Man in the Holocene.

New York, NY Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Hardcover First Edition; later printing. Very Good: shows la bit of wear at the lower front corner tip and a scuff about a half an inch up the outside edge of the rear panel; mild rubbing; slight spine lean; faint soiling and couple of small water spots to the panels; the endpapers show rather unsightly glue residue. The binding is secure; the text is clean. Despite some minor flaws, remains clean, sturdy, presentable. Would make a good hardcover reading copy. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 113pp. Translated by Geoffrey Skelton. First Edition; later printing. Hardback: Lacks DJ. My life was greatly enriched by reading the superb English translation of Frisch's "Man in the Holocene". Frisch piles intimate, mundane details into a metaphor for the human condition and allows the reader to draw the larger inferences. An isolated alpine cottage becomes all the world we need. The need to understand our world is balanced by the depressing realization that we know less every day as we age. As Herr's options close in, we realize what Frisch has brought us to..Man in the Holocene. Fifteen years after reading this book, it is still the first I recommend to a new acquaintance. You'll think of it every time you mislay your car keys. Absolutely important and finely crafted. This novella is a neglected masterpiece of 20th century literature. As a study of modern anxiety & alienation, it belongs on a shelf with Sartre's "Nausea" and Camus' "The Stranger." The form is completely original: the narrative of a 73 year-old man's mental and physical collapse is told in fragments of memory and thought, some only a few words long. Taken together, these fragments, completely controlled and deadpan, approach the beauty of prose poetry. One or two of the fragments have the harrowing power of Kafka's aphorisms--than which there is no higher praise. A must read.