Stephanie Jane reviewed The Last Wolf & Herman by László Krasznahorkai
Accomplished stories
4 stars
On finishing reading The Last Wolf and Herman, I initially gave the book a four star rating because, while I loved both the novellas - or actually all three because Herman comprises of two novellas each telling the same story, but from wildly different perspectives - it took a while for everything to settle in my mind and, as Virginia Woolf so eloquently put it (in How Should One Read A Book?), for the true shape of the book to emerge. I saw that The Last Wolf and Herman had won the Man Booker International Prize and I had wondered how much that was influenced by the complex nature of Krasznahorkai's prose. The Last Wolf, for example, is a novella in one sentence! Admittedly it is a superlatively long sentence which, for someone like me who also tends to write in overlong sentences, would have been a perfect rebuke to …
On finishing reading The Last Wolf and Herman, I initially gave the book a four star rating because, while I loved both the novellas - or actually all three because Herman comprises of two novellas each telling the same story, but from wildly different perspectives - it took a while for everything to settle in my mind and, as Virginia Woolf so eloquently put it (in How Should One Read A Book?), for the true shape of the book to emerge. I saw that The Last Wolf and Herman had won the Man Booker International Prize and I had wondered how much that was influenced by the complex nature of Krasznahorkai's prose. The Last Wolf, for example, is a novella in one sentence! Admittedly it is a superlatively long sentence which, for someone like me who also tends to write in overlong sentences, would have been a perfect rebuke to my school English teacher, however it was daunting to begin with. Once I got into the style though I loved The Last Wolf and the single sentence device works wonderfully to illustrate how the babbling Professor is semi-drunkenly recounting his fantastic tale to a bored bartender who cannot escape him. I could clearly picture the Berlin bar and appreciated the extreme contrast between that claustrophobic setting and that of the wide Extremadura landscapes with which I am familiar although, sadly, only since the autopistas arrived.
Herman is an inspired idea for a mirrored tale and I didn't realise, until I came to write my review, just how long ago this story was written. It has a timelessness to it that really works alongside its portrait of a former animal trapper who goes rogue when he has a revelation about the life he has led up to that point and a way in which he can make amends. Krasznahorkai gets deeply into Herman's mental state so, while this is a grim tale due to the cruelties described, I found myself beginning to actually care about Herman - until the viewpoint switches anyway!
The more I think about these stories, the more I realise just how accomplished they are! Well worth a read for fans of quirky, darker fiction and experimental writing.