Butcher's Crossing

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Butcher's Crossing is a novel by the American writer John Williams . It was published in 1960 by the New York publisher Macmillan . The German translation by Bernhard Robben was published by Deutsches Taschenbuch Verlag in 2015 . Williams' novel takes place in the second half of the 19th century and leads to the Wild West , in which a young student searches for his ideals and encounters the reality of a grueling and brutal hunt for buffalo .

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Bison in the Rocky Mountains

Around 1870, a few years after the American Civil War , William, called "Will," Andrews dropped out of his studies at Harvard College in Boston and traveled west. Influenced by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson , he hopes there to find the original nature and in it himself. He stays in the small settlement of Butcher's Crossing in Kansas , which lives primarily from buffalo hunting. The fur trader JD McDonald, an acquaintance of his father, puts him in contact with the hunter Miller. He seizes the opportunity to use Andrews' money to put together an expedition to Colorado in the Rocky Mountains , where many years ago he discovered a huge herd of buffalo in a remote valley. The two are accompanied by Miller's friend Charley Hoge, who the hunter amputated a frozen arm years ago, and the skinner Fred Schneider. Before they leave, Andrews meets the prostitute Francine, but in his sexual inexperience, he flees from her affection.

Even the way there is difficult. The expedition has to survive for days without water. Eventually Miller finds the remote valley, which is actually a herd of several thousand buffalo. Miller gets into a real hunting frenzy and shoots animals in such numbers that Schneider and the inexperienced Andrews can hardly keep up with the skinning. The sight of the carcasses of the once so impressive creatures leads to the first cracks in the student's idealistic image of nature. Although they soon collected more furs than they can carry in Hoges ox cart, Miller does not want to abandon the biggest hunt of his life and also hunts the scattered remains of the herd until they are surprised by the first snowfall of winter. The pass will soon be covered in snow and the cut-off group has to spend the winter in makeshift accommodation in the Rocky Mountains. When they can finally make their way back in the spring, Schneider is killed in a river that has been swollen by meltwater, and the ox cart with all its pelts tips over and is driven away.

Dead bison after a hunt in 1872

Andrews, Miller and Hoge return to Butcher's Crossing without any profit from their expedition, where they have long been believed dead. The settlement has since come to a standstill. A ruined McDonald reports that the buffalo hide market has collapsed and the hides left behind in the valley are almost worthless. The furious Miller sets fire to the remains of the fur shop. Hoge lost his mind due to the traumatic events of the expedition. Andrews at least finds Francine, whose memory brought him through the lonely nights in the mountains. The two spend a few happy days together. But after looking into nothingness on the expedition, Andrews becomes aware of the vanity of his previous passions. He leaves the sleeping Francine one morning and rides out into the prairie . He has no goal; he just knows that he will not be returning home.

reception

John Williams became known in the German-speaking world only posthumously through the novel Stoner , published in 2013 . Butcher's Crossing is the second of Williams' four novels to be translated into German in 2015. According to Wolfgang Schneider, it is also “a parable about failure”, but this time not in the confines of a university, but in the guise of a “neo- western ”, which impresses “with the vastness of the rooms and grandiose landscape panoramas”. In spite of the completely different subject matter, Luzia Stettler says that "the handwriting of John Williams remains unmistakable". From the first page on, the reader gets “caught up in his visual, sensual language” and anticipates the impending catastrophe.

According to Angela Schader, the novel "shatters the glory of the American West". According to Gabriele von Arnim, “the great American myth of the promise of freedom, of the adventure of the Wild West, of the longing for human fulfillment ” is “conjured up and horribly decoupled ”. For Alexander Cammann, Williams tells “ America's frontier story again”, albeit not as one of the hunt for happiness, wealth and power, but as one in which people plunge into adventure and uncertainty out of boredom and a longing to break out, driven by the mythical Power of the American Dream . Christopher Schmidt praises an "anti- educational novel " that examines the founding myth of the USA and allows deep insights into human abysses.

For Thomas Andre it is “a parable, profound and captivating book that tells a simple, very American story” and asks existential questions. Four men ride "against the triumph of modernity". Klaus Nüchtern reads “a novel about work” and praises “the metaphysical impact that this existential parable about greed, loneliness and the futility of our endeavors develops”. He compares the hunter Miller in his driven nature with Captain Ahab from Melville's Moby-Dick . For some other critics, such as Christoph Schröder, Williams' novel points ahead to the works of Cormac McCarthy . Williams' language is "less charged and rich in images" than McCarthy's, but he achieved "a high intensity in his stoic description of violence and privation". Holger Kreitling sums up: "A book like a buffalo, stoic, dark, powerful, almost extinct."

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Schneider: The passion of killing reveals itself in the eyes . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 21, 2015.
  2. ↑ Luzia Stettler: "Butcher's Crossing" - Tragedies in the World of Cowboy Romanticism . In: SRF of March 8, 2015.
  3. ↑ Angela Schader: Apocalypse in Eden . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from March 3, 2015.
  4. ↑ Gabriele von Arnim : The fascination of killing . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur from April 15, 2015.
  5. ↑ Alexander Cammann: In the battle of the elements . In: The time of March 3, 2015.
  6. ↑ Christopher Schmidt: Buffalo Kill . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 28, 2015. Quoting from review notes on Butcher's Crossing at perlentaucher.de .
  7. ↑ Thomas Andra: A simple, very American story . In: Der Spiegel from February 24, 2015.
  8. ↑ Klaus Nüchtern : Butcher's Crossing In: Falter 27/2015.
  9. ↑ Christoph Schröder: The West is wild, the job is difficult . In: Frankfurter Rundschau of May 12, 2015.
  10. ↑ Holger Kreitling : How the buffalo climbed the bestseller list . In: Die Welt from April 11, 2015.