The man sleeps
The man sleeps is a 2009 novel by Sibylle Berg . The book has 312 pages and was published by Hanser in Munich ( ISBN 978-3-446-23388-1 ).
content
In the novel, the first-person narrator describes her pessimistic view of other people, life and the world in short sections. When she hadn't expected it anymore, she met a man four years ago, moved in with him in Ticino and learned to perceive less than bad moments in the bad world. They travel together to Hong Kong on a small, tropical island and there she loses her husband. She meets a 12-year-old girl who is kindred in her soul and still falls back into her resigned worldview.
style
The up to eight pages long sections tell alternately on two time levels: on the one hand what happened before the trip, how the heroine got to know the "man" and how they plan the trip together, on the other hand what has happened since the man's disappearance and how the heroine tries to understand the situation. She only calls her boyfriend "man", and her thoughts also reveal a great deal of distance, at the same time the longing for familiarity and the knowledge that all attempts to achieve this familiarity have failed.
Reviews
- Roman Bucheli writes in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung that Berg draws the heroine as a misanthropist “in a magical way” and that she composed “a sadly beautiful fairy tale” in a very clever way.
- Kristina Maidt-Zinke says in Die Zeit that Berg describes a woman in her prime with a “longing for the friendly, the good and the human” and dresses this in “gently melancholy, moderately malicious images”.
expenditure
The book has been published in several editions, including by dtv- Verlag as a paperback ( ISBN 978-3-423-14002-7 ) with 309 pages as well as an audio book, a radio play and an e-book.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buecher/buch.html?isbn=978-3-446-23388-1
- ↑ http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/sibylle-berg/der-mann-schlaeft.html
- ↑ http://www.audiobooks.at/Der_Mann_schlaeft_Liebesgeschichte_nach_einem_Roman_von_Sibylle_Berg_als_NDR_Hoerspiel_im_Planetariu.id.31717.htm
- ↑ http://www.ebook.de/de/product/13471854/sibylle_berg_der_mann_schlaeft.html