The Precipice and Other Catastrophes / Der Abgrund und andere Katastrophen [Paperback]

Thomas Harti (Editor), Gaby Hartel (Author), Thomas Hartl (Author), Raymond Federman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 1999

This book contains the "collected plays" of postmodern contemporary U.S. author Raymond Federman in a bilingual edition (English and German). Featured are a long drama, "The Precipice," and three shorter "plays" that defy rigid genre boundaries (poem, television play, radio play?).

The PRECIPICE: 1. A precipitate or headlong fall or descent, esp. to a great depth. Also fig. Obs. 2. A vertical or very steep face of rock, etc.; a cliff, crag, or steep mountain side of considerable height. [...] b. The edge or brink of a cliff. Obs. [...] c. fig. A perilous situation; a hazardous position. 3. transf. (?) Precipitousness, loftiness as of a precipice. Obs. 4. Comb., as precipice-edge, -wall; precipice-writing.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)
Original Language: English

From the Publisher

Raymond Federman--the writer, the word-being--has always lived close to, or better yet: right on the edge of the precipice. He is always (already) writing/telling (his) texts at the edge of the precipice leaning against the wind. Far from being merely intended and conceptualized as a metaphor, a trope/trap, this precarious imaginary topography maps a semiotic universe that is distinctly post-modern and postholocaust. The precipice in fact precipitates Federman's fiction. In a kind of "theoretical prologue" to his third novel TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT (1976) we read: "Leaning against the winds over a precipice syntax integrates itself to the constraints of the paper / its format / its dimensions / its margins / its edges / its consistency / its whiteness." Federman was pushed down the precipice a long time ago (in 1942, when the Gestapo came up the stairs and his mother pushed him into a closet at the landing of the stairs to save him from deportation--he is the only survivor of his family--his family exxed out by the Nazis: X-X-X-X). But he survived by hurling himself up again with the help of a thick rope of words. A postmodern bilingual Orpheus with a thick French accent playing his tricks in a Beckettian wasteland, he has come back to haunt postmodern literature and improvises his jazz tunes built on the cadences of absence. (From the introduction by Thomas Hartl)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Poetry Salzburg; 1 edition (October 31, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3901993045
• ISBN-13: 978-3901993046
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,672,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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