‘The Last Wolf’ and ‘Herman’ Bleak and Moving Portraits of Modernity

László Krasznahorkai’s “The Last Wolf” begins in a seedy, vacant bar in Berlin, where the unnamed protagonist, eternally sipping on a glass of Sternburg, recounts his tale of utter misery in a single 70-page-spanning sentence. Although this highly unusual stylistic choice may seem like an unnecessary gimmick—similar premises have been seen in novels such as “Gadsby,” a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright written entirely without the letter “E”—it in fact amplifies the desired overall effect of “futility, scorn, and misery,” a trifecta of words often repeated in the short story and also effectively impressed upon the reader.

The meandering plot of “The Last Wolf” abounds with circularities and dead ends, which further create the central feeling of misery. As the obese, solitary, completely forgotten philosopher protagonist receives an unexpected invitation to visit Extramadura, Spain, the narrator and the characters describe Extramadura as “an enormous, mercilessly barren, flat place,” “outside the world,” and “there was nothing there, nothing,” and it is his task to rescue it from oblivion. This invitation is intriguingly reminiscent of the morning arrest of Franz Kafka’s character Josef K.; as such, an interruption of the philosopher’s dreary existence seems completely random, a result of some massive confusion, for “there wasn’t anyone behind the [philosopher’s] name now.” There is a surprising sense of irony in the motive of the invitation— a prize, in contrast to the developments in Kafka’s “The Trial”—as it functions as punishment for the dejected philosopher. His misery increases as he cannot communicate to his hosts how inadequate he is to fulfill the task of reviving Extramadura, that equally forgotten piece of land. Still, through further complications and misunderstandings he does not try to rectify, his visit becomes a rather unmotivated quest to discover the fate of a group of wolves in the region—hence the title “The Last Wolf.”

Krasznahorkai utilizes third person narration, which creates detachment from the misery of the philosopher but masterfully retains the feeling of dullness that permeates his days. However, this technique, combined with the story’s monomanic punctuation and its general Kafkaesqueness, successfully causes it to come as a surprise when the story of the last wolves reaches an affecting— even tragic—climax. In particular, the last scene in Extramadura wouldn’t feel out of place in an Almodóvar film, as it is distinguished by a strange, cruel kind of humor (and Krasznahorkai is no stranger to translations of the sort—his collaboration with the filmmaker Bela Tarr on the widely acclaimed 7 hour film Sátántangó is another exercise in stretching the limits of an artistic form).

On the other hand, “Herman,” alternatively also titled “The Game Warden” and “The Death of a Craft,” tells the story of the titular, extremely skilled gamekeeper. After miraculously (given the increasing obsolescence of his profession) being employed to clear up a neglected part of a forest, he reaches an epiphany upon one day seeing a fox brutalized by his traps and starts using his extraordinary skills for a more sinister purpose.

The story, far less sparse in style than “The Last Wolf” and more conventional in its punctuation, still reaches an equally tragic climax, but with hints of divine redemption in its first part. However, the second part retells the story from the first section through the perspective of a group of officers, which eventually leaves the Christian divinity of the first part challenged. This is a fascinating development that creates the sense of confusion characteristic of Krasznahorkai’s writing.

The setting of “Herman” and its historical context are also compelling: It was originally published in 1986 and depicts the Hungarian countryside with its conflicts of delayed yet upcoming modernity. This theme manifests itself in one of the alternative titles—”The Death of a Craft”— and serves as one of the looming tragedies in Krasznahorkai’s description of Extramadura. Conversely, “The Last Wolf” was written in 2013, and its setting is remarkable because of the political circumstances, as then there were only hints of the immigration crisis to come. Yet there were already tensions in European multiculturalism then, present in the motives of Kurdish graffiti and the disinterested Hungarian bartender in a misplaced bar in Turkish neighbourhood of Berlin. Furthermore, another intriguing aspect of the settings are their literary predecessors—a specific central European bleak atmosphere and the omnipresent tragedy of the mundane feel connected to Kafka in a yet another way.

Finally, the question of why “Herman” and “The Last Wolf” are being republished together might arise. The answer might lie in the fact that "Herman" often entertains the idea of a clash with nature, which is far from absent in “The Last Wolf,” intertwined with the threat of approaching modernity. This clash yields ambiguous results but leaves the reader admiring the radical yet skillfully crafted stories.