Sleep in the clocks

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The sleep in the clocks depicts the journey on a tram through Dresden on a real level of the narrative

Sleep in the clocks is a story by Uwe Tellkamp from 2004. The story, which was required reading in the Lower Saxony Central Abitur in German in the years 2008 and 2009, was recognized by the author when it was presented for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2004 Excerpt from a novel "Sleep in the clocks" presented. This statement was made more precise in 2020 when a new novel by Uwe Tellkamp was announced. Its title: “Sleep in the clocks. Volume 1: Lava - open novel, or: News from the Chronicle. ”Accordingly, Sleep in the Clocks is the name of a series of novels that is to be continued after the book Lava .

In his biography of Tellkamp, ​​Elmar Krekeler characterizes the version presented in Klagenfurt as a “ new-choreographed mélange”. Another excerpt from the novel was published under the title A Time of Mild Gestures .

content

Young pioneers in front of the " Pioneer Palace " (1953)
Political poster for the Red Army at the People's Police District Office in Dresden: The story also deals with the relationship between the GDR and the Soviet Union

Fabian turns to Muriel in his story. He sees her "encapsulated by devices that should save [her] and [her] dreams [...]". The context of this narrative is unknown; also the time and place of Fabian's presence.

Throughout the story, he remembers various people whose voices tell of experiences. The main framework of Fabian's story is a trip by Fabian on tram line 11 , a Tatra train , through the Dresden suburbs of what was then socialist Dresden, mainly along Bautzner Strasse , to the right of the Elbe . The description of the tram ride begins at Dresden-Neustadt train station . The tram comes from Leipziger Straße and passes the stops “ Platz der Einheit ”, “Rothenburger Straße”, “ Waldschlößchenstraße ”, “Wilhelminenstraße” and “ Elbschlösser ”. At the military hospital of the Red Army (stop “Plattleite”), the former Lahmann sanatorium , the story ends (even if not line 11) with the tram stopping.

The text refers to a number of points in time (listed chronologically):

  • 1914: Assassination attempt in Sarajevo (whose voice Fabian is introducing remains unclear)
  • 1945: The Red Army marches into Dresden (memory by Lucie Krausewitz)
  • SBZ - and the early GDR period: experiences in the chocolate factory, Ulbricht's visit to Dresden (1951) on the occasion of the naming of the “ Pioneer Palace ” (memories of Lucie Krausewitz, interrupted by brief comments from her husband Arno)
  • Late GDR period (between 1985 and 1989, because of Putin's stay in Dresden): the remembered tram ride; Dresden as a garrison of the 1st Guards Armored Army of the Soviet Army

The fact that Putin's stay in Dresden (as an officer of the KGB ) is known to Fabian and is worth mentioning indicates the time when the narrator was present.

The narrative refers to different phases in Dresden's history. Among other things, the wives of Red Army officers are described in detail, and Tellkamp mentions them several times in his story. The metaphors chosen for the officer's wives and the portrayal of the Soviet officers are characterized by negative connotations . Despite many memories of the GDR era, the story does not show any Ostalgic tendencies.

structure

The text consists of a large number of individual blocks, which are often separated from one another by hard cuts ( assembly technique ), but at the same time by "passwords", by the technique of the "semantic fold" (according to Manfred Koch, the "connection of heterogeneous narrative strands by repeating a word , Sentence or a phrase ”) and through ring composition (ending returns to the beginning) are linked. According to some jurors of the Klagenfurt Literature Competition 2004, the text emulates the structure of a rondo .

It essentially follows two structural principles:

  • the journey of the tram from west to east, i.e. the rhythm of approach, movement and stopping (= the " motif A" of the Rondo),
  • the timing given by the memory of the "Monologue of the Marschallin" (especially in the second part of the story).

