Thursday 13 October 2016

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer - an audiobook

I have recently been trying out audiobooks through ePUKAPUKA. I chose this as it was listed as Sci-fi dystopia.

An unnamed catastrophe happens and our unnamed female character is walled off in an area around a winter lodge. The wall is unseen and impassable. Parts of a town can be seen from the edge of the wall, but no explanation for the disaster is ever actually attempted.

The premise was quite original and the story goes along quite nicely for a while, but then it suffers from a lack of further development. I checked later what year this was written and it was 1963. As such Haushofer suggests some ideas that were well ahead of her time and that are again taken up by other authors years later. Especially Stephen King in Under the Dome. Of course many authors have done similar things dealing with isolation and the breakdown of normal society.

As an audiobook The Wall is slightly limited as there is only one character in the book and one voice gets a bit monotonous. Altogether it comes in at around 9 hours.

There are plenty of interesting audiobooks including a number of older Sci-fi ones available on the ePukapuka site. Well worth having a look.

Posted by The Library Cat

Catalogue link: The Wall

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