Rating:  Summary: Logic with Passion ... Review: "Homo Faber", the book I have known, since my best friend recommended it to me. The frist time I read it. I was so dazled by it, when I was finished with it I had to get a English version for my friend. I still remember her reading the book, walking the hall, her head deep in reading ... It is a book which for me, is brought throught the philosphy of Camus to the description from Mr. Faber that finds his ultimate passion and love to his daughter ... Sabeth is one of the most yearned and real character I have read. It is not only a book of our time, it is also a book of the modern man that is still so true today and always will be. Recommended to be read over and over again in its written german and second translated language ...
Rating:  Summary: An amazing book that you will pick up again and again ... Review: Homo Faber is not just about the tragic love affair between a father and his daughter. What fascinated me most was how Walter Faber, atheist, scientist, perfectionist is forced to acknowledge the flaws in his philosophy of life. I first read this book when I was fifteen and have read it many times since. A teacher once told me to read Homo Faber every ten years and one's interpretation of the book will change with every read. An amazing novel, one of the best in postwar German literature.
Rating:  Summary: An amazing book that you will pick up again and again ... Review: Homo Faber is not just about the tragic love affair between a father and his daughter. What fascinated me most was how Walter Faber, atheist, scientist, perfectionist is forced to acknowledge the flaws in his philosophy of life. I first read this book when I was fifteen and have read it many times since. A teacher once told me to read Homo Faber every ten years and one's interpretation of the book will change with every read. An amazing novel, one of the best in postwar German literature.
Rating:  Summary: Hope for Modern Man Review: Homo Faber was the first book I've read by Max Frisch. I really thought that it was a telling and hopeful look at the plight of modern man. It's the story of Walter Faber, a technologist, living in total despair. Fate has some movement to make in his life, though. Events contrive to send Walter on a journey through life that parallels a Greek tragedy. The novel is fascinating. It is intriguing, reading somewhat like a mystery novel. That "detective story" feeling is telling as Walter eventually does find something: redemption. This is a truly insightful novel about the despair of modern man and his chance for some taste of happiness. If you like this book, you should definitely read Walker Percy (who is an even better writer with much the same answer as Frisch).
Rating:  Summary: Oh my God!What a horrendous book! Review: I also read this book in German, also at "high school" (in Luxembourg). I found it was one of the worst books I ever read, and the more often i read it, the more i hated it. This books tells the story of a man who has built a perfect-life fassade and shows how this fassade crumbles. This happenes by a series of really impossible random events, which in real life have a probability of 0.00000 to happen. The whole book is based on that. That makes the whole book completely unbelievable (in the first sense). Ugh...I was really disgusted that someone could write such a piece of...well let's say rubbish.
Rating:  Summary: Could it get any worse? Review: I think this book is a work of an artist because it makes you think. The idea and plot of the book is so well-thought-through that it amazes me. The love between the main-character and his daughter will never be accepted, and this leaves them all in an unhappy position. One might say that it was for the best that Sabeth died in the end, but one really wishes that everything will work out, eventhough it is bound to failed. I'm not sure whether the main-charakter really loves Sabeth. I think he is fascinated by her, because she is different than anyone he has ever known, exept from her mother Hanna. Something makes him feel drawn to her, and I'm positive that it is because of the happiness, Hanna and him once had that he has never experienced after. His unconscienceness is still in love with Hanna, but he doesn't think that far. And one can't really blame him for that, the chance of meeting his own daughter who he really didn't believe existed is quite little. I also found the book to be an "eye-gluer." And I would love to get some feed-back on it, I'm gonna write a huge assignment on it! Sofie Norsker
Rating:  Summary: Fate Review: This book fell into my lap when I needed it to. I was studing in Germany and looking for meaning in anything. I was looking for direction and I wanted answers. Not unlike the protaganist, Herr Faber. However, our outlook was, and stil is very different. It gave me a way to look at why things happen the way they do. It made me wonder about the way one decision we make can reflect on the outcome of something seemingly unrelated. On top of making me think about coinidences, it is a great read. I must say though, the German version is much better than the translation. The English is not as artistic of a read, but the ideas remain the same.
Rating:  Summary: A tragedy of a technicist Review: This book is one of the most important novels (although Frisch calls it "report") in German language, and I like it immensely ALTHOUGH it is being treated in German lessons, and I was shocked when I read the review in which the reviewer writes that the translator left out the criticism of the "American Way of Life" (one of the most important parts in the development, I think: Walter Faber, the main person, is sitting in Cuba, enjoying tropical thunderstorms and swears about America because it "destroyed the white race". This was also the attitude of an archaeologist he had met six months before and he didn't understand it at all). I won't tell you all the story because it's like in a criminal novel: you shouldn't know the end because if you knew it, you would read it with less attention. The main thing is that Walter Faber, an engineer who is absolutely hostile towards feelings, women etc., is overwhelmed by some happenings he would never have considered to be possible. He changes his views radically and becomes a real tragic person. Frisch's use of foreshadowings makes the reader feel the tragedy even more closely, but in his language, there are some weak points (the detailed technical pieces of information which Faber, the 1st-person-narrator, uses), which have been transformed into a wonderful parody (called "Frener") by Robert Neumann.
Rating:  Summary: A tragedy of a technicist Review: This book is one of the most important novels (although Frisch calls it "report") in German language, and I like it immensely ALTHOUGH it is being treated in German lessons, and I was shocked when I read the review in which the reviewer writes that the translator left out the criticism of the "American Way of Life" (one of the most important parts in the development, I think: Walter Faber, the main person, is sitting in Cuba, enjoying tropical thunderstorms and swears about America because it "destroyed the white race". This was also the attitude of an archaeologist he had met six months before and he didn't understand it at all). I won't tell you all the story because it's like in a criminal novel: you shouldn't know the end because if you knew it, you would read it with less attention. The main thing is that Walter Faber, an engineer who is absolutely hostile towards feelings, women etc., is overwhelmed by some happenings he would never have considered to be possible. He changes his views radically and becomes a real tragic person. Frisch's use of foreshadowings makes the reader feel the tragedy even more closely, but in his language, there are some weak points (the detailed technical pieces of information which Faber, the 1st-person-narrator, uses), which have been transformed into a wonderful parody (called "Frener") by Robert Neumann.
Rating:  Summary: The birth of one man's passion for life Review: This is my all-time favorite book! I read it as an undergraduate German major - in German, of course! The story has so many messages - how what we don't face will come back to us; how much of life we miss when we're to afraid to live it; how things become more intense and beautiful when love is in our hearts. The characters are developed in such a loving manner that I found myself liking and sympathizing with all, despite their faults. I think that this book makes a great summer read.Contrary to the prior review, I would not recommend the movie based on this book. I was very excited when I heard that Sam Shepard was tackling this project, but I was ultimately disappointed. There is no replacing the real thing!
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