The text can be roughly divided into two parts:

  • 1st part (beginning with the second part of the Marschallin's aria): Two different smells dominate the scene: the Duchi perfume and the smell of chocolate. Tellkamp combines these two smells with a clever construction: During the tram ride, the memories of the Duchi perfume and the chocolate alternate. The climax of the first part is the description, saturated with attributes, of the smell of Russian-speaking women after the Duchi perfume.
  • 2nd part (beginning with the first part of the Marschallin's aria): In contrast to the first part, a "flashlight technique" is used here (the beats of the "Marschallin's clock", which are described in a few words and indicate the full hour) Countups are used). These "flashing lights" complement the rhythm of the approach, movement and stopping of the tram as a structuring principle. Both principles are intertwined when the striking of the stick of blind people crossing the street is combined with the striking of the marshal's clock. In the end, the idea of ​​striking clocks is replaced by that of their "deep sleep", which can be associated with Muriel's comatose state as well as with the state in which the GDR found itself in the 1980s, which, according to Krekeler, Tellkamp called " Zauberbergzeit “( Thomas Mann , Der Zauberberg ). The stop of the clock anticipates the stop of the tram (so the narration gradually comes to rest).

Overall, the second part is much more confusing than the first, as the change in time references is rapid: If the reader is still in the mind of the Soviet military hospital where wounded of the Red Army are taken care of, Lahmann's sanatorium in the imperial era is described shortly afterwards , which was not mentioned before.

Text design

Tellkamp's text has linguistic and stylistic peculiarities, such as the structure given only by commas, dashes and paragraphs, which requires the reader to read extremely carefully if there is to be no misunderstanding. There are very few endings of sentences marked with a dot. Verbatim speech is not marked, so that the change of voices is not immediately recognizable and a mixture of one's own memories and those told takes place. In 1951, Wolfgang Koeppens publisher returned a similarly formatted manuscript of his novel Tauben im Gras to the author as "not printable". Uwe Tellkamp uses metaphors and creates poetic art terms such as “a polished beaver tail”. What is actually inanimate is animated by linguistic design. A hypotactic sentence structure prevails, which is seldom replaced by paratactic structures. The tram ride from Leipziger Strasse to Lahmanns Sanatorium (Plattleite) takes 17 minutes today, which means that the tram ride is shown stretched , provided that the thoughts that are not related to the tram ride are viewed as reveries during the journey.

Example of the linguistic design based on the first narrative sequence of the tram ride remembered by Fabian:

  • Hypotactic sentence structure
  • By Asyndeta the variety of different impressions is mediated at that moment.
  • Enumerations
  • Fabian's stream of consciousness
  • Indirect questions
  • Comparison: The “ Platz der Einheit ” (the “unity” of the KPD and SPD in the SED , not German unity) is called the “cavity of caries”.
  • Association technique: In the reader, associations with the crumbling and collapsing system, but also with the " Putzi " toothpaste tubes, which are being produced in the immediate vicinity of the square shortly afterwards, are triggered by the above comparison.

Relation to the opera Der Rosenkavalier

In Sleep in the Clocks, the author refers to the libretto of an aria at the end of the first act by Hugo von Hofmannsthal (libretto) and Richard Strauss ' (music) opera Der Rosenkavalier , which premiered in Dresden on January 26, 1911. Fabian calls the aria "Monologue of the Marschallin ", although it does not contain a monologue, as it is addressed to the young lover Octavian, the mature wife of a marshal ("Quin-quin", which is directly addressed in the second quote, is the nickname Octavian) . Tellkamp divided the original aria into two parts, which he initially used in reverse order. Shortly before the end, however, the aria is quoted in a short version in the original order.

The libretto makes two types of statements about time: 1. Time flows inexorably, although sometimes all the clocks stop, and 2. Time is “a strange thing” because “sometimes you feel nothing but it”. These two mottos almost coincide with the two parts in the story Sleep in the Clocks . Parts 1 and 2 of the text form clear opposites that are synthesized at the end of the text, i.e. a third part.

The "Marschallin" wants to "stop the clocks all" and thus bring the passage of time to a standstill, because she does not want to get older and thus less attractive to her young lover. Fabian's “intervention in the passage of time”, on the other hand, is a reaction to Muriel's “deep sleep” (death?).

