The Wall is the best-known work by the Austrian writer, Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970). The plot is simple, a woman vacationing in an Alpine hunting lodge finds herself alone when her housemates do not return from a party across the valley. When she walks out to find them, she finds herself confined to the valley by an invisible wall. The only person she can see on the other side of the wall is dead. There is no radio reception. Birds are killed when they fly into the wall. Her diary recounts her life alone with only a bloodhound, a cat, and a cow. She learns to be independent and at peace in nature. The novel is a sphynx-like symbol that lets critics do what they will with it. The London Review of books treats it as a survival tale. The LA Times describes it as a reverie. The New Yorker says it is a commentary on utopian and dystopian themes. The Atlantic proclaims it as a “feminist vision of escape” and the Chicago Review of Books finds in it a paradigm of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “container novel,” a form that avoids the violence of a traditional plot. Who am I to chime in? 4 stars. ( )

A woman staying in a hunting lodge at the foot of an Austrian mountain wakes up to find that an invisible wall has gone up around her mountain and that every living creature on the other side of the wall is dead. Although this may sound like the beginning of a science fiction work, the wall is only a literary device to allow the author to put her heroine in an existential situation of total solitude. The book follows here for 2+ years as she adapts to her situation with her only company being a dog, a cat and a cow.

The book is about so many things: nature, solitude, womanhood, the relationships between animals and mankind, and so much more. The descriptions of nature are wonderful while the story unfolds at a slow pace. The story stayed with me long after I finished reading and I found it all unsettling. ( )

easily one of the best movies i've watched in the past year...
the plot revolves around an impenetrable barrier surrounding an austrian hunting lodge, but once you get past this, the story becomes more a study on how to survive, relationships, all done with just spare narration...
honestly, it's a difficult movie to talk about, but i found it truly enjoyable. the cinematography was stunning as well... ( )

Beautifully written. Not much happens in this book but the themes, nuance and perceptiveness of the character and the writing touched me deeply. ( )

A meditation on loneliness and what it takes to make one feel happy and satisfied. Surprisingly very little. ( )