and 50s and end up primarily being read by teenagers. Sure, you can get something out of these texts then, but theres no way a 20-year-old can really understand *Homo Faber*--a novel about a middle-aged man confronting his own mortality, decay, & disillusionment. Death is still largely an abstraction to a man of twenty, it hasnt yet entered his bones, love is still possible, youth is still a contemporary, a 20-year-old doesnt yet know what he's going to lose, what he's never going to get back, how badly he's going to miss it.

*Homo Faber* is a classic text of midlife crisis. It's a shame that so many of us have stopped reading altogether when we reach the age it can do us the most good...that we stop reading the classics, anyway, or feel they are irrelevant to our lives, or merely `stuff we already read back when we were in school.' A novel like *Homo Faber* is, to my mind, a religious text in the best sense of that term--in this case, a kind of updated Ecclesiastes.

I can only wonder what the original German text is like because this translation is absolutely stunning, rising to the level of sheer poetry. Almost every line is an ice-dagger into the heart. Such a beautiful, sad, and true book...and everything that needed saying said in 212 pages. Did Max Frisch ever win a Nobel Prize for Literature when the Nobel Prize still meant something? Cause on the basis of this book alone, he should have won two!!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Techniker finds his soul, May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Homo Faber: A Report (Paperback)

I read this book in the German and enjoyed it immensely. Walter Faber, a globe-trotting engineer, uses technology and his scientific worldview as a shield against other people and against his own humanity. When his shield fails him, he learns to open his heart and live fully. Regardless of whether you share Frisch's opinions about science, the book is beautifully written. Walter Faber is both horrifying and touchingly sympathetic. Despite the tragic plot, the strength of the novel is its small comic moments, of which there are many. If you just watch the movie (even the German-language adaptation, which is much more faithful to the book than the American film), you will miss almost everything that is worthwhile about Homo Faber. Read the book! (In German, if possible.)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful story. . . with an alarming twist, February 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Homo Faber: A Report (Paperback)

Like the previous reviewer, I read this book for an undergraduate German literature class and I found Frisch's writing wonderfully comic, but not without its disturbing points. One thing that is lacking in the English translation is Frisch's wonderful critiques of the "American Way of Life." So, I definately recomend trying the German version if at all possible. I also agree with the previous writer that the movie is a great disappointment. It changes the story into a pure love story and dismisses the importance of Walter Faber's transformation into someone, who for the first time in his life allows himself to truly live and love.