The novel Der Turm suggests a different interpretation of the standstill motif : There the first confrontation with the quotation from the Rosenkavalier triggers the following reflection on the "strange thing" called "time":

"[...] The way the [record] needle jumped back and multiplied the singer's Ernst, slipping into a kind of clothes before Niklas got up and put an end to the echoes, copies ejected after copies in a puppet-like wriggling endless loop: that's how Christian came also the days in the city before, laughing repetitions, one day a mirror image of the other, a paralyzing copy of the other "

As a result, life in the GDR would have come to a standstill overall in the 1980s.

Many reviewers attest Tellkamp's story an "operatic" character. The extent to which it is permissible, however, to apply terms from musicology to literary texts, was a matter of dispute during the jury deliberations in Klagenfurt 2004. However, Uwe Tellkamp describes himself as “ Wagner's librettist ”, and in an interview with Elmar Krekeler, on which his biography is based, Tellkamp himself apparently spoke of “ choreography ” (“newly choreographed melange”). What Tellkamp means by “new choreography” becomes clear when you compare the black and yellow version written for the MDR with the chapter of the same name in the novel Der Turm .

Tellkamp and the irony

At the Leipzig Book Fair 2005, where his novel The Kingfisher was presented, Uwe Tellkamp vehemently resisted the expectation that German authors would have to use irony (see also: romantic irony ) in their works . "All ironics [would] lose their irony [...] if they had to work in an emergency room in a hospital!", Tellkamp is said to have defended the "new seriousness" to be found in The Kingfisher . However, Tellkamp made it clear in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk that, in contrast to the main character in the novel, he has nothing against irony, he only appreciates it “in homeopathic doses”.

There is irony in the story Sleep in the Clocks : Arno Krausewitz's voice recommends that “the comrade chairman could take off his tinted glasses to see [his surroundings] in the bright light of the summer day”, and Fabian, der "Stumme" ("Nemez" = "the German" is derived in the Slavic languages from literally "the dumb one", hence "the one who doesn't speak the language"), who had to learn Russian since grade 5, scoffs at the "gruff." looking Kazakhs, Turkmens or Georgians with pitch-black hair, a low forehead and a blue-black shimmering beard "who were" condemned to be mute "in the GDR.

The extract from the novel in the context of Tellkamp's complete works

Occurrence of the narrating / acting persons in other works

Fabian and Muriel

In The Tower is a born around 1968 pairs of twins, Fabian and Muriel Hoffmann, before, cousins of the protagonist Christian Hoffmann. The father of Fabian and Muriel is called Hans in both texts; he is addressed in the story as "Herr Lecturer Hoffmann". There is also a person called "Muriel" in the fairy tale of the paper cutouts , in the MDR article black and yellow ("Muriel and I at the father's hand"), and in a story titled The hostel for the happy travelers .

In an interview with the “ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ” in December 2012, Uwe Tellkamp stated that he wanted to name the novel that is to follow Der Turm , Sleep in the Clocks . In this novel, Fabian is to be added as a further voice, who tells the events from a "present" to be determined in more detail in the form of flashbacks. "This narrator remembers the story of his sister Muriel, who is Christian's cousin, who comes into the 'tower' in the work yard , a small marginal figure."

In 2014 it became clear that the novel would be titled Lava . It was originally supposed to be published in 2015. Uwe Tellkamp published an exposé of this novel on the “Day of German Unity” in 2014, in which Fabian and Muriel play a more important role than in Der Turm . For a long time it was unclear at which point in the novel Lava the section published in 2004 would be incorporated. In 2020 it became clear that Lava should form the first volume in the novel Sleep in the Clocks . In it there is “a narrator, Fabian, who works in the marine mine department and is an employee of the thousand and one night department.” In the second, not yet finished part of Sleep in the Clocks entitled Archipelago , Fabian is the main narrator. The plot approaches the present in the 21st century.

Arno and Lucie Krausewitz

Arno and Lucie Krausewitz live (in Der Turm ) together with Fabian and Muriel Hoffmann in "Haus Wolfsstein". Arno Krausewitz is 58 years old in Der Turm in 1983 and works as a dispatcher at Dresden Airport .

