This novel by esteemed Swiss writer Max Frisch is an exploration of the question Why dont we live when we know were here just this one time just one single unrepeatable time in this unutterably magnificent world This outcry against the emptiness of ordinary everyday life uttered by the hero of Frischs book is countered by an answer from the silence he meets when face-to-face with deathWhen An Answer from the Silence begins the protagonist has just turned thirty and is engaged to be married and about to start work as a teacher Frightened by the idea of settling down he journeys to the Alps in a do-or-die effort to climb the unclimbed North Ridge and by doing so prove he is not ordinary But having reached the top he returns not in triumph but in frostbitten shock having come dangerously close to deathThis highly personal early novel reflects a crisis in Frischs own life and perhaps because of this intimate connection he refused to allow it to be included in his Collected Works in the s Now available in English this distinctive book will thrill fans of Frischs other works.
