Homo faber summary. Description and analysis of the novel "Homo Faber" by Frisch

German Homo faber. Ein Bericht 1957

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The events take place in 1957. Walter Faber, a fifty-year-old engineer, of Swiss origin, works for UNESCO and is engaged in setting up production equipment in industrially backward countries. For work, he has to travel frequently. He flies from New York to Caracas, but his plane, due to engine problems, is forced to make an emergency landing in Mexico, in the Tamaulipas desert.

During the four days that Faber spends with the rest of the passengers in the hot desert, he becomes close to the German Herbert Henke, who is flying to his brother, who runs the Henke-Bosch tobacco plantation, in Guatemala. In the conversation, it unexpectedly turns out that Herbert’s brother is none other than Joachim Henke, a close friend of Walter Faber’s youth, about whom he had not heard anything for about twenty years.

Before the Second World War, in the mid-thirties, Faber dated a girl named Ganna. They were connected in those years by a strong feeling, they were happy. Hanna became pregnant, but for personal reasons and, to a certain extent, due to the instability of the political situation in Europe, she told Faber that she would not give birth. Faber's friend, the doctor Joachim, was supposed to perform an operation on Hanna to terminate her pregnancy. Soon after this, Ganna ran away from the city hall, where she was supposed to register her marriage to Faber. Faber left Switzerland and went alone for work to Baghdad on a long business trip. This happened in 1936. Subsequently, he knew nothing about Hanna’s fate.

Herbert reports that after Faber left, Joachim married Hanna and they had a child. However, they divorced a few years later. Faber does some calculations and comes to the conclusion that the child born to them is not his. Faber decides to join Herbert and visit his old friend in Guatemala.

Having reached the plantation after a two-week journey, Herbert and Walter Faber learn that a few days before their arrival, Joachim hanged himself. They bury his body, Faber goes back to Caracas, and Herbert remains on the plantation and becomes its manager instead of his brother. Having completed the setup of the equipment in Caracas, before flying to the colloquium in Paris, Faber returns to New York, where he lives most of the time and where Ivy, his mistress, is waiting for him, a very obsessive married young lady for whom Faber does not have strong feelings. Having had enough of her company in a short time, he decides to change his plans and, contrary to custom, in order to part with Ivy as quickly as possible, leaves New York a week ahead of schedule and gets to Europe not by plane, but by boat.

On board the ship, Faber meets a young red-haired girl. After studying at Yale University, Sabet (or Elisabeth - that's the girl's name) returns to her mother in Athens. She plans to get to Paris, and then hitchhike around Europe and end her trip in Greece.

On the ship, Faber and Sabet communicate a lot and, despite the large age difference, a feeling of affection arises between them, which later develops into love. Faber even invites Sabet to marry him, although he had never previously thought of connecting his life with any woman. Sabet does not take his proposals seriously, and after the ship arrives at the port, they part.

In Paris, they meet again by chance, attend the opera, and Faber decides to accompany Sabet on a trip to the south of Europe and thereby save her from possible unpleasant accidents associated with hitchhiking. They visit Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome, Assisi. Despite the fact that Sabet drags Faber to all the museums and historical sites that he is not interested in, Walter Faber is happy. A hitherto unknown feeling was revealed to him. Meanwhile, from time to time he experiences discomfort in the stomach area. At first, this phenomenon hardly bothers him.

Faber is unable to explain to himself why, after meeting Sabet, looking at her, he increasingly begins to remember Ganna, although there is no obvious external similarity between them. Sabet often tells Walter about his mother. From a conversation that took place between them at the end of their journey, it turns out that Hanna is the mother of Elisabeth Pieper (the surname of Hanna's second husband). Walter gradually begins to realize that Sabet is his daughter, the child he did not want to have twenty years ago.