Niklas Buchmeister and Tietze

A common uncle of Christian, Fabian and Muriel Hoffmann is called Niklas Tietze in the final version of the novel Der Turm ; in the preprint of the novel in the loose sheets , the Tietzes are still called "bookmasters" (as in the excerpt from Sleep in the Clocks ). The Buchmeisters / Tietzes live in the immediate vicinity of the Hoffmanns in the villa district above the Loschwitz bank of the Elbe in the "Haus Abendstern". Niklas Tietze, a doctor by profession, introduced Christian Hoffmann to the world of classical music. When Niklas reads older books, he, according to Christian's other uncle Meno Rohde, opens “time capsules”. There are many clocks in "Haus Abendstern".

Topoi used several times

In chapter 38 of the novel The Tower , the protagonist, Christian Hoffmann, covers the distance between the “Plattleite” and “Neustädter Bahnhof” stops on Dresden tram line 11 in the opposite direction to Fabian in “ Sleep in the Clocks” . The narrative technique used there is very similar to that in Sleep in the Clocks ; however, more autobiographical elements (looking back at the time that ended with Christian's entry into the NVA) come to the fore.

Another topos that Tellkamp deals with in other works is Vineta , the legendary, sunken city. The myth of Vineta plays a central role in Sleep in the Clocks in Uwe Tellkamp's “long poem” with the title Nautilus , from which various excerpts have only been published; the third volume of this long poem should be called Vineta .

In the fairy tale of the paper cutouts , the cut motif is placed in the center of the depiction: On the one hand, one of the protagonists is a manufacturer of paper cutouts , but on the other hand, the cutting motif is also related to the assembly technique used in the story and its “hard cuts”, such as they are also practiced in The Sleep in the Clocks .

Literary role models

Thematically, Sleep in the Clocks is strongly reminiscent of Marcel Proust's seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time , published between 1913 and 1927 . Like the first-person narrator in this novel, “Fabian” tries to bring the past back to mind through memory and to preserve it by writing down the memories.

Many critics see Claude Simon's novel Die Trambahn , published in 2002, as another literary model . In this novel, there is a protagonist who remembers tram rides and events in the past in the hospital.

In formal terms, Tellkamp takes up the tradition of the modern novel , especially the montage novel .

reception

The text was presented by Uwe Tellkamp in Klagenfurt in June 2004 and the majority of the judges met with enthusiastic approval. The jury chairman Iris Radisch judged: "This is really great literature." It is a "story on a very high level", said Ursula März , who also assigned the text to the "genre of ecstasy ", and Daniela Strigl judged, The enjoyment of art lies in abundance.

The features section was not so unanimously positive about the jury's justification for awarding the 2004 Bachmann Prize to Uwe Tellkamp. Tellkamp's style (“Rosenkavalier Schwulst”) was criticized, but also his appearance in Klagenfurt (the “CSU-like outfit” and his “rolling down” the competition in the manner of a “tank driver”).

With reference to the award ceremony in Klagenfurt 2004, Gerrit Bartels stated: "The audience always ticks differently than the literary criticism!"

As early as July 2004, Volker Hage indirectly warned Uwe Tellkamp to keep his promise to deliver the corresponding novel: “An extract from a novel is always awarded a promise, something that can still develop - the hope of the prose competition remains the unspoken big one Form, the novel. ”Uwe Tellkamp has not yet fulfilled this hope inasmuch as he has not yet presented a novel with Fabian Hoffmann as the narrator, even though he has demonstrated his ability to write an extensive novel in Der Turm . Fabian Hoffmann is the narrator of a short text entitled The Carus Things , which was published in 2017.

In a review of Die Uhr , Christopher Schmidt pointed out that Uwe Tellkamp was the grandson of a watchmaker. According to Schmidt, it is due to this fact that he tends to combine observations about clocks with a “mock mysticism”.

