The stone heart (Arno Schmidt)

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The stone heart (subtitle: A historical novel from 1954 AD) is a novel by the German writer Arno Schmidt , which was published in 1956. The title contains echoes of Wilhelm Hauff's story The Cold Heart and ETA Hoffmann's Das Steinerne Herz .

The first edition was defused in politically, religiously and sexually "offensive" places. It was not until 30 years later that an uncensored original version appeared as part of the Bargfeld edition , which also includes author's corrections from later text stages.

action

The - as usual for Schmidt - quite simple plot takes place, as the subtitle suggests, in 1954.

The first-person narrator, Walter Eggers, drives to Ahlden in search of the estate of the Hanoverian statistician Friedrich Jansen and rents himself from a granddaughter of Jansen's, Frieda Thumann, and her husband Karl, a truck driver, claiming that he is a “buyer” , a. In fact, there is a box of books in the attic of the house. Eggers courted Frieda and involved her in a love affair. Frieda soon sees through him, however. It only publishes the coveted Jansen books bit by bit, one by one. Eggers goes to Berlin with Karl and exchanges his duplicate of the second for the missing third edition of Heinrich Ringklib's statistical overview of the division of the Kingdom of Hanover into administrative and judicial districts in the local state library ... in a clever way, based on the literary model of Jean Pauls Siebenkäs .

Karl has a lover in East Berlin, Line Hübner, in whose gazebo Karl Thumann and Eggers spend the night in order to go back to Ahlden the next morning. The mating problem is solved without any jealousy by taking Line Hübner with a fraudulent passport to Ahlden. Eggers plans his disappearance from the Thumann house after he has his book trophies safely in his hands. At the last moment, however, a gold treasure is discovered in a false ceiling in the Thumann house. The rare coins are sold to a collector in Hanover for good money. Due to this material security, Eggers reluctantly accepts his fate and stays with Frieda in Ahlden. An important theme of the novel is the story of the Princess von Ahlden , who was imprisoned in Ahlden Castle for life because of adultery . Another reference to be mentioned is Goethe's novel The Elective Affinities .

reception

Das Steinerne Herz is the first novel to be published in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is set in West and East Germany at the same time , and both sides are equally critical.

Alfred Andersch called the book Schmidts politically and erotically daring. But the book's strength lies not in the simple plot, but in its idiosyncratic prose, right down to an invigorating punctuation and orthography. In addition to the ETA Hoffmann already quoted in the title , Wilhelm Hauff ("The Cold Heart") can also be added - the title alone alludes to (at least) two literary works, a process that the author uses artistically and virtuoso throughout the text .

See also

literature

  • Josef Huerkamp: No. 8. Materials and commentary on Arno Schmidt's “Das Steinerne Herz”. edition text + kritik, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-88377-033-7 .
  • Brochure of the Arno Schmidt Foundation : Origin and history of a book 1987/88 .
  • Josef Huerkamp, ​​Guido E. Öztanil, Rainer Hendicks u. a. (Ed.): Picture tiles. The album for Arno Schmidt's novel “Das steinerne Herz”. edition text + criticism, 2004, m. numerous Fig., ISBN 3-88377-791-9 .
  • Josef Huerkamp: "the thin umbilical cord". New views of the “Stone Heart”. In: Zettelkasten 8, essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Friedhelm Rathjen, Frankfurt / M .: Bangert & Metzler 1990, pp. 123-155.
  • Josef Huerkamp: “What would be your ideal?” Three readings on the text of the political novel “The Stone Heart”. In: Zettelkasten 10, essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Rudi Schweikert, Frankfurt: Bangert & Metzler 1991, pp. 95–119.
  • Josef Huerkamp: “You will be surprised!” “The stone heart”: the beginning of the novel (I). In: BB, Lfg. 227-230, June 1998, pp. 3-58; The beginning of the novel (part II and conclusion) , in: BB, Lfg. 231-233, August 1998, pp. 3-29.
  • Josef Huerkamp: The shop window in Ahlden. Poetic description: descriptive poetics. In: Zettelkasten 20, essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Thomas Körber, Wiesenbach: Bangert & Metzler 2001, pp. 173–193.
  • Josef Huerkamp: Forced self-comment. Arno Schmidt's newspaper article in the horizon of the 'Stone Heart'. In: Zettelkasten 21, essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Rudi Schweikert, Wiesenbach: Bangert & Metzler 2002, pp. 7–46.
  • Josef Huerkamp: "The collector's heart". Arno Schmidt's novel “The Stone Heart” and the statistical style. In: Dead poets never die. Contributions to the Arno Schmidt exhibition from September 5 to October 3, 2004 in the Northeimer Heimatmuseum , ed. by Hartmut Fischer, Northeim 2004, pp. 9–44.
  • Josef Huerkamp: A man with qualities. The Hoppenstedt figure in Arno Schmidt's novel 'Das steinerne Herz'. In: literature without compromise. a book for jörg drews , ed. by Sabine Kyora, Axel Dunker, Dirk Sangmeister, Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2004, pp. 351–363.
  • Josef Huerkamp: 'Glad of the discovered error'. On the standard writing in Arno Schmidt's novel 'Das steinerne Herz'. An almost serious reply. In: BB, Lfg. 280, June 2005, pp. 3-19.
  • Josef Huerkamp: “A strange creature”. Holographic portrait of the Hübner Line in Arno Schmidt's novel "Das steinerne Herz". In: Zettelkasten 24, essays and works on Arno Schmidt's work. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Erol Hesse-Öztanil, Wiesenbach: Bangert & Metzler 2005, pp. 49-80.
  • Josef Huerkamp: "The voice of the time announcer". Time measured and interpreted in Arno Schmidt's novel “Das steinerne Herz”. In: Zettelkasten 25, essays and works on Arno Schmidt's work. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers, ed. by Frank Legl, Wiesenbach: Bangert & Metzler 2008, pp. 99–154.
  • Josef Huerkamp: Underground witnesses from Regentrude's world. Arno Schmidt's novel 'The stone heart' and 'the elementary existence'. In: ( anthology on the subject of "Hohlwelten" , edited by Hartmut Fischer. Published 2009).
  • Josef Huerkamp: "The big card index". Encyclopedia for Arno Schmidt's novel “The stone heart”. Munich: edition text + kritik 2011, 927 pages, ISBN 978-3-86916-113-6 .
  • Josef Huerkamp: “Toreutic work”. The 'quotation' in Arno Schmidt's historical novel “Das Steinerne Herz” . Munich: edition text + kritik 2011, ISBN 978-3-86916-147-1 .
  • Alice Schmidt : Diary from 1954. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2004, 334 pages, ISBN 3-518-80220-8 .
  • Alice Schmidt: Diary from 1955. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-80330-1 .
  • Alice Schmidt: Diary from 1956. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-80330-1 .

Web links

  • Hartmut Dietz Repetition Compulsions Part 1 & 2 [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ringklib in the German National Bibliography .