Not far from Athens, on the last day of their journey, Sabet, lying on the sand by the sea while Faber swims fifty meters from the shore, is bitten by a snake. She gets up, walks forward and, falling from the slope, hits her head on the stones. When Walter runs up to Sabet, she is already unconscious. He carries her to the highway and first by cart and then by truck delivers the girl to the hospital in Athens. There he meets a slightly older, but still beautiful and intelligent Ganna. She invites him to her house, where she lives alone with her daughter, and almost all night long they talk to each other about the twenty years they spent apart.

The next day, they go together to the hospital to see Sabet, where they are informed that the injection of serum made on time has borne fruit and the girl’s life is out of danger. Then they go to the sea to pick up Walter’s things, which he left there the day before. Walter is already thinking about finding a job in Greece and living with Hanna.

On the way back, they buy flowers and return to the hospital, where they are informed that their daughter died, but not from a snake bite, but from a fracture of the base of the skull, which occurred when she fell onto a rocky slope and was not diagnosed. With the correct diagnosis, it would not be difficult to save her through surgery.

After the death of his daughter, Faber flies to New York for a while, then to Caracas, stopping at Herbert’s plantation. In the two months that had passed since their last meeting, Herbert had lost all interest in life and had changed a lot, both internally and externally.

After visiting the plantation, he again visits Caracas, but cannot take part in the installation of equipment, since due to severe stomach pain he is forced to stay in the hospital all this time.

Driving from Caracas to Lisbon, Faber finds himself in Cuba. He is fascinated by the beauty and open character of the Cubans. In Düsseldorf, he visits the board of directors of the Henke-Bosch company and wants to show its management a film he made about the death of Joachim and the state of affairs on the plantation. The reels of films have not yet been signed (there are many of them, since he does not part with his camera), and during the show, every now and then, instead of the necessary fragments, he comes across films from Sabet, evoking bittersweet memories.

Having reached Athens, Faber goes to the hospital for examination, where he is kept until the operation. He understands that he has stomach cancer, but now, more than ever, he wants to live. Hanna managed to forgive Walter for her life, which was twice distorted by him. She regularly visits him in the hospital. Hanna tells Walter that she sold her apartment and was going to leave Greece forever to live for a year on the islands, where life is cheaper. However, at the very last moment she realized how pointless her departure was, and got off the ship. She lives in a boarding house, she no longer works at the institute, because when she was getting ready to leave, she quit, and her assistant took her place and is not going to leave it voluntarily. Now she works as a guide at the archaeological museum, as well as at the Acropolis and Sounion.

Hanna keeps asking Walter why Joachim hanged himself, telling him about her life with Joachim, about why their marriage broke up. When her daughter was born, she did not remind Hanne of Faber in any way, it was just her child. She loved Joachim precisely because he was not the father of her child. Hanna is convinced that Sabet would never have been born if she and Walter had not broken up. After Faber left for Baghdad, Hanna realized that she wanted to have a child alone, without a father. As the girl grew older, the relationship between Hanna and Joachim began to become complicated, because Hanna considered herself the final authority in all matters concerning the girl. He dreamed more and more about a common child who would return him to the position of head of the family. Hanna was going to go with him to Canada or Australia, but, being half-Jewish of German origin, she did not want to give birth to any more children. She performed sterilization surgery on herself. This hastened their divorce.

After breaking up with Joachim, she wandered around Europe with her child, working in different places: in publishing houses, on radio. Nothing seemed difficult to her when it came to her daughter. However, she did not spoil her; Hanna was too smart for that.

It was quite difficult for her to let Sabet travel alone, even if only for a few months. She always knew that someday her daughter would leave her home, but she could not even foresee that on this journey Sabet would meet her father, who would ruin everything.

Before Walter Faber is taken away for surgery, she tearfully asks for his forgiveness. He wants to live more than anything in the world, because existence has been filled with new meaning for him. Alas, it's too late. He was never destined to return from the operation.

Retold

During the four days that Faber spends with the rest of the passengers in the hot desert, he becomes close to the German Herbert Henke, who is flying to his brother, the manager of the Henke-Bosch tobacco plantation, in Guatemala. In the conversation, it unexpectedly turns out that Herbert’s brother is none other than Joachim Henke, a close friend of Walter Faber’s youth, about whom he had not heard anything for about twenty years.

