The Last Wolf & Herman

by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

John Batki (Translator) and George Szirtes (Translator)

In The Last Wolf, a philosophy professor is mistakenly hired to write the true tale of the last wolf of Extremadura, a barren stretch of Spain. His miserable experience is narrated in a single, rolling sentence to a patently bored bartender in a dreary Berlin bar.

In Herman, a master trapper is asked to clear a forest's last 'noxious beasts.' Herman begins with great zeal, although in time he switches sides, deciding to track entirely new game... In Herman II, the same events are related from the perspective of strange visitors to the region, a group of hyper-sexualised aristocrats who interrupt their orgies to pitch in with the manhunt of poor Herman...

These intense, perfect novellas, full of Krasznhorkai's signature sense of foreboding and dark irony, are perfect examples of his craft.

• ISBN10: 1781258139
• ISBN13: 9781781258132
• Publish Date: 12 January 2017 (first published 27 September 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 July 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
• Imprint: Tuskar Rock
• Edition: Main
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 128
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

László Krasznahorkai is one of those authors that has been on my radar for a long time. Not because I always wondered how to pronounce his name (I know now) but because this Hungarian author’s books were always labeled as difficult or demanding. I like a challenge but I thought I might start with something small. I was told that The Last Wolf was a good introduction to László Krasznahorkai and it was not because of the blurb by Sjón on the cover. The edition pairs two novellas together, The Last Wolf and Herman.

The Last Wolf is a 70 page long sentence, which means you really need to read it in one sitting. I myself turned back to page one and reread the whole thing the next day. Not because it was dense (it is) but because I was captivated by the writing. How often are you able to find a sentence that long that flows so smoothly?

The novella is about a failed philosophy professor who is asked to write about the last wolf in the Spanish region of Extremadura. Although it is another who is conveying the tale to a bartender in Berlin. This narrative is an interesting journey, full of philosophical musing and some self-loathing. It left me wondering if László Krasznahorkai just wrote a satirical jab at himself. It is hard to say more about these stories, you really need to experience them yourself.

While Herman does share similarities, they were originally published twenty-three years apart. Told in two parts, firstly you learn about a master trapper who is clearing a forest of ‘noxious beasts’ in ‘The Game Warden’. While the other story (‘Death of a Craft’) is from the perspective of visitors to the same region. Trust me, these two parts sound like they do not go together but they do.

I am finding it really hard to talk about book, not just because both stories are dense and require many rereads but because it is difficult to express what happens in the books. I am not interested in giving a plot summary, you just have to experience László Krasznahorkai and this does seem like a good place to start. László Krasznahorkai won the last Man Book International Prize in 2015 before it was reincarnated into its current from. Originally the prize was awarded to an author for his entire body of work and he was recognised for his achievement in fiction on the world stage.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/literary-fiction/the-last-wolf-herman-by-laszlo-krasznahorkai/