Nothing in Sight
Translated by Kenneth J. Northcott
With an Introduction by Scott Denham
With an Introduction by Scott Denham
144 pages
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8_1/2 x 5_1/2
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© 2005
It is 1943. A German submarine commander and an American pilot are stranded on a rubber life raft, floating alone in the middle of the ocean, with nothing between them but a bottle of whiskey, some cigarettes, a few chocolate bars, and a pack of chewing gum. Both sit, hoping to be rescued, but there is no hope in sight. The stage is thus set for this hypnotic existentialist parable, a rediscovered classic in the literature of World War II.
In a terse, almost clinically exact style, Nothing in Sight distills the brutal essence of what it is to die alone. Much more than a story of war, this short novel presents the memories, dreams, and hallucinations of two soldiers as they drift toward death. With nothing in sight on the horizon, Jens Rehn directs our view inward, into the minds of both men as they question the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the possibility of enduring human relationships. As the drama unfolds, each man recalls fragments of his past through the delirium of thirst and pain. The American soldier, his arm severed, dies first of gangrene. The German dies in agony a week later. Their life raft sinks into the vastness of the ocean.
Reissued two years ago in Germany, Nothing in Sight was hailed by critics there as a singular achievement. The work is presented here in a crystalline English translation for the first time, given new life for generations of readers to come.
In a terse, almost clinically exact style, Nothing in Sight distills the brutal essence of what it is to die alone. Much more than a story of war, this short novel presents the memories, dreams, and hallucinations of two soldiers as they drift toward death. With nothing in sight on the horizon, Jens Rehn directs our view inward, into the minds of both men as they question the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the possibility of enduring human relationships. As the drama unfolds, each man recalls fragments of his past through the delirium of thirst and pain. The American soldier, his arm severed, dies first of gangrene. The German dies in agony a week later. Their life raft sinks into the vastness of the ocean.
Reissued two years ago in Germany, Nothing in Sight was hailed by critics there as a singular achievement. The work is presented here in a crystalline English translation for the first time, given new life for generations of readers to come.
"A sensational re-release: not quite fifty years after its first publication this absolutely unforgettable book--for those who've read it--has been saved from obscurity. Eerily precise, with brutal exactitude and thoroughness, Rehn dissects each phase of the drama."--Westdeutsche Zeitung
"The great thing about this book--beyond its narrative construction and its exacting style--is the symbolism of the whole. A grand book! Singular for German literature, and an event for world literature."--Konkret
"An exceptional book . . .that requires strong nerves. The horror of war has rarely been made soclear."--Suedwest Presse
"Exceptional. . . . The horror of war has rarely been made so clear."--Südwest Presse
"Without question one of the most important prose documents of the war. It is tempered, hardened, mercilessly precise, as if written with a dagger."--Hamburger Anzeiger
"A novel of laconic beauty and philosophical avoirdupois.Written and read in the tradition of 'war stories,' today it resonates as a powerful existentialist treatise on death. Tempered with black humor and sly irony, Rehn's novel grapples with questions that remain central to the paradox of human morality."—J.T. Townley, Harvard Review
Contents
Introduction by Scott Denham
Nothing in Sight by Jens Rehn
Nothing in Sight by Jens Rehn
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Literature and Literary Criticism: Fiction | Germanic Languages
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