The Threshold and the Ledger

A timely exploration of Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann by Booker-shortlisted author Tom McCarthy. Since her untimely death in 1973, Ingeborg Bachmann has come to be regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important writers. Unpacking a single Bachmann poem, novelist Tom McCarthy latches onto two of its central terms - the eponymous threshold and ledger - and takes off on a line of flight: through the work of Franz Kafka, David Lynch, Anne Carson, Sappho and Shakespeare. Can writing be understood as an experience of the threshold, a limit- or boundary- state? A condition of ecstasy or ec-stasis, standing outside of oneself? With identity ruptured and surpassed, how - and by whom - might such experience be recorded? Appearing on the eve of Bachmann's centenary year, McCarthy's book argues for the centrality of her vision to the very act of literature itself. Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 - 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

About the Author :
Tom McCarthy is a novelist whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and radio. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. His first novel, Remainder, won the 2008 Believer Book Award; his third, C, was a 2010 Booker Prize finalist, as was his fourth, Satin Island, in 2015. He is also author of the study Tintin and the Secret of Literature, and of the essay collection Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish. His latest novel, The Making of Incarnation, was published in 2021. McCarthy has held Visiting Professorships at the Royal College of Art London, Columbia University New York and Stadelschule Frankfurt. Born in Scotland, he is now a Swedish citizen, and lives in Berlin.

Review :
'A dizzying invitation to explore the poetry and prose of German author Ingeborg Bachmann . . . McCarthy’s work is an invigorating and inspiring incantation: Readers will not only marvel at how the author reads but also at his ability to articulate that experience into something both erudite and accessible.' ‘A lively and highly discursive essay from Berlin-based novelist Tom McCarthy.’ 'McCarthy’s essays are always enjoyable and illuminating displays of intellectual pyrotechnics.' ‘This is a daringly ambitious book that moves from plot summary and linguistic analysis to a panoramic view of the intersection between philosophy and literature. And yet, although the book is overflowing with new ideas and connections, ten on some pages, it isn’t a difficult book to read. I read it in one sitting. It has the depth of Beckett’s short book on Proust, Roland Barthes’s S/Z, and Sartre’s essay on literature. With them, McCarthy’s book is a foundation text on what literature is and what it might become. It is an antidote to smug insularity and Little Englandism.’