Abu Telfan

Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge is a novel by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written from April 1865 to April 1867 and was published by Eduard Hallberger in Stuttgart at Christmas 1867 . The author went through six editions.

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The 27-year-old Leonhard Hagebucher was enrolled at the University of Leipzig , but ran away from home and went to Egypt, where he wanted to help dig through the Isthmus of Suez . Advancing inland from Chartum , in 1848 he came under the control of the Baggara , a nomadic people of cattle herders. From these he was sold into slavery in Abu Telfan, a town in Dar-Fur . After eleven years of humiliation, he was finally ransomed by an animal dealer named Kornelius van der Mook.

In 1860 Leonhard returned to his hometown Bumsdorf, near the town of Nippenburg in an unnamed miniature state . His father, the retired tax inspector Hagebucher, had thought him dead until then. The bourgeois inhabitants of his village had assumed that he had probably fallen against the Nubians in the service of the viceroy of Egypt Muhammad Ali . Since Leonhard neither "died at the front" nor suffered a "martyr's death", but returns home as a " vagabond ", the family council is unhappy to see him again. In the future, people will refer to him as an “African stranger”. When the philistines from Nippenburg finally declare Leonhard to be a rascal , his father throws him out of the door. Leonhard feels compelled to become a useful member of the community again in order to receive recognition.

His uncle Wassertreter, a road construction inspector from Nippenburg - just as little respected by the petty bourgeoisie as Leonhard - takes him across the country to inspect the ditches. On this occasion Leonhard learns news from the area. He makes the acquaintance of Klaudine Fehleysen, who has been waiting for her son Viktor to return for eight years. Viktor had believed his honor had been lost and had fled "from people's insults". His father, a high-ranking officials and Councilor, namely who blow hit when he engaged in a criminal case should be arrested. Leonhard seeks out Klaudine Fehleysen and wants to know from her how he can "start the fight with this foolish civilization again". The old woman advises him to publicize his desert experiences in Germany.

Leonhard also gets to know a relative of the landlord von Bumsdorf, the 27-year-old Nikola von Einstein, "Lady in waiting for Her Highness the Princess Marianne". Nikola's father had been a general, his mother a born Freiin von Glimmern. The beggarly poor Nikola was compelled by her mother to marry Lieutenant Colonel Freiherr Friedrich von Glimmern. A year later, Leonhard met Mrs. Nikola von Glimmern in the royal seat of the small principality. It turns out that both views differ significantly.

Leonhard rents a room in the capital and makes friends with his roommate, the dreaming tailor Felix Täubrich. Both are connected by their stay in the Orient. The German tailor had stayed in Damascus as Pascha Abul Täubrich ibn Täubrich . Leonhard learns that Täubrich knows Viktor Fehleysen, the son of the waiting Klaudine Fehleysen. Täubrich also mentions that Viktor perished before Sebastopol .

Uncle Wassertreter introduces Leonhard to his old university friend Professor Christian Georg Reihenschlager, a linguist. Leonhard quickly became an assistant to the scholar. Reihenschlager and Leonhard are working with Täubrich on a large grammar of Coptic and an Egyptian lexicon. During this time, Leonhard falls in love with Miss Serena, the 19-year-old daughter of the professor. Finally, he follows the advice of Klaudine Fehleysen and speaks in the presence of the nobility and the educated public with police permission on inner Africa and the relationship between Europeans on the subject. The lecture comes to an abrupt end, as Leonard is left speechless when Kornelius van der Mook enters the hall. In the turmoil of the ensuing departure, however, he loses sight of his savior. The Princely Police Director Johann von Betzendorff, who had followed the lecture from the first row of seats in the hall, forbade Leonhard in writing the next day to “wash the head in an African way” for German citizens.

