About the work
“Mein Name sei Gantenbein” (in English “Gantenbein”) is a novel by the Swiss writer Max Frisch, published by Suhrkamp in autumn 1964 and counted alongside “Stiller” and “Homo Faber” among his most important prose works. Frisch worked on it for about three years from 1960; he completed a first version in May 1963 under the title “Lila oder Ich bin blind”. On stage the novel is performed in dedicated adaptations, for instance at the Schauspielhaus Zürich in the 2013/14 season and, since January 2022, at the Berliner Ensemble as a solo for Matthias Brandt, adapted and directed by Oliver Reese.
Plot
A nameless first-person narrator whose wife has left him invents possible lives and roles for himself in 91 associatively assembled sections. The central figure is Theo Gantenbein, who pretends to be blind after a car accident and uses dark glasses and a cane to withdraw from the demands of those around him. Three imagined men revolve around the actress Lila: Gantenbein, Felix Enderlin and František Svoboda. When Gantenbein finally admits to Lila that he could see all along, she feels deceived and leaves him.
Cultural significance
Critics were divided at first, yet the book sold more than 100,000 copies within months and is now regarded as one of Frisch’s most influential novels. Scholars read it as a playful, almost postmodern exploration of how people assemble their identity from invented stories. Michael Bullock’s English translation appeared in 1965 as “A Wilderness of Mirrors”, later retitled “Gantenbein”; a radio adaptation was made in 1966.