The quake (novel)
The quake is a novel by Martin Mosebach published in 2005 and, along with Westend, is considered his main work.
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The novel is about an architect who is also the first-person narrator , who has to recognize that his lover Manon has a relationship with a popular artist whom he himself little appreciated. (Whose strongly satirical portrayal partly reminds of Friedensreich Hundertwasser , partly of André Heller .) Then the hero of the novel accepts an order in India , where he is to design a holiday center for a former prince .
This prince lost all political power long since India's independence, but continues to portray himself as a monarch and father of the country and largely ignores his economic problems. The plan to renovate itself through tourism, which the hotel to be built is supposed to bring to “its” country, has also turned out to be completely illusory, because the infrastructure in the region is hopelessly inadequate. Despite this quickly gained insight, the architect stayed in the Prince's residence and indulged in the Eastern impressions of life.
Highlights of the novel are a lengthy reflection on the holiness of the cow , which the first-person narrator “encounters” in the chapter Adoration of the holy cow, and a tour of the prince through his former kingdom in the chapter The King travels , in which the king travels in a masterly manner compatible with the illusion of someone who is still in power.
Then Manon appears on site and the Indian prince falls wholeheartedly in love with the completely unoriental western beauty. His sudden death, however, ends this constellation and lets the European guests go their separate ways again.
reception
See web links
expenditure
- The quake , Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2005 ISBN 3-446-20661-2
- Das Beben , DTV Taschenbuch, Munich 2007 ISBN 978-3-423-13568-9