On board the ship, Faber meets a young red-haired girl. After studying at Yale University, Sabet (or Elisabeth - that’s the girl’s name) returns to her mother in Athens. She plans to get to Paris and then hitchhike around Europe and end her trip in Greece.

Faber is unable to explain to himself why, after meeting Sabet, looking at her, he increasingly begins to remember Ganna, although there is no obvious external resemblance between them. Sabet often tells Walter about his mother. From a conversation that took place between them at the end of their journey, it turns out that Hanna is the mother of Elisabeth Pieper (the surname of Hanna's second husband). Walter gradually begins to realize that Sabet is his daughter, the child he did not want to have twenty years ago.

Not far from Athens, on the last day of their journey, Sabet, lying on the sand by the sea while Faber swims fifty meters from the shore, is bitten by a snake. She gets up, walks forward and, falling from the slope, hits her head on the stones. When Walter runs up to Sabet, she is already unconscious. He carries her to the highway and first by cart and then by truck takes the girl to a hospital in Athens. There he meets a slightly older, but still beautiful and smart Ganna. She invites him to her house, where she lives alone with her daughter, and almost all night long they talk to each other about the twenty years they spent apart.

On the way back, they buy flowers and return to the hospital, where they are informed that their daughter died, not from a snake bite, but from a fracture of the base of the skull, which occurred when she fell onto a rocky slope and was not diagnosed. With the correct diagnosis, it would not be difficult to save her through surgery.

After visiting the plantation, he again visits Caracas, but cannot take part in the installation of equipment, since due to severe stomach pain he is forced to stay in the hospital all this time.

Having reached Athens, Faber goes to the hospital for examination, where he is kept until the operation. He understands that he has stomach cancer, but now, more than ever, he wants to live. Hanna managed to forgive Walter for her life, which was twice distorted by him. She regularly visits him in the hospital. Hanna tells Walter that she sold her apartment and was going to leave Greece forever to live for a year on the islands, where life is cheaper. However, at the very last moment she realized how pointless her departure was, and got off the ship. She lives in a boarding house and no longer works at the institute, because when she was about to leave, she quit, and her assistant took her place and is not going to leave it voluntarily. Now she works as a guide at the archaeological museum, as well as at the Acropolis and Sounion.

After parting with Joachim, she wandered around Europe with her child, working in different places: in publishing houses, on radio. Nothing seemed difficult to her when it came to her daughter. However, she did not spoil her; Hanna was too smart for that.

Summary of Frisch's novel “Homo Faber”

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“Homo Faber” is a novel by the Swiss writer M. Frisch. Published in 1957. The theme of a man searching for himself ran through all of Frisch’s work. The writer's characters either passionately want to find their true self, or persistently and purposefully try to get rid of it. The main theme of the novel “Homo Faber” is the disclosure of these two collisions.

Frisch was one of the first in the literature of post-war Europe to show how a bright, extraordinary personality tries to adapt to the standard and runs away from his originality. The writer pronounces a verdict on the technocratic consciousness, indifferent to the manifestation of individuality. The author himself calls his novel a “report” of the main character Walter Faber, in which he consistently and honestly tells his life. Historical events of the 20th century seem to remain on the periphery of the novel, but in fact they influence the hero and shape his character. A fifty-year-old engineer, a manager of construction and installation works in Latin America, the hero of the novel is a citizen of the world, a convinced cosmopolitan. In post-war Europe, there are no borders for him; he is accustomed to quickly moving from one point of the globe to another, so he prefers airplanes, being an apologist for industrial civilization.

