The second chapter, 'The Third Man', is the climax of the narrative. They begin an affair but soon Ivan begins to avoid her and ultimately rejects her. She meets Ivan, a young Hungarian man, and falls in love with him. The writer shares a flat with the calm and rational Malina, a historian, who offers her the necessary support as she is often confused and seems to be losing touch with reality. She is a writer and intellectual living in Vienna during the second half of the 20th century. The novel focuses on an unnamed female narrator, known only as I., who explores her existential situation as a woman and writer both through personal reflection and in dialogue form. The book was adapted into a 1991 film with the same title, directed by Werner Schroeter from a screenplay by Bachmann's compatriot Elfriede Jelinek. The text deals with themes including gender relations, guilt, mental illness, writing, and collective and personal trauma in the context of post- Second World War Vienna.
It tells the story of a female writer and her relationships with two different men, one joyous and one introverted. Malina is a 1971 novel by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann.
