Doctor novel

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The doctor's novel is a vague genre designation for novels that are set in a medical environment and are usually assigned to entertainment or trivial literature .

Origin of the genre

In the course of the 19th century, the first literary works were created, which doctors and their environment made their main subject. Examples of this are Jean Paul 's novella Dr. Katzenberger's bathing trip (1809) and the story Der Kreisphysikus (1883) by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach . In the first half of the 20th century, more and more novels were written, the authors of which were often doctors themselves, who processed their own experiences. For example, William Somerset Maugham in Of Human Bondage (1915, German first edition: Der Menschen Hörigkeit (1939)) describes the development of a medical student into a doctor, other well-known works are Sorrell and Son (1925, German Captain Sorel and his son (1927)) von Warwick Deeping and the Pulitzer Prize- winning novel Arrowsmith (1925, German: Dr. med. Arrowsmith (1925)) by Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis . In the German-speaking countries, the socially critical doctor novels by Hans Lungwitz ( Führer der Menschheit (1910), The Last Doctor. A Social Novel from the Future (1912)) and The Cavalier by Ernst Moritz Mungenast (1938) have appeared.

In 1937 AJ Cronin published his novel The Citadel (German translation: Die Zitadelle (1938)), which deals with questions of medical ethics and paints a critical picture of health care and medicine in Great Britain. In addition to the social criticism that is in the foreground and the character development of the main character in the sense of a development or educational novel, the novel also contains a love story that is of central importance, as is typical for the genre later. The novel developed into one of the most influential books of the 1930s in Great Britain and soon also an international bestseller, and a successful film adaptation was made under the direction of King Vidor in the following year . Due to his success and influence, he is now often regarded as the classic doctor novel and his author, who also wrote other doctor novels (including Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae , German A Hero in the Shadow ), is seen as the founder of the genre. Other internationally known authors of doctor novels are the bestselling author Frank Gill Slaughter ( inter alia That None Should Die (German demigod in white ), Woman in White (German intensive care unit ), The Healer (German chief physician Dr. Carter )) and James Herriot , who in All Creatures Great and Small (dt. The Doctor and the Love Cattle ) (1972) humorous describes the experiences of a veterinarian in the country.

In the German war prose after 1945 the doctor novel played a special role: By combining Hippocratic action and healing, the war crimes could be put into perspective particularly easily. The legend of a “ clean Wehrmacht ” was anchored in the social consciousness via the war prose. Examples are The Invisible Flag by Peter Bamm (1952) and The Doctor of Stalingrad by Heinz G. Konsalik (1956).

A current example from contemporary German literature is the doctor novel by Kristof Magnusson . The title is only partially understood as a genre designation, rather it shows itself as a ruse and ironic reference to penny books .

The trivial doctor novel

After the Second World War , the doctor novel established itself primarily as a fixed genre within trivial literature . There he usually deals with the same love topics as the women's novel . There are regular triangular relationships in the doctor and clinic milieu, whereby a rival as well as an illness can occur as a disturbing third party. The third person is sacrificed as a scapegoat at the end of the novel. At the same time, the lust for life, symbolized by this third person, is drawn from the two-person relationship that has thus been established. Manfred Sera therefore speaks of the fact that in the trivial doctor novel the necrophilic tendencies come to victory. The conception of a fulfilled relationship that characterizes the trivial doctor novel, often with a nurse or other hospital staff, places loyalty above love: love becomes a duty and thus a fetter. The protagonists of the trivial doctor novel respond to the loss of the beloved partner with a total suppression of their own feelings.

The predominant type of publication of these doctor novels is the booklet novel , in which the authors are often given tight schematic guidelines. These specifications relate to both the plot and the scope: Due to the printing technology, each issue could only have 64 inside pages and a dust jacket. New publications and editions usually have a smaller format and a correspondingly larger number of pages (128 inner pages); they are glued to the spine like paperback books.