A short time later a Herr Kind, a retired lieutenant from the punishment company in Wallenburg, intrudes into the attic where Leonhard and Täubrich are sleeping. Leonhard is brought to van der Mook. Lieutenant Kind, of petty-bourgeois origin, declares there that he cannot get over the death of his wife and daughter. Once he had been in a company with the Baron von Glimmern. In return for possession of the body of the child's daughter, the child had von Glimmern promoted. The baron had her bridegroom Adolf, a soldier and clerk at the Fehleysen court counselor, transferred to Kind's penal company - allegedly for insubordination . When the Baron von Glimmern visits Wallenburg on business, Adolf fires at the visitor. Child has the assassin shot on the spot. Herr von Glimmern survived the attack.

Van der Mook identifies himself as Viktor Fehleysen, corporal and comrade Kinds. Viktor's father, the Fehleysen council, had been called in at the court martial in the child against von Glimmern case as legal counsel for lieutenant child. It further emerges that Viktor loved Nikola in his youth. Now she is married to Glimmer's cowardly murderer. Lieutenant Kind and Viktor want Leonhard's advice as impartial in the matter. The respondent has no advice. Viktor finally refuses to murder Baron von Glimmern and visits his mother together with Leonhard. Meanwhile, Leonhard's father is dying. Leonhard is too late. The father is dead.

The Philistines decide that the inheritance has made the African stranger respectable and socially acceptable. It appears to be particularly useful for financial purposes. Leonhard then wants to marry the daughter of the Coptic scholar. He's too late, however, because Miss Serena is already married to a former colleague of the professor. At a reception given by Herr von Betzendorff, Täubrich smuggled in Lieutenant Kind. The officer accuses Glimmer of fraud and attempts an assassination attempt on the enemy. Von Glimmer can flee and is pursued by children. Both kill each other in a duel in London. Corporal Viktor went overseas, sided with General Grant , went to the North American War, and died in the Battle of Richmond .

The widowed Nikola has fled to Klaudine Fehleysen and is staying there. For Leonhard, the two women who have no more tears and just sit quietly behind their flowers have died. So he leaves them with the words: “Now we want to go back to the living.” He is aiming for the post of Nippenburg council clerk.

shape

Mostly Raabe tells the story of the homecoming of his “African” Leonhard Hagebucher with a slight irony. Many places in the novel are purely fictional or are only drawn cursory. Approaching entanglements - if they occur at all - are described simply and without an exciting plot. In addition, Leonhard acts - especially shortly after his return - as an observer of German small states after the revolution in 1848 .

An omniscient narrator takes the reader by the hand and guides them through the novel on practicable paths. He doesn't want to impose himself and keeps track of things. At the fork in the road he chooses the right branch. The criminal case of Lieutenant Kind is given as little attention as possible. The narrator also risks a glimpse into the future: “A ghost fear came over her, from which she was never completely free again in her later life.” And he intervenes: “We can only regret that we are no longer at the beginning or in the middle of our book. "

The novel is divided into three parts. Hagebucher stays in the village and in between in the residence. Raabe leaves a gap between the first and the second part. There is another kind of break in the novel as well. Leonhard overslept some things. In addition, Leonhard's choice of words reveals his past. For example, he calls out: " Maschallah !"

reception

• Moritz Hartmann in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung in 1868 : Raabe's texts remained in the “German atmosphere”. The material comes "from real life". We are talking about the “miseries” of European “civilization”. The “joke” and the “tendency” of the book are related to the fact that Leonhard sometimes longs to go back to the “hell of slavery” with his “Bagarra negroes”. Raabe is a humorist. Leonhard's courtship, for example, is a "cabinet piece". The lack of a "satisfactory degree" is a positive.
• In March 1907 in Munich , Hermann Hesse emphasized the praiseworthy characteristics of the African.
• Wilhelm Heeß wrote in 1926 that this African imprisonment also contained an opportunity to gain “inner freedom”.
• Hermann Meyer: The eccentric in German poetry . Munich 1963 .: The “heroic pessimism”, in which optimism is balanced against “clairvoyance” without illusion, is a pillar of the book.
• Richard Hildreth anticipated the idea of ​​“trapped in Africa” in 1852 in The White Slave or The Life Story of a Refugee .
• According to von Studnitz, the aristocrats come off badly in the book. With the figure of Nikola Raabe draws a new image of women.
• Schwanenberg-Liebert received his doctorate on the novel. The subject of this “political novel” is “collisions with the authorities”. "Loneliness" is not a bad thing, it is necessary in " individuation ". Initially, the actors suffered “from acute inhibition of action”.
• Oppermann names further work: Hermann Junge (1950), Hubert Ohl (Heidelberg 1968) and Hans Mayer (Hamburg 1980). Fuld mentions Hans Weßling (1921) and Doris Bachmann (1979). Meyen lists 52 reviews from the years 1868 to 1968.
• The book was included in the ZEIT library of 100 books .