Frisch tells on behalf of his hero how the ordered rational ideas of Walter Faber collapse one after another under the influence of chance, due to the unpredictability and peculiar insidiousness of fate. Gradually more and more clearly from the pages of the novel “ Homo Faber Frisch begins to hear the motive of retribution, punishment for unrighteous deeds, for betrayals, small and serious (in his younger years, being a coward, the hero left the woman he loved), for coldness and indifference, for self-confidence. Having lived in the world for half a century, Faber, without yet admitting it to himself, stops and thinks: some of the researchers of the novel believe that here his true “I” is born in the hero. The first signal is strange And elusive - Faber decides to travel by boat from America to Europe: there is a pause in the hero’s life, in his run through time and space. Frisch unobtrusively gives the reader signals at the level of language, the “report” begins to resemble a confession: emotional assessments and descriptions of nature appear on the pages of the diary, and previously hidden interest in others reveals itself.

A tragic surprise for the impenetrable and self-confident hero is a meeting on the ship with a young girl Sabet, with whom Faber unexpectedly falls seriously in love, not knowing that she is his own daughter. " Homo Faber ”, the person “producing” (one of the possible readings of the title of the novel), becomes a person who experiences and has a subtle feeling. However, sin cannot go unpunished - Frisch appears in the novel as a strict moralist, judging his hero according to the strictest ethical standards. Sabet dies while traveling with Faber in an accident And doctors' mistakes. The theme of inexorable fate sounds in the novel with ancient power. For the author, the key scene is the scene in the museum, where the hero suddenly, struck by some kind of premonition, stops in front of the statue of the goddess of vengeance Erinyes. Indeed, this goddess has already entered his life, he seems to hear her steps. Everything that happens on the last pages of the novel " Homo Faber “And what the last pages of the diary tell about is the realized anger of Erinyes. The hero is undermined by an incurable disease; Before the operation, he again tries to escape by his usual flight around the planet, but all places on earth remind him of the past, of the death of Sabet, of her unfortunate mother, of his guilt.

Frisch's novel Homo Faber "has given rise to philosophical literature devoted to the problem of personal self-identification in the modern world. In subsequent novels, as well as in drama, the theme and image of the hero were developed. In 1994, German director Volker Schlöndorff filmed the novel (the main role in the film was played by American playwright and actor Sam Sheppard).

Events unfold in 1957. Walter Faber, a five-year-old engineer, a Swiss by birth, works for UNESCO and is engaged in research -living of production equipment in industrially backward countries. For work, he has to travel often. He flies from New York to Caracas, but his plane, due to engine problems, is forced to make an emergency landing in Mexico, in the Tamau Lipas desert.

During the four days that Faber spends with the rest of the passengers in the hot desert, he becomes close to the German Herbert Henke, who flies to his brother, who runs the tobacco plan -ta-tion of the Henke-Bosch company, in Guatemala. In the conversation, it suddenly turns out that Herbert’s brother is none other than Joachim Henke, a close friend of Walter Faber’s youth, about whom he had not heard anything for about twenty years.

Before the Second World War, in the mid-thirties, Faber dated a girl named Ganna. They were connected in those years by a strong feeling; they were happy. Hanna became pregnant, but for personal reasons and, to a certain extent, because of the instability of the political situation in Europe, she told Faber that she would not give birth . Faber's friend, the doctor Joachim, was supposed to perform an operation on Hanna to terminate the pregnancy. Soon after this, Hanna fled from the mayor's office, where she was supposed to marry Faber. Faber left Switzerland and went alone for work to Baghdad, on a long business trip. This happened in 1936. Afterwards, he knew nothing about Hanna’s fate.

Herbert reports that after Faber left, Joachim married Hanna and they had a child. However, a few years later they divorced. Faber does some calculations and comes to the conclusion that the child born to them is not his. Faber decides to join Herbert and visit his old friend in Guatemala.

Arriving after a two-week journey to the plantation, Herbert and Walter Faber learn that a few days before their arrival, Joachim hanged himself. They bury his body, Faber goes back to Caracas, and Herbert remains on the plantation and instead of his brother becomes its manager. Having completed the setup of the equipment in Caracas, before flying to the colloquium in Paris, Faber returns to New York, where he lives most of the time and where Ivy, his mistress, is waiting for him. an obsessive married young lady for whom Faber does not have strong feelings. Having become fed up with her company in a short time, he decides to change his plans and, contrary to usual, in order to quickly part with Ivy, leaves New York a week earlier than planned deadline and gets to Europe not by plane, but by boat.

