The tango player

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The Tango Player is a story by Christoph Hein from the year 1989. The book premiere took place on May 18, 1989 in what was then the Berlin bookstore "Internationales Buch" on Spandauer Straße .

Released from prison in February 1968 after serving a 21-month sentence, Dr. Hans-Peter Dallow has taken up his old job, a lecturer in modern history at the Historical Institute of Leipzig University. In his place of residence in Leipzig, the 36-year-old historian tries in vain to get a job as a driver. An event of world-historical proportions - in which the politically very cautious Dallow is completely uninvolved - comes unexpectedly to the aid of the scientist who is now waiting at Hiddensee . In the wake of the Prague Spring , the specialist in the subject “Beginnings of the Labor Movement in the 19th Century” is offered his old teaching position again on September 4, 1968. Dallow accepts triumphantly.

content

After his imprisonment, Dallow returns to his dusty Leipzig apartment. Rita, the woman at his side, had already separated from him at the start of his detention. Dallow can't stand it at home, soon goes to a café in the city center and runs into a Dr. Berger. This is the judge who convicted Dallow. Dr. Berger is also still accompanied by Dallow's defense attorney, Mr. Kiewer. Guests talk loudly about Dubček and Prague. Dallow actually wants to greet his friend, the waiter Harry.

After one of his numerous other restaurant visits, Dallow accompanies the 27-year-old divorced Elke Schütte home. The single mother of little Cornelia, a preschool girl, lives cramped and works in a bookstore. Dallow sleeps with Elke. Jürgen Roessler has since taken up a position as a lecturer at the institute. Dallow realizes that as a former criminal he would be out of place as a teacher in front of students. Dallow desperately wants to sleep with his former student Sylvia, now a seminar leader. The beautiful young woman does not like.

Throughout the whole story, Dallow is harassed by two dubious, correct men. Mr. Schulze and Mr. Müller only want to help the former prisoner who is looking for work. Employment - even in the old institute - is promised. A tiny consideration for the accepted help is requested: "just a few facts". Dallow stands firm despite the threat. He refuses every time. When Mr. Schulze and Mr. Müller identify themselves, Dallow looks out the window. At no point does the reader find out who he is looking at. However, soon after the first visit of the two gentlemen, Dallow once felt petty police arbitrariness as a driver in the city of Leipzig.

Dallow visits one bar after the other, changing women like shirts. One night for each new woman must be enough. The womanizer shies away from a steady relationship. Dallow visits his parents and married sister in his old car. They live in the countryside somewhere between Leipzig and the Baltic Sea. The old parents' concern is the future professional activity of the son. There is enough work. Dallow is supposed to take over the farm. The doctor of history declines. He reports his "stupidity" to his parents. Dallow had made himself available at short notice to a Leipzig student cabaret for a single performance. That was a first. A certain Kreie, the man at the piano, had failed. So while Dallow was playing a tango, this circle had an operation in the hospital. For the tango Adiós muchachos - in the repositioned text of which leading politicians were despised - all the amateur actors and also the teacher at the piano were imprisoned for well over a year and a half. At that time, Dallow had been expelled from his party and the institute after the piano solo.

Returning to Leipzig from visiting his parents, Dallow gives up looking for a job and suggests that Elke move into his more spacious apartment. The woman refuses. Elke wants this man, but first he should "solve his problem". Mr. Schulze and Mr. Müller won't give up. Dallow should continue to seek a job. His knowledge of the history of the ČSSR would be needed. The historian doesn't want to. He countered that he was not a historian, but a tango player. In jail he also worked in the laundry. His nerves are not doing well. For example, he chases his judge across Leipzig. Dallow wants to be rehabilitated as the new Michael Kohlhaas . He can't cope with Dr. Berger and Mr Kiewer laughingly listened to the tango in a cabaret performance in 1968, for which he went to prison in 1966. Dr. Berger thinks Dallow is insane. At the instigation of the judge, Roessler offered Dallow a position as senior assistant with the prospect of a lectureship. Of course, Dallow would have to apply for his re-entry into the party. Dallow refuses. Dr. Berger insists on an employment relationship. Dallow complies. Harry helps; he quickly trained his friend as a waiter and recommended him as a seasonal waiter in the “Klausner” restaurant on Hiddensee. The prevented lecturer earns more money there at the sea, dressed in his old black wedding suit, than in his learned profession.

Roessler comments on the invasion of the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries in Prague with the wrong tongue in front of his students and has been a lecturer for the longest time. Sylvia arrives in Hiddensee and makes Dallow the offer mentioned above.

