Skip to main content
Weighty meditation on the traumatic heart of darkness

The Weight of Things
by Marianne Fritz
(Verso, £9.99)

BEST-KNOWN for the cycle of novels called The Fortress, the late Austrian writer Marianne Fritz has been compared to James Joyce for an experimental style of writing which caused her proofreader to quit in exasperation at her intentional misspellings and deliberate grammatical violations.

There’s little such experimentation in evidence in her debut novel The Weight of Things, the first of her works to be translated into English by Adrian Nathan West. It is nonetheless concerned with the subject that was to dominate her books — understanding the disaster of Western civilisation.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
moulin
Interview / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

Rita Di Santo speaks to Hungarian director LASZLO NEMES about his new film, a portrait of the French Resistance leader and hero, Jean Moulin

GOMBROWICZ HAUNT: Cafe Tortoni at 825 Avenida de Mayo / Pic: Dziczka/CC; insert Bohdan Paczowski/CC
Book Review / 19 April 2026
19 April 2026

CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile

gaza
Books / 31 July 2025
31 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs

FC
Books / 10 July 2025
10 July 2025

STEVEN ANDREW welcomes a fine introduction to FC United of Manchester, the team set up in opposition to Manchester United