On board the warm ship, Faber meets a young, red-haired girl. After studying at Yale University, Sabet (or Elisabeth - that’s the girl’s name) returns to her mother in Athens. She plans to get to Paris, and then hitchhike around Europe and end her trip in Greece.

During the warm trip, Faber and Sabet communicate a lot and, despite the large age difference, a feeling of affection arises between them, which later develops into love. Faber even invites Sabet to marry him, although he had never previously thought of connecting his life with any woman. Sabet does not take his proposal seriously, and after the ship arrives at the port, they separate.

In Paris, they meet again by chance, attend the opera, and Faber decides to accompany Sabet on a trip to the south of Europe and thereby save her from possible unpleasant incidents associated with traveling by auto-stop. They visit Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome, Assisi. Despite the fact that Sabet drags Faber to all the museums and historical sites that he is not interested in, Walter Faber is happy. A hitherto unknown feeling was revealed to him. Meanwhile, from time to time he experiences unpleasant sensations in the stomach area. At first, this phenomenon hardly bothers him.

Faber is unable to explain to himself why, after meeting Sabet, looking at her, he increasingly begins to remember Ganna, although there is no obvious external similarity between them . Sabet often tells Walter about his mother. From the conversation that took place between them at the end of their journey, it turns out that Hanna is the mother of Elisabeth Pieper (the surname of Hanna’s second husband). Walter gradually begins to realize that Sabet is his daughter, the child he did not want to have twenty years ago.

Not far from Athens, on the last day of their journey, Sabet, lying on the sand by the sea, while Faber swims five to ten meters from the shore, is bitten by a snake. She gets up, walks forward and, falling from the slope, hits her head on the stones. When Walter runs up to Sabet, she is already unconscious. He carries her to the highway and first by cart, and then by truck, takes the girl to a hospital in Athens. There he meets the slightly aged, but still beautiful and intelligent Ganna. She invites him to her house, where she lives alone with her daughter, and almost all night long they talk to each other about the twenty years they spent apart.

The next day they go together to the hospital to see Sabet, where they are informed that the timely injection of serum has borne fruit and the girl’s life is out of danger. Then they go to the sea to pick up Walter's things, which he left there for Naka-Nuna. Walter is already thinking about finding a job in Greece and living with Hanna.

On the way back, they buy flowers, return to the hospital, where they are informed that their daughter died, but not from a snake bite, but from a fracture of the base of the skull, which occurred at the moment fell on a rocky slope and was not diagnosed. With the correct diagnosis, it would not be difficult to save her with the help of surgical intervention.

After the death of his daughter, Faber flies to New York for some time, then to Caracas, visiting Herbert’s plantation. In the two months that had passed since their last meeting, Herbert had lost all interest in life and had changed greatly both internally and externally.

After visiting the plantation, he again visits Caracas, but cannot take part in the installation of equipment, because due to severe stomach pain he is forced to lie in pain all this time. face.

Driving from Cara Cas to Lisbon, Faber finds himself in Cuba. He is admired by the beauty and open character of the Cubans. In Düsseldorf, he visits the board of directors of the Henke-Bosch company and wants to show its management a film he made about the death of Joachim and the state of affairs at the plantation. The reels of films have not yet been signed (there are many of them, since he does not part with his camera), and during the show, every now and then, instead of the necessary fragments, films from Sabet come to hand, evoking bittersweet memories.

Having reached Athens, Faber goes to the hospital for examination, where he is kept until the operation. He understands that he has stomach cancer, but now, more than ever, he wants to live. Hanna managed to forgive Walter for her life, which was twice ruined by him. She regularly visits him in the hospital. Hanna tells Walter that she sold her apartment and was about to leave Greece forever to live for a year on the islands, where life is cheaper. However, at the very last moment she realized how pointless her departure was, and left the warm passage. She lives in a boarding house, she no longer works at the institute, because when she was about to leave, she quit, and her assistant took her place and is not going to leave him voluntarily. Now she works as a guide in the Archaeological Museum, as well as in the Acropolis and Sounion.

