A graveyard of discarded notes and scrawlings lives beside my desk stacked in a growing pile, in haphazardly named computer files, and between the pages of books, themselves strewn about the apartment. I wonder at times why I might publish one jumble of words but relegate another to collect dust; after all, these fates are not dissimilar in actual effect. The words are written and will lie in obscurity, in wait of the day that entropy shall pull all things into a single swirling cloud of dust. Of course that in turn raises the question of why I might bother to write at all. Countless hours and perfectly fine Saturday afternoons have been lost in the production of meager relics that will never hold tangible bearing on reality (perhaps other than by effectively shortening my hours on earth).

I know this all full well, but still I write. Or maybe it is because of, and not in spite of, this that I write (I unfortunately lack sufficient access to the self to know for sure). Regardless, I do hold this awareness, and I do write; and if I write not to be read, then it must be something in writing itself that draws me. Maybe I hope that giving thoughts form, weighing them down with ink and binding them with paper, might free me of their grating drone and allow me to drift onward in peace and silence. Yet still I languish, plagued by the incessant noise in my head. So maybe writing is instead a cosmic resignation, and to knowingly indulge in such a pointless exercise is simply to stare, point blank, at the pointlessness of any human enterprise. As a human, I'm quite bought into the conceit that something of life might matter, but to discard this artifice and willingly assume the form of an automaton that simply is and does, not with purpose, but simply as nature demands, has honesty. But I suppose honesty is not worth much in this world. I must admit, however, that this kind of thinking unnerves me and leaves me confused. And while I think I'd be better off quite a bit smarter or a little bit dumber, instead I'm left with this unsortable (unsortable by me, at least) mess. I lack the conviction to release myself from the discomfort, so instead all I can do is endlessly distract myself with busyness and avert my eyes. I guess I'm not so honest in that case. But honesty wouldn't be worth much in this world, would it.

Marlen Haushofer's「The Wall」was published in 1963. The story itself is simple, following a lone woman, suddenly encircled by an invisible wall, and her daily toil for survival in the countryside. It is presented as a final report, scribbled onto the last few scraps of paper she has available, written only to be (literally) consumed by mice. To be frank, the story is boring (to me reminiscent, in vibes, of works like Kafka's「The Castle」or even James Gray's 2019 film「Ad Astra」), but I mean this in no detracting terms; the book contains an immense thematic depth and profundity, in part served by (what I can only presume to be) an intentionally dreary plot. Oh, what's that, I think nothing “important” is happening? Well, have you considered what importance actually is in a grand sense, removed from the distracting gilt that collective social construct has draped over formless mud? Oh, what's that, the world-shattering event I've been anticipating and that has been alluded to for the entire book has finally taken place? Well, have you considered that the earth will actually continue to spin, and you must continue to spin with it? The story levels reality, and forces the question of where meaning and value are found once you're standing before human civilization's vast and trunkless legs of stone in the desert sand.

It is in the routine labor of survival and the care and maintenance of her animal companions that the woman finds a reason to persist (that, and a baseline refusal to commit something as juvenile, as the narrator herself characterizes it, as suicide). Although this is appealing, I am not, myself, entirely convinced by the narrator's thesis. Throughout the book, I read the use of industry and exhaustion as a means of distraction from catastrophic and debilitating personal circumstance, and sense a (perhaps unwitting) allegory for the repression of proletariat class consciousness. This might seem somewhat ridiculous given that the woman is the only person left, but I can't help but feel that this actually brings forth a stronger claim of internalized working-class subjugation. However, if complete destruction of value is accepted, there is maybe also nothing to distract “from,” no (meaningful) goal of liberation. Everything is, in equal parts, a distraction as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for (if not ourselves embracing) death. Yet every fiber of my being also rejects this understanding. Indeed, value systems are tricky, and become muddled and contradictory when we examine their fringes. So alas, I am left, just as before, to mull in confusion as I watch the sun invariably continue to set.

As an actual review of the book, I think it's clear that I did enjoy it, but if I were to complain it would be that I wasn't particularly captivated by the writing itself. Of course, I can't comment on the original German or the faithfulness of the translation, but I can say that, regarding the final English rendering, I found the writing to be exactly serviceable. To reiterate though, the book is extremely rich, with so many other lenses through which the book can be analyzed that I can imagine entire theses, all disjoint in aspect, written on the book (e.g. there are substantial themes of feminism, of environmentalism, of loneliness and alienation, each theme containing hundreds of offshooting subthemes). It truly is a fascinating read, and one that leaves you pondering (for better or for worse). -- ★★★★☆

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