The last wolf ; & Herman : the game warden, the death of a craft
(Book)

"A New Directions Book."

"Originally published in Hungarian as Az utolsó farkas (The Last Wolf, originally published 2009), and Herman, a vadőr, A mesterségnek vége (Herman, originally published 1986)"--Title page verso.

"Two short masterworks by the most recent winner of the Man Booker International Prize {u2026} {u2018}The Last Wolf,{u2019} translated by George Szirtes, features a classic, obsessed Krasznahorkai narrator, a man hired to write (by mistake, by a glitch of fate) the true tale of the last wolf of Extremadura, a barren stretch of Spain. This miserable experience (being mistaken for another, dragged about a cold foreign place, appalled by a species{u2019} end) is narrated{u2015}all in a single sentence{u2015}as a sad looping tale, a howl more or less, in a dreary wintry Berlin bar to a patently bored bartender. {u2018}The Last Wolf{u2019} is Krasznahorkai in a maddening nutshell{u2015}with the narrator trapped in his own experience (having internalized the extermination of the last creature of its kind and {u2018}locked Extremadura in the depths of his own cold, empty, hollow heart{u2019}){u2015}enfolding the reader in the exact same sort of entrapment to and beyond the end, with its first full-stop period of the book. Herman, {u2018}a peerless virtuoso of trapping who guards the splendid mysteries of an ancient craft gradually sinking into permanent oblivion,{u2019} is asked to clear a forest{u2019}s last {u2018}noxious beasts.{u2019} {u2018}In Herman I: the Game Warden,{u2019} he begins with great zeal, although in time he {u2018}suspects that maybe he was "on the wrong scent."{u2019} Herman switches sides, deciding to track entirely new game... In {u2018}Herman II: The Death of a Craft,{u2019} the same situation is viewed by strange visitors to the region. Hyper-sexualized aristocratic officers on a very extended leave are enjoying a saturnalia with a bevy of beauties in the town nearest the forest. With a sense of effete irony, they interrupt their orgies to pitch in with the manhunt of poor Herman, and in the end, {u2018}only we are left to relish the magic bouquet of this escapade...{u2019}" Translated by John Batki." {u2013} Amazon.com.