Hanna constantly asks Walter why Joachim hanged himself, tells him about her life with Joachim, about why their marriage broke up. When her daughter was born, she did not remind Hanna of Faber in any way, it was just her child. She loved Joachim precisely because he was not the father of her child. Hanna is convinced that Sabet would never have been born if she and Walter had not separated. After Faber left for Baghdad, Hanna realized that she wanted to have a child alone, without a father. As the girl grew up, the relationship between Hanna and Joachim began to become complicated, because Hanna considered herself the final authority in all matters concerning the girl. He dreamed more and more about a common child who would return him to the position of head of the family. Hanna was about to go with him to Canada or Australia, but, being of half-German origin, she did not want to give birth to any more children. She performed sterilization surgery on herself. This hastened their divorce.

Year of writing:

1957

Reading time:

Description of the work:

"Homo Faber" is a novel by the Swiss writer Max Frisch, who wrote it in 1957, at which time the first publication of the novel took place. The novel takes place between April and July 1957.

In its presentation, the novel is structured like a first-person narrative by Faber, and consists of parts named by the author himself stops. We invite you to read a summary of the novel "Homo Faber".

Summary of the novel
Homo Faber

Having reached the plantation after a two-week journey, Herbert and Walter Faber learn that a few days before their arrival, Joachim hanged himself. They bury his body, Faber goes back to Caracas, and Herbert remains on the plantation and becomes its manager instead of his brother. Having completed the setup of the equipment in Caracas, before flying to the colloquium in Paris, Faber returns to New York, where he lives most of the time and where Ivy, his mistress, is waiting for him, a very obsessive married young lady for whom Faber does not have strong feelings. Fed up with society in a short time, he decides to change his plans and, contrary to custom, in order to part with Ivy as quickly as possible, leaves New York a week ahead of schedule and gets to Europe not by plane, but by boat.

On board the ship, Faber meets a young red-haired girl. After studying at Yale University, Sabet (or Elisabeth - that's the girl's name) returns to her mother in Athens. She plans to get to Paris and then hitchhike around Europe and end her trip in Greece.

Not far from Athens, on the last day of their journey, Sabet, lying on the sand by the sea while Faber swims fifty meters from the shore, is bitten by a snake. She gets up, walks forward and, falling from the slope, hits her head on the stones. When Walter runs up to Sabet, she is already unconscious. He carries her to the highway and first by cart and then by truck takes the girl to a hospital in Athens. There he meets a slightly older, but still beautiful and smart Ganna. She invites him to her house, where she lives alone with her daughter, and almost all night long they talk to each other about the twenty years they spent apart.

On the way back, they buy flowers and return to the hospital, where they are informed that their daughter died, not from a snake bite, but from a fracture of the base of the skull, which occurred when she fell onto a rocky slope and was not diagnosed. With the correct diagnosis it is not difficult was could be saved through surgery.

After visiting the plantation, he again visits Caracas, but cannot take part in the installation of equipment, since due to severe stomach pain he is forced to stay in the hospital all this time.

Hanna tells Walter that she sold her apartment and was going to leave Greece forever to live for a year on the islands, where life is cheaper. However, at the very last moment she realized how pointless her departure was, and got off the ship. She lives in a boarding house and no longer works at the institute, because when she was about to leave, she quit, and her assistant took her place and is not going to leave it voluntarily. Now she works as a guide at the archaeological museum, as well as at the Acropolis and Sounion.

Before Walter Faber is taken away for surgery, she tearfully asks for his forgiveness. He wants to live more than anything in the world, because existence has been filled with new meaning for him. alas, it's too late. He was never destined to return from the operation.

Please note that the summary of the novel "Homo Faber" does not reflect the full picture of events and characteristics of the characters. We recommend that you read the full version of the work.

Homo faber summary. Description and analysis of the novel "Homo Faber" by Frisch

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Summary of the novel Homo Faber

Summary of the novel
Homo Faber