Sooner or later (novel)
Sooner or later there will be a book for young people by Marie-Aude Murail . It first appeared in the original French under the title Maité Coiffure and in 2010 in the German translation by Tobias Scheffel .
content
Fourteen-year-old Louis Feyrières, son of a surgeon who has worked his way up from the orphanage, is, unlike his sister Floriane, a rather weak and uninterested student. When he is supposed to complete an internship for career orientation , his grandmother finds him a place in a hairdressing salon, where she has been a customer for a short time. The father thinks this is not befitting and would rather see the son placed on a radio station, but since Ludovic, the son of a colleague who Louis hates, is already doing his internship there, Louis insists on accepting the grandmother's suggestion.
To his surprise, he quickly found pleasure in the atmosphere in the salon and, above all, in the manual work. When the internship week is over, he asks if he can come back on his days or afternoons off, and the boss of the salon, Madame Marielou, who always remembers her son Etienne, who was killed in a traffic accident, gladly allows him to do so. But Louis realizes that it is impossible for him to return to school after this week. Without further ado, he invents a teachers strike, which the teachers at his school allegedly started out of solidarity with a colleague who is accused of being immorally touched an eighth grader, and continues to work in the Marielou salon. Of course, this escapade is revealed after a short time. Louis' school principal has an understanding and recognizes the practical intelligence of the boy. He makes sure that a contract is signed between the boy's family and the salon, according to which Louis can start an extra-curricular education there, and also gives him hopes that after completing the ninth grade he will leave school entirely and his apprenticeship full-time can compete. The only problem is that Louis' mother and grandmother didn't dare tell Monsieur Feyrières about it. Of course, he soon notices that his son is not keeping his promise to stay away from the hairdressing salon. When he meets Louis, he utters some provocative remarks, to which Louis responds accordingly: His father is an asshole. Louis is then punched down by his father in affect, so that he ends up in the hospital with a fractured skull and other injuries, which leads to a crisis between his parents and ultimately to the father giving in and admitting that the son is allowed to complete his apprenticeship .
One of the salon's employees, Clara, is in a relationship with an anti-social who one night breaks into the Marielou salon via the roof of the neighboring house, robbing the cash register and setting a fire. Madame Marielou, who lives next door, hears suspicious noises. She has been paralyzed since the car accident in which she lost Etienne and her husband . In the careless attempt to quickly get out of bed, she falls and breaks an arm, but can still alert the fire department and is rescued. At the hospital it turns out that she has an aneurysm that needs surgery. Louis' father is supposed to perform the operation, but has to be convinced of it by his son, who tells him that he will hate him if he does not at least try to save Madame Marielou. After the loss of her business and the previous blows of fate, she is ready to forego the risky operation, but can also be changed by Louis, who declares that he wants to do his training with her.
The operation succeeds, Louis becomes extremely successful as a hairdresser, takes over the Marielou salon and finally runs a chain with numerous branches. His father only speaks of him with pride.
reception
The book was adapted for school lessons in Germany, and teaching materials were published by S. Fischer Verlag .
Robert Schwettmann and Ute Weyand spoke very positively about Murail's work in a review: “She deals with the pitfalls of youthful identity in a credible and serious manner. In addition, she knows how to depict both the teenagers 'thoughts and the adults' views with a lot of wit and feeling. ”The Südwest Presse read:“ The book contains everything: falling in love, father-son relationship, scenes a marriage, violence, love, even death and of course - the world of the hair salon with its customers, chatter, smells. The best thing about the book is the epilogue , the outlook into the future: The development of Louis, the résumés of the people in the salon - if you don't cry, you don't have a heart.
A book for everyone who is about to do an internship and for those parents who believe that only a super high school diploma guarantees their offspring a golden future. After reading it, you just have to make an appointment with your hairdresser ”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Birgit Hock, Marie-Aude Murail. Sooner or later . PDF at www.fischerverlage.de , accessed on November 26, 2015.
- ↑ Read bar internet review at www.lesebar.uni-koeln.de ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the internet archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 26, 2015.
- ↑ Beate Rose, book review: Short or Long , in: Südwest Presse , May 20, 2010 ( www.swp.de ( Memento of February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), May 20, 2010).