Quote

  • Dallow wants all sorts of people to believe that he knew nothing. He demands rehabilitation in vain: "I was just the pianist."

shape

Hein guarantees reading pleasure. The reading appears consistently to be simply structured and entertaining. So the reader gets his money's worth. Harry jokes that the boyfriend ended up in jail because of his pathetic piano playing. Dallow's bed stories are colored in. For example, the contortions during the sexual act with Elke Schütte are ready for the circus and Dallow's selection of almost underage sexual partners en masse during his employment as a waiter on Hiddensee caused a sensation among restaurant staff. Or even this nerve thing. What is meant is the story of Dallow's stiff, cold, as if paralyzed fingers when excited. The condition occurs sporadically - among other things, when he has to sign during his release from prison, when he tells his judge Dr. Berger chokes “confused and indecisive” on the Leipzig park bench and when his night's sleep is severely disturbed on Hiddensee.

interpretation

Dallow appears as both a hero and a coward; in short - as a person. On the one hand, the protagonist heroically fends off all attacks by Messrs Schulze and Müller. On the other hand, he's not up to Elke Schütte at all. The woman sees through his egoism and does not give in.

Dallow was imprisoned due to a carelessness. He doesn't understand why the penalty was so high. The text appears to be psychologically balanced. Dallow's post-prison reactions to the environment are all believable. This even applies to the actually rare outburst of emotions: when the old father, a farmer, is ashamed of the son who was sitting, Dallow says, for example, that the parents are to blame for everything. Because when he was a child they would have sent him to town to take piano lessons for no less than four years.

reception

According to Friedrich Dieckmann, the book tells the story of a stumbled man who does not accept help.

With Barner it is said that Dallow is not presented to the reader as a figure to identify with. On the contrary - Hein worked successfully on the hero dismantling. The only thing the bon vivant Dallow does - he keeps saying no. Then he'll become a lecturer again as if by himself. The power that destroyed its existence will then rebuild it. Dallow despaired of the sudden change in the legal concept of the state: In 1968 the repositioned tango text was allowed to be performed publicly at once.

Hirdina emphasizes the unheroic component - here Dallow's disinterest in the social - as the innermost trait of the book. However, according to Kiewitz, Dallow is guilty of this particular behavioral pattern of distancing himself.

literature

First edition and edition used at the same time

  • Christoph Hein: The tango player. Narration . 206 pages. Linen. Construction Verlag, Berlin 1989. ISBN 3-351-01489-9

expenditure

  • The tango player. Novel. 217 pages. Cardboard tape. Luchterhand, Frankfurt am Main 1989, collection volume 982, ISBN 3-630-61982-7
  • The tango player. Novel. 181 pages. Suhrkamp 2002. Paperback 3477, ISBN 3-518-39977-2

Secondary literature

  • Klaus Hammer (Ed.): “Chronicler without a message. Christoph Hein. A work book. Materials, information, bibliography. ”315 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-351-02152-6 (pp. 113–146)
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . 1116 pages. Beck , Munich 1994. ISBN 3-406-38660-1
  • " The Tango Player - The Implicit Judicial Criticism in the Artist Novel". Pp. 235–265 in Christl Kiewitz: “The silent scream. Crisis and criticism of the socialist intelligentsia in the work of Christoph Hein. ”308 pages. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 1995 (Diss. University of Augsburg 1994), ISBN 3-86057-137-0 (pp. 196-234)
  • " Allegory and Allegory". Pp. 115–120 in Terrance Albrecht: “Reception and Temporality of the Work of Christoph Heins.” 191 pages. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-631-35837-7

filming

Roland Gräf filmed the story in 1991 with Michael Gwisdek as Dallow and Corinna Harfouch as Elke .

Web links

  • Věra Černá: (PDF; 279 kB) Christoph Hein: Literature and Morals. The analysis of " Horns Ende " and "The Tango Player". Diploma thesis on obtaining a bachelor's degree at the Philosophical Faculty of Masaryk University in Brno , pp. 33–46. Winter semester 2005. 49 pages
  • The film in the German IMDb

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karin Hirdina shows in Hammer, p. 148 below, a photo on which Hein signed on the occasion.
  2. ↑ Dallow married Marion at the age of 19. The marriage had only lasted a year. (see also Kiewitz, p. 246, 9th line vu)
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 46, 12th line vu
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 94, 6th line vo
  5. ↑ Friedrich Dieckmann in Hammer, p. 157, 3rd line vu: "The poverty of love is that particular lack ..."
  6. ↑ see also Friedrich Dieckmann in Hammer, p. 156, 29th line from above
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 136
  8. ↑ Kiewitz, p. 236, 17th line from above and p. 250, 4th line from below
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 136, 12th line vu (see also 8th line vu: "I was just the tango player.")
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 155, 9. Z. vo
  11. ↑ see also Friedrich Dieckmann in Hammer, p. 156, 24th line vo
  12. ↑ see also Karin Hirdina in Hammer, p. 148, 6th line vu
  13. ^ Friedrich Dieckmann in Hammer, p. 156, 9th line vu
  14. ↑ in Barner, p. 893, 5th line vu
  15. ↑ see also Friedrich Dieckmann in Hammer, p. 156, 14th line vo
  16. ↑ in Barner, p. 893, 22nd line vu
  17. ↑ in Barner, p. 893, 8th line vo
  18. ↑ Karin Hirdina in Hammer, p. 148, 15. Z. vo
  19. ↑ Kiewitz, p. 263, 6th line vu