Three Paths to the Lake
Each of the five stories in Three Paths to a Lake, Ingeborg Bachmann's second powerful collection, is the portrait of an Austrian woman in the late 1960s living in a social order that is largely defined by men.
Bachmann's narratives trace the path by which each woman is brought to an elementary state of isolation and speechlessness. But, as Mark Anderson writes in his introduction to the book, though she "gives an account of [their] hopelessly mired and isolated lives," she does it without herself giving up hope.
Bachmann's narratives trace the path by which each woman is brought to an elementary state of isolation and speechlessness. But, as Mark Anderson writes in his introduction to the book, though she "gives an account of [their] hopelessly mired and isolated lives," she does it without herself giving up hope.