The magician's cabinet

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Das Kabinett des Magiers (original title The Prestige ) is a novel by the British author Christopher Priest from 1995, in Germany since 2007 also available under the title Prestige - Meister der Magie . This new title is derived from the film adaptation of the material by director Christopher Nolan .

action

Two stage magicians fight for the audience in gloomy London at the end of the 19th century .

The beginning of the story: A young man who is looking for his life path and so far only knows what he does not want, feels more and more clearly that he must have a twin brother. However, all he has been able to find out so far is that he never had siblings. A letter lures him into an old house that used to belong to a magician named Angier. There he meets the attractive granddaughter Angiers. Never before has he felt more clearly that he has a twin brother. He stays to solve the riddle.

filming

The novel was filmed in 2006 by Christopher Nolan under the actual original title The Prestige . Hugh Jackman can be seen in the role of Robert Angier , while Christian Bale played Alfred Borden. Michael Caine , Scarlett Johansson , Andy Serkis and David Bowie can also be seen in supporting roles .

The script for The Prestige takes the novel by Christopher Priest only as a basis. The novel tells a much different story. One big difference is that the novel jumps back and forth between the present and the past.

criticism

“Priest's gripping and, in the end, incredibly creepy book is an ingenious mixture of crime, SF, horror and historical stories, whereby the greatest strength of the novel is that the reader has to unravel many of the suggested secrets: This is how it only comes to the end the book makes it clear what exactly is Borden's greatest secret and thus the basis of his most amazing trick. "

- Gunther Barnewald and Detlef Hedderich : In Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 1998 , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-13313-7 , p. 807.

“Priest tells from the perspective of Bordens and Angier, and while Angier achieves the transmission effect, which everything revolves around here, with the help of the power of electricity that emerged at the time, Borden seems to be experiencing a split in personality that is actually a reflection of himself himself, his Prestigio, into the world. The contradicting descriptions of the same events are the fulcrum of the novel and at the same time its greatest weakness ... "

- Sascha Mamczak : In Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 1998 , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-13313-7 , p. 810.

literature