A typical example of the trivial doctor novel is the doctor novel series Dr. Norden by Patricia Vandenberg , who with more than 180 million copies sold in several editions and over 850 individual novels is probably the most successful German-language magazine series. Another successful doctor novel series from more recent times is Dr. Katja König from the Swiss author Nicole Amrein . It has been published since 2001. The readership of medical novels in trivial literature is 95% women, including older women. They have the lowest level of education of all romance novelists, but set themselves apart from the mountain and homeland novel readers.

literature

  • Kaspar Niklaus Wildberger: Beates blond hair, or, linguistic aspects of schematic literature . P. Lang, 1988, ISBN 3-261-03952-3 ( online ).
  • Bettina von Jagow , Florian Steger: Literature and Medicine: A Lexicon. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2005, ISBN 3-525-21018-3 .
  • Solomon Posen: The Doctor in Literature . 1: Satisfaction or Resentment? . Radcliffe Publishing, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-85775-609-6 .
  • Solomon Posen: The Doctor in Literature . 2: Private Life . Radcliffe Publishing, Oxford 2006, ISBN 1-85775-779-3 ( online ).
  • Philipp A. Scott: The Medical Research Novel in English and German, 1900-1950. Popular Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87972-552-4 .
  • Borys Surawicz, Beverly Jacobson: Doctors in Fiction: Lessons from Literature. Radcliffe Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84619-328-6 .
  • Birgit Panke-Kochinke: nurse novels (1914-2018). Contexts - patterns - perspectives. Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-8632-1423-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German universal dictionary . Duden Verlag, Mannheim 2007, ISBN 3-411-05506-5 , pp.  Entry: doctor novel .
  2. ↑ a b c Ulrike Röper: A short journey into medical fiction // The doctor in a novel - from art to kitsch . In: Ärztliche Praxis Gesundheitszeitung . No. 1 , 2001, p. 5 .
  3. ↑ Annika Fellermeyer: The doctor Hans Lungwitz in the mirror of his social reform writings (PDF; 2.8 MB) , section 2.4. Dissertation, University of Würzburg 2005.
  4. ^ A b Ross McKibbin: Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951. Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-820672-0 , p. 484 ff. ( Limited preview in Google book search)
  5. ^ Entry in The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database at NYU
  6. ↑ AJ Cronin . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/1981 (temporary copy online )
  7. ↑ Martin B Van Der Weyden: Doctors as stars . In: Medical Journal of Australia , October 17, 2008.
  8. ^ Gerhard Beckmann: Last novel . In: Die Welt , June 9, 2001.
  9. ↑ Eberhard Bahr: Defensive Compensation . In: Hans Wagener (Ed.): From Böll to Buchheim: German war prose after 1945 . Rodopi, Amsterdam / Atlanta GA 1997, ISBN 978-3-525-21017-8 , pp. 199 ff., especially 210 f . ( online ).
  10. ↑ Ursula März: Will he get through? . THE TIME Nº 41/2014
  11. ^ Walter Nutz: The trivial novel, its forms and its manufacturers . A contribution to the sociology of literature. Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne 1962, p. 23 ( here online ).
  12. ↑ a b c d Manfred Sera: Condemned to happiness . The conflict between duty and love in the trivial doctor novel. In: Journal for German Philology . Studies on German literary history and genre poetics. tape 97 . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1978, p. 120–128 (special issue).
  13. ↑ Peter Nusser: Novels for the lower class. Groschenhefte and their readers (=  texts Metzler . Volume 27 ). 1st edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-476-00465-1 , p. 39 f .
  14. ↑ Eckart Klaus Roloff : Kitsch and Reality. (About the representation of nurses and doctors in trivial novels.) In: Schwesternrevue, 8th year 1970, issue 11, pp. 12–16, and issue 12, pp. 17–20.
  15. ↑ Joseph Gepp: Dreischgroschenheros ( Memento of the original from April 2, 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. in the magazine Datum (Edition 8/2006)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.date.at
  16. ^ Mathias Irle: How do you actually become a doctor novelist, Ms. Schiede? Archived from the original on June 19, 2010. In: FAZ Hochschulanzeiger . No. 73, June 7, 2004. Retrieved January 4, 2009.
  17. ↑ Biographical note on the author ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2009 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. on doktor-norden.de  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.doktor-norden.de
  18. ↑ Anna Thalmann: At the end of the short sentences, love wins . (PDF; 101 kB) In: NZZ , June 15, 2003.
  19. ^ Walter Nutz: Topic book novels . In: Werner Faulstich (Hrsg.): Medien und Kultur (=  magazine for literary studies and linguistics (LiLi) ). Supplement 16. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1991, ISBN 3-525-21017-5 , p. 111 ( here online [accessed on August 10, 2012]).
  20. ^ Walter Nutz, Volker Schlögell: Die Heftroman-readers and readers in Germany . Contributions to the recording of popular cultural phenomena. In: Communications . The European Journal of Communication. tape 16 , no. 2 . de Gruyter , 1991, ISSN  0341-2059 , p. 129-235 .

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