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Sto caricando le informazioni... Noah: A Novel of the Boom Times (Seagull Books - The Swiss List)di Hugo Loetscher
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Loetscher is a Swiss author who typically writes with an eye on the ironies and absurdities of contemporary society and human behavior in general. I'd previously read a collection by him (Der Buckel) which has some brilliantly memorable moments. Noah, which is an earlier work, didn't impress me quite as much in terms of its execution, but it is nevertheless an effective and trenchant satire of the post-war economic boom in Europe. He sets the story in pre-Diluge Mesopotamia as Noah is beginning to build his Ark and imagines step by step the vast economic and social consequences that would follow from such a vast construction project. Identical planned communities arise from the need to provide housing and shops for the workers near the construction site. The local hills become deforested, leading to environmental concerns. Because so many people have become prosperous (the money flowing primarily from Noah's enormous but gradually dwindling herds of sheep), the arts flourish and change rapidly. In order to collect the animals that are to be included in the Ark, Noah must first engage the scientists to make a taxonomy of all existing species; to prevent the list from becoming too unwieldy, certain selections are made (a situation that recalls the woodworm's story in Julian Barnes' A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters). And as the Ark fills with animals, other problems arise: how to feed and muck out the vast numbers of creatures, how to prevent them from causing trouble, how to prevent the neighbors from becoming upset because of the terrible smell issuing from the Ark. The Ark becomes a tourist attraction, but Noah is, unfortunately, not clever enough to charge admittance to the world's first zoo. He is reaching the end of his abilities--and his money is running out. Here the book ends, with the comment that "only a Flood could save Noah now." Cleverly imagined, and the pace at which one development logically and seemingly inevitably follows the next is tremendous. It is easy to see how one person's project takes on a life of its own and soon changes are underway that are far out of his control and headed for disaster. The novel is fairly short, and written without chapter or section divisions; this is a bit confusing when the story abruptly jumps from one topic to something else, but it fits with the way society itself is irresistably pressing forward. The story convinces, and it surely continues to be relevant today. But for some reason it felt slightly dated to me, perhaps because the satirical effect depends on the readers living in a time where there is a huge sense of optimism about the rapid economic growth, and today, I think, we have become somewhat more sobered in this regard. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Appartiene alle Collane EditorialiElenchi di rilievo
As the current global recession stubbornly persists and financial experts around the world struggle to prevent further financial collapse, everyone has a theory about how to save the economy. But perhaps no idea that has been proffered is as radical or as unique as what Hugo Loetscher imagines in his novel Noah. In this book, first published in German in 1967, the eponymous Old Testament hero fuels his local economy with a prescient plan to build the Ark. Though no one around him seriously believes in the coming flood, everyone is more than willing to do business with him: "The people of Mesopotamia had never had it so good. There had been an economic miracle." It is boom time in Mesopotamia, and the economy is flourishing; but as with many financial bubbles, scandal and demise are not far out of sight. An ancient legend retold in light of capitalist reality, Noah is a witty, delightful and thought-provoking parable of our times. Hugo Loetscher (1929-2009), widely known as the most cosmopolitan of Swiss writers due to his travels and journalistic work in Latin America and Asia, has until now been known mainly by readers in his home country, where he has been the recipient of its most prestigious literary prize. This attentive and engaging translation makes available to a new audience an incredibly timely and entertaining work. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)833.914Literature German literature and literatures of related languages German fiction Modern period (1900-) 1900-1990 1945-1990Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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To a Brit, that opening line cannot fail to recall Harold Macmillan's famous speech of 1957, though the internet tells me that it was borrowed from an earlier Democratic Party slogan in the US. Either way, the reference is clearly deliberate. The import of the comparison, on the other hand, is less clear to me. Something is apparently being said about boom-and-bust cycles, and the relationship between economic growth and the idea of future catastrophe, but – perhaps owing to my economic illiteracy – I found it hard to untangle what Loetscher was trying to get across, despite what should be a very relevant modern context. (The book was written in 1967.)
At times, Loetscher's view of social change seems decidedly conservative – there is an ambivalent portrait of the migrant workers, with their backward culture, that flood into Mesopotamia to fill the manual labour jobs that locals won't do, and he seems wryly critical too of the gender fluidity of younger generations (‘the pickup line for young men these days was, “Do you bathe in the Tigris or Euphrates?”’). He also takes lots of good-humoured swipes at such late-capitalist phenomena as insurance scams, the craze for antiques, fashionable haute cuisine, tourism, and psychiatry (‘given his exaggerated fear of water, Noah must have been a great bedwetter as a child’). The tone is dry and subtle, but it's not a flattering depiction of modernity.
Noah said, ‘I took a good look at society and really had nothing to say but: Let it rain.’
Samuel P. Willcocks's translation is fluent and unobtrusive (despite a couple of minor infelicities) and it makes the text sound perfectly modern. Overall this is another fascinating and very welcome entry on Seagull Books' Swiss List, which is every bit as good as the better-known Swiss Literature Series from Dalkey Archive Press, though ‘better-known’ in this case is a decidedly relative term. ( )