Max Frisch -- Homo Faber

 



I'm rereading Max Frisch's most popular opus; Man in control of his being, his technology, and surroundings, as the Latin term defines, "Homo faber". What if your rational "Weltbild" is challenged by a series of events that defies logic? Shall we depend on the use of percentages, statistics, or the truth of numbers? Are there such things as equations of accidents and coincidences?

I first encountered Frisch in a discussion (I felt it was a debate) around a table filled with various sweets and cups of brewed coffee. In a dismal Zurich weather, the people around challenged me to give my opinion about the writer, who I only knew then in some magazine articles. A young colleague who prided herself belonging to a family of traditional village cheese makers sarcastically smiled at me, her eyes glowed with schadenfroh glee as if saying to hell with your Third World Literature, having labeled me before as disseminator of the narratives of pain and the displaced definition of imperialism and oppression.

On that same afternoon, I learned that lightning struck near the open fields where a herd of cows was pasturing. Five cows were electrocuted together with the herdsman. Strange that such a thing occurred. The next day a tractor from the cantonal government collected the carcasses, while their owner's body was cremated. There was also the news about a certain Frau Mossiman, who committed suicide when she learned her husband was shot by Muslim extremists in Egypt, it was big news in the community. Those events had no relation to me but I searched for meaning -- The weekend after those incidents I mentioned, I went to a bookshop and asked for a Frisch. I bought his book. Fifteen Swiss Francs also meant eating only bread and cheese for dinner, for two nights.

There are things we cannot explain. No such thing as Homo faber?



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