literature

Text output

Used edition

• Abu Telfan or The Homecoming from the Moon Mountains . In: Peter Goldammer, Helmut Richter (ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Selected works in six volumes . 4th volume, Abu Telfan. The Schüdderump . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1964 (text basis: Karl Hoppe : the historical-critical Braunschweiger edition).

Further editions

• Otto Janke: Abu Telfan or The Homecoming from the Moon Mountains . 7th edition. Berlin 1911.
• The Hunger Pastor - Abu Telfan - The Schüdderump . Trilogy . With stone drawings by Hermann Gradl . Hermann-Klemm-Verlag, Berlin-Grunewald (no year, around 1938).
• Karl Hoppe (ed.), Werner Röpke (edit.): Wilhelm Raabe: Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge. Roman Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969 (2nd edition), Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition , vol. 7 (24 vol.)
• Abu Telfan or The Homecoming from the Moon Mountains. A novel in three parts. In: Anneliese Klingenberg (ed.): Raabe's works in five volumes . tape 3 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1972.
• Meyen names 19 issues from the years 1867 to 1963.

Secondary literature

• Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). Supplementary volume 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
• Hans Oppermann : Wilhelm Raabe. With testimonials and photo documents. 5th edition. Rowohlt-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-499-50165-1 .
• Cecilia von Studnitz : Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography . Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6 .
• Claudia Schwanenberg-Liebert: From community to loneliness. Studies on the occurrence of a literary sociological phenomenon in the work of Wilhelm Raabe . Dissertation from the University of Düsseldorf. Peter-Lang-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-631-45030-3 .
• Werner Fuld : Wilhelm Raabe. A biography . Hanser-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-34324-9 .

Web links

• The text at Gutenberg.de
• The text at Zeno.org

Remarks

1. ↑ The second edition was just the rest of the first edition. Only the headlines and the foreword had been rewritten. (From: Goldammer, Richter (ed.): Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge . 1964, p. 745 . )
2. ↑ The novel consists of 36 numbered chapters. In the edition used, the names of the three parts have been omitted, but not in the Klingenberg edition. Then the second part begins with the 13th chapter and the third with the 25th chapter.
3. ↑ See for example the "dormouse sleep" in the moon mountains. Leonhard also slept through incidents during his watch on his father's deathbed.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Goldammer, Richter (ed.): Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge . 1964, p. 741.743 .
2. ^ Studnitz: Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography . 1989, p. 311 (entry 32).
3. ↑ Goldammer, Richter (ed.): Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge . 1964, p. 746-750 .
4. ↑ Goldammer, Richter (ed.): Abu Telfan or Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge . 1964, p. 750-751 .
5. ↑ Schwanenberg-Liebert: From community to loneliness . 1992, p. 211 .
6. ^ Oppermann: Wilhelm Raabe . 1988, p. 75 .
7. ↑ Fuld: Wilhelm Raabe. A biography . 2006, p. 221 .
8. ↑ Richard Hildreth, 1807-1865, The White Slave; or, Memoirs of a Fugitive. In: Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, accessed February 7, 2011 .  
9. ^ Studnitz: Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography . 1989, p. 184.198 .
10. ↑ Schwanenberg-Liebert: From community to loneliness . 1992, p. 205-306 .
11. ^ Oppermann: Wilhelm Raabe . 1988, p. 151.157 .
12. ↑ Fuld: Wilhelm Raabe. A biography . 2006, p. 373 .
13. ↑ Meyen, pp. 306-311
14. ↑ Meyen, pp. 36-38