RaveThe Chicago Review of Books...the novel is a formally experimental tour de force ... In its endeavor to capture the workings of the narrator’s chaotic, keenly perceptive mind, Malina has much in common with such groundbreaking modernist novels as Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart, and Samuel Beckett’s Molloy ... Malina is a difficult book — both in the personal and cultural histories it recounts, and in its plotlessness and fragmentary formal structure. But it is also a richly rewarding one, given the narrator’s — which is to say, Bachmann’s own — first-rate intelligence and verbal inventiveness. At one point, the narrator comments that \'expression is insanity; it arises out of our insanity.\' It is hard to imagine a more eloquent illustration of this claim than Malina.
Lena Andersson Trans. by Saskia Vogel
PositiveThe Literary Review... invites readers to join Ester in trying to decide what actually constitutes an act of infidelity ... powerfully captures the frustration of pursuing someone who wishes neither to commit nor to break things off. Ester is a captivating protagonist, and her efforts to produce consistently optimistic interpretations for Olof’s inconsistent actions are at once funny and poignant. There’s only one problem with the novel’s psychological realism: Olof himself. The power of Ester’s passion for this man is foundational to the story, but it’s not a passion readers are likely to share. Ester’s claim that they possess uniquely strong physical chemistry is belied by the novel’s underwhelming descriptions ... Even apart from these scenes, Olof does not achieve on the page the level of charm and irresistibility that would justify Ester’s enduring fascination with him. Still, the measure of our dissatisfaction with Olof is also the measure of our sympathies for Ester, as the novel vividly chronicles the emotional havoc he wreaks upon her otherwise logical, well-ordered life.
