Death is a postman with a hat
Death is a Postman with Hat is a novel by the German author Martin von Arndt , published in 2009.
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The Innsbruck- based book focuses on the jazz guitarist Julio. Divorced from his wife Ines, whom he still loves pathologically, no longer very young, professionally humiliated (he has to live on preparing rock classics for Chinese fast food: "Smells like teen spirit. With flavor enhancers.") And in the middle of one Depression, on his 40th birthday he suddenly receives a blank sheet of paper anonymously as a registered letter. The procedure repeats itself month after month. After initial lethargy, Julio sets out to search for the author of the letter, the meaning of the letters, the possibly dark secret in his own past or in that of his family. During his research, he meets the retired detective Koloman Steinbichler (aka "the Grantler") who tries to help Julio with semi-professional methods. When Steinbichler dies towards the end of the novel, Julio only has a vague idea who might be behind the letters, but seems to have found insight into the mechanics of existence, overcoming his depression and finding a new courage to face life.
A narrative in the form of a forensic protocol is embedded in the framework plot. In it a man describes the events of a murder night in which a person was killed and he himself was shot. The protocol is intended to help find the body of the person killed, but the further the text advances, the more questions arise than the actual question actually being answered. In his Frequently Asked Questions about the novel , the author provides information about the inner connection with the framework plot ( Parzival motif) .
Theme and interpretation
The existentialist background foil of the novel Death is a Postman with a Hat makes the protagonist Julio appear as an antihero in the sense of Camus, who encounters the absurd through the anonymous registered letters. Julio wants to uncover this secret, he is looking for answers, for justification, for meaning. But it inevitably has to fail. "The absurd arises from this juxtaposition of the human being who asks and the world that is irrationally silent." (Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus )
For Julio there is soon no more hope of finding the author of the letters. Instead, on his journey he only encounters the harbingers of death as the only reality and the no longer doubtful truth of the absurd man. This realization shakes Julio's life to its foundations, no longer allows any illusion of meaningfulness and throws him back to the here and now. “The absurd person has forgotten how to hope. Finally the hell of the present is his kingdom. "
At the same time, this realization frees Julio from the shackles he previously forced his life into. The failed relationship with Ines and his unsuccessful career as a musician lose importance for Julio from the perspective of the absurd. “To plunge into this baseless certainty, from now on to feel quite alien to your own life in order to let it grow bigger and without measuring the shortsightedness of a lover - therein lies the principle of liberation. This new independence is limited in time like any freedom of action. It does not issue a bill of exchange for eternity. But it replaces the illusions of freedom that all stop at death. "
At the end of the novel, Julio sets out to embrace his new life with no hope of meaning or redemption. But it is now his life that he consciously turns to with newly gained freedom. With Camus, we have to imagine Julio as a happy person.
Lead storytelling
In his technique of playing with elements of the crime novel, which lead from the question of the perpetrator ( Whodunnit as a variant of the crime thriller) to general existential questions, Death is a Postman with a Hat stands in the tradition of authors such as Paul Auster ( Leviathan ) or Friedrich Dürrenmatt ( The judge and his executioner ). The book also works with intertextual references to Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice . This is the name of the detective's dog Steinbichler Tadzio and at the end of the novel becomes the protagonist's soul guide, just like the boy Tadzio in Mann's novella. Mann quotes the end of the book almost verbatim.
As usual in the film, the novel uses music in prominent places to support, characterize and contrast important scenes. In the epilogue there is a playlist with the songs embedded in the novel. The author also provides this playlist with links to YouTube videos on his homepage. Like German-speaking authors like Alban Nikolai Herbst or Thomas Klupp before him, he uses the medium of the Internet for book updates and additional benefits .
reception
The literary critical assessments diverge. While Elke Heidenreich read the novel in her online program 'Read!' Declared book of the week and emphasizes legibility and humor despite the non-linear narrative technique, Zeit-online accentuates the Kafkaesque background and the stylistic skills of the book. However , the text fell through with the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2008 , to which the author presented an excerpt. A detailed literary critical interpretation of the book can be found in the online literary magazine “Glanz und Elend”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ FAQ on the book Death is a Postman with a Hat ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus . Reinbek 1997, p. 35
- ↑ ibid, p. 58
- ↑ ibid, p. 65
- ↑ Elke Heidenreich, 27th episode of 'Reading!'
- ↑ Martin Brinkmann: Protocol dripping wet days , Zeit-online from November 3, 2009
- ↑ A text that “didn't really interest you” . Report in the archive of the ORF on the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2008, online , (accessed on June 26, 2013)
- ^ Lothar Struck: When the days fidget , gloss and misery, October 2009