Text output

  • Uwe Tellkamp: Sleep in the clocks (extract from the novel) ; in: Iris Radisch (ed.): Die Beste 2004. Klagenfurter Texte , Piper, Munich 2004, pp. 23–36 ( ISBN 3-492-04648-7 ). ( PDF )
  • Uwe Tellkamp: A time of mild gestures (excerpt from the novel Sleep in the Clocks ); in: Sächsische Zeitung , April 10, 2005 (PDF file; 549 kB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reason for this: Florian Kessler: Read it, it's wonderful! Contemporary literature in German lessons , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 17, 2008. Main thesis: “The use of contemporary literature in the classroom is more likely than that the pupils can simply be picked up by identification where they are already. More difficult, not easy to interpret texts allow controversial perspectives on form and content and encourage more engaging discussions in the classroom. And that works better with new, not yet canonized texts that have not already been chewed through by entire generations of students. "
  2. ↑ Gerrit Bartels: Reading by Uwe Tellkamp in Pulsnitz: "To the right you get on your hat immediately" . tagesspiegel.de. February 6, 2020, accessed August 21, 2020
  3. ↑ The best. Klagenfurt texts 2004 , p. 52.
  4. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp: A time of mild gestures . In: Sächsische Zeitung , April 10, 2005 (PDF file; 549 kB).
  5. ↑ For example The Best , pp. 27 and 29.
  6. ↑ The best , p. 48.
  7. ↑ The best , p. 23.
  8. ↑ The best , p. 24.
  9. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp. The tower . Suhrkamp. 2008, p. 143
  10. ↑ "You also want to write a spiral like this one day". A conversation with Uwe Tellkamp by Michael Braun ( memento of the original from October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . " Frankfurter Rundschau ", July 7, 2004. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lyrikwelt.de
  11. ^ Uwe Tellkamp: black and yellow ( memento of March 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). MDR, May 3, 2006
  12. ^ After Volker Weidermann: Neues Deutschland . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  13. ↑ In conversation: Uwe Tellkamp. (Interview with Daniela Weiland) on April 30, 2005 (1:50 p.m.).
  14. ↑ The best , p. 33.
  15. ↑ The best , p. 28.
  16. ↑ The best , p. 29.
  17. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp: Fairy tales of the paper cutouts. Mrs. Zwirnevaden, the time and February 13, 1945 . In: Die Welt , February 2, 2005
  18. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp: black and yellow ( memento of March 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), MDR, May 3, 2006
  19. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp: Hostel to the happy travelers ( Memento of July 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Lose Blätter , issue 40/2007, pp. 1208–1211
  20. ↑ In conversation: Uwe Tellkamp - Why are you continuing “Der Turm”? . Interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 29, 2012, accessed April 4, 2014
  21. ↑ Uwe Tellkamp: turning point. Eastern time. In: Berner Zeitung. October 3, 2014, accessed January 3, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Gerrit Bartels: Reading by Uwe Tellkamp in Pulsnitz: "To the right you get on your hat immediately" . tagesspiegel.de. February 6, 2020, accessed August 21, 2020
  23. ^ Uwe Tellkamp: Auffahrt ( memento of March 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). In: Lose Blätter , Issue 32/2005, pp. 933–939
  24. ↑ The tower . P. 344
  25. ↑ The best , p. 40.
  26. ^ The best , pp. 38 and 42.
  27. ↑ The best , p. 46.
  28. ↑ Sabine Vogel: Kinderwahn with Methuselah compote . Berliner Zeitung , June 28, 2004
  29. ↑ Marius Meller: In Chocolate Thunderstorms . Tagesspiegel , June 28, 2004
  30. ↑ Christoph Schröder in the Frankfurter Rundschau , June 28, 2004
  31. ↑ Gerrit Bartels: Timelessly great in Klagenfurt . In: the daily newspaper , June 28, 2004
  32. ↑ Volker Hage: There has never been so much storytelling . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 2004 ( online ).
  33. ↑ Christopher Schmidt: Reading for seconds . Southgerman newspaper. November 11, 2010