The book of the forgotten artists

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The Book of Forgotten Artists is the second novel by German writer Vera Buck , published in September 2018 . It tells the story of two showmen living in Berlin during the years of National Socialism .

construction

The historical novel tells the story of Mathis Bohnsack and his partner Meta in two parallel storylines.

The prologue takes the reader to Berlin in 1935, while the first chapter under the heading “The Beginning - Electric Miracles” introduces the second narrative thread, beginning in Langweiler , a town in the German province in 1902. From then on, the plot is narrated in a total of forty chapters, always alternating between the two narrative strands. The book ends with an epilogue called “The Last Page” .

The novel is preceded by a quote from Florian Weiland from "The Forgotten Generation".

The prologue is followed by a quote from the authors Messen-Jashin , Dering , Cuneo from their publication “The World of Showmen from XVI. until XX. Century.".

Chapter 31 is preceded by a quote from Vicki Baum's memoirs.

The book concludes with a list of all the historical characters in the novel.

content

Langweiler 1902: Mathis Bohnsack, the 13th son of a bean farmer, only knows his life in the fields and on his parents' farm. It wasn't until one day at the fair that he saw an X-ray machine with which people could be x- rayed that he was immediately fascinated and it wasn't difficult for him to join the showmen and discover the world beyond the hills that surround his village. Together with Master Bo he traveled through the south of Germany, got to know the Oktoberfest and eventually came to Zurich , where he found work as an X-ray artist in Walter Brückner's Panoptikum .

In Zurich, Mathis meets the power woman Meta and falls in love with her at first sight. They now roam the country together until one day they come to Paris , where they can work at the Folies Bergère . There they meet the American Loie Fuller . This awakens the desire in Meta to go to America . But after an accident, she first has to bury this dream.

Berlin 1935: Meta and Mathis live in a trailer park on the outskirts of Berlin. It's not a good time for artists. There are hardly any opportunities to perform, stages are closed, and performance bans are imposed. And one night the artists and performers are kidnapped from their settlement. Berlin is to be cleaned up for the Olympic Games .

Mathis decides to write a book against oblivion. A book with the life stories of all the artists who he fears would otherwise be forgotten all too quickly. Meta's desire to travel to America reawakens because of the circumstances and this time she wants to implement it at all costs. Pursued by the Gestapo , an adventurous escape from Germany begins.

background

With this book, Vera Buck refers to the so-called " Lost Generation ". During her research on the x-ray of the fair, she stumbled upon the question of where the many artists , folk shows , people of short stature and exhibited disabled people disappeared to in the thirties . In the epilogue she writes: “Like Mathis, I couldn't accept that their existences could just be wiped out by the Nazis. That there weren't even any entries about arrests or admissions! ”So she revives many of them, people of whom“ today there is often nothing more than a faded autograph card - and mostly not even that. ”This is how the reader learns, for example,“ Knowing the beautiful Andrahama ", a magician from a Völkerschau by Hagenbeck's Sinhalese, Flora le Dirt, a colossal and giant lady who also appeared in vaudeville shows , as well as the" iron king " Siegmund Breitbart and many others who are known as" skin man "," human. " Pincushion "or" hair athlete "made a living .

Also of interest is the figure based on the model of the historically certified artist Charlotte Rickert , who is portrayed in the novel as the only female participant in weightlifting at the 1936 Olympic Games , said to have beaten all male opponents in her weight class The gold medal that has been won is said to have been awarded a special medal. However, historical evidence is lacking for Rickert's participation in the Olympics as described by Buck.

In addition, Mathis and Meta met other artists over the years, whose careers were far more successful. In Paris between 1904 and 1908 they made friends with the American dancer Loie Fuller , performed together with a very young Charles Chaplin and met the music student Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller . They also met a young singer named Gabrielle Chanel , whom she would like to employ for her women's rights movement , and in 1908 they shared a toilet in Vienna with the unsuccessful painter and composer Adolf Hitler .

Claire Waldoff , who struggled with performance bans in Berlin in the mid-1930s, plays an important role as the friend of the two protagonists .

reception

Vera Buck's second novel was consistently well received. Although the book is accused of one length or another, the figure drawing and Buck's writing style are praised everywhere.

"Vera Buck resurrects them [the fairground artists], 750 full pages long, with loving words for their little heroes and laconic, smug remarks."

- Christiane Irrgang : NDR culture

“Despite all of its length (s), the novel rarely gets boring. […] Vera Buck keeps her characters very much alive. Even with the numerous supporting characters, you often get the feeling that you get to know them very well in just a few pages. And who would have thought that in a book about people who suffered under Hitler's tyranny, humor would play such an important role? Yes, "The Book of the Forgotten Artists" also has a lot of sympathetic humor [...] "

- Janine Gimbel : Schreiblust-leselust.de

“Vera Buck's novels are a very special, incomparably grandiose reading event right down to the last sentence. With ‹The Book of Forgotten Artists› she succeeds in one of the best, most interesting reading highlights you can ever get your hands on. Definitely highly valuable in literary terms! The author has mastered storytelling at the highest level. She can write, more captivating and rousing than anyone else in her profession. "

- Susann Fleischer : literaturmarkt.info

“[...] Buck takes on a side of society that is still having a hard time today; it focuses on the artists and showmen and their fates from 1902 to 1939 in the focus of their history. [...] Buck manages not to neglect humor in this book, despite the tough subject matter. Your characters have common sense and a healthy dose of vitality and self-irony. This mixture makes the book so worth reading. [...] "

- Jane Linnéa Fetzer : zeilenliebe.com

expenditure

See also

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Florian Weiland: The forgotten generation. In: Südkurier of April 14, 2016.
  2. ↑ Le monde des forains du XVIe au XXe siecle , Editions des trois continents (1986), ISBN 978-2-88001-195-6
  3. ↑ Vicki Baum: It was all completely different, memories , Kiepenheuer & Witsch publishing house, Cologne 1987
  4. ^ Kienzle, Karl: Karl Kienzle photo collection: VI. Troop support 1944. Baden-Württemberg State Archives, Department Main State Archives Stuttgart, accessed on July 29, 2019 .
  5. ^ The book of the forgotten artists, afterword by the author, p. 749
  6. ↑ https://www.ndr.de/kultur/buch/Vera-Buck-Das-Buch-der-vergessenen-Artisten,verabuck102.html
  7. ↑ http://schreiblust-leselust.de/vera-buck-das-buch-der-vergessenen-artisten
  8. ↑ http://www.literaturmarkt.info/cms/front_content.php?idcat=81&idart=10806
  9. ↑ https://zeilenliebe.com/2018/09/23/das-buch-der-vergessenen-artisten/