The way to happiness (Karl May)
The way to happiness - the most interesting incidents from the life and work of King Ludwig II of Baiern is the last of the five great serial novels that Karl May wrote for the publishing house HG Münchmeyer .
On 2,616 pages in 108 deliveries, it offered its readers excitement and amusing entertainment from July 1886 to August 1888 .
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The heroes of this novel are the Bavarian King Ludwig II , to whom Karl May is erecting a large and beautiful monument, and a quirky Bavarian original called Wurz'nsepp. Both intervene in the fate of several protagonists in the novel and ensure that they can be happy.
So the poor dairymaid Magdalena, the godchild of Wurz'nsepp, who is abandoned by the poacher Krikelanton because of her new career, becomes a celebrated opera singer and Countess von Senftenberg. Your first concert is one of the most poignant scenes that Karl May wrote.
Several independent storylines are connected in the course of the novel, which for the most part takes place in a geographically rather limited area between Bavaria , Austria and Bohemia .
A large part of the novel is the fight against the machinations of the two villains "Peitschenmüller" and "Silberbauer", who long ago murdered a princely couple in Wallachia and kidnapped their child.
In this novel, Karl May successfully tries to create local color with a self-made and extremely flawed Bavarian “dialect”. The story ends with the death of the Bavarian fairy tale king, while loyal Wurz'nsepp dies of a broken heart at the same time.
Storylines
- Murenleni and Krikelanton are "discovered" → detailed content online in the Karl May Wiki
- Plot about the whip mill → detailed content
- Story about the silver farmer → detailed content
- Solving the crimes of Friedrich von Alberg → detailed content
- Plot about the Keryhof → detailed content
- Story about the "Samiel" → detailed content
- The crimes of Salek / smashing the girl trafficking ring → detailed content
- Finale in a disc bath → detailed content
The individual episodes are independent of each other, but are linked by alternating staff and other "guest appearances", in particular the Fex as a victim with the two millers as common perpetrators, Max with Hohenwald as well as Eichenfeld and Steinegg, and the king as well as the Wurzelsepp are involved everywhere.
Music novel
The way to happiness is essentially the double biography of two singing careers: that of Magdalena Berghuber and that of Anton Warschauer, both of whom are known at the beginning of the novel as simple-minded nature children in the Bavarian-Tyrolean border area under the names Muhrenleni and Krikelanton, where they are tame Tending cows and shooting wild chamois - and who, as the saying goes, are good for each other. Both have extraordinary natural voices that are discovered and promoted. Leni is sponsored by the good King Ludwig and Anton by a Viennese music professor Weinhold. The life path of the two singers is joined by that of the "water fanatic":
- “He is also a nature boy, without parents, who is kept like a slave by Talmüller and yet secretly teaches himself to play the violin in a hidden place. The teacher Max Walther joins the group later, who has been transferred to the village (the teaching position there is considered a punishment). He can play the organ and has directed a choral society in Regensburg. But above all, he can write off the cuff. There is also an architect and a painter. And all these artists unite at the end of the novel in a modern music festival , long before Salzburg, Grenoble, Edinburgh or Schleswig-Holstein were thought of. Of course, all of this happens in our own festival hall - Greetings from Bayreuth ! There an opera is performed on a text based on Germanic mythology, composed and conducted by the Wasserfex, composed by the teacher Walther, and with Muhrenleni and Krikelanron as the main actors. Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt even appear in this novel , alongside King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The text was written from 1886, immediately after the death of the fairy tale king and Franz Liszt. "
Text history
For the ninth chapter ("The Samiel"), Karl May processed his story The "Samiel" , published for the first time in 1878 , which increased significantly in scope and content. In contrast to the other storylines, which are all more or less interwoven from the beginning, this storyline remains completely isolated; the only connections to the rest of the novel are the geographic integration of Kapellendorf as a branch community, which is served from Oberdorf and Eichenfeld, a short visit by Ludwig Held and the people of Wurzelsepp, Medical Councilor and König, and the presence of the protagonists at the final ball.
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Frames
- Manuscript (lost)
- First sentence
- Fischer edition
- Collected Works
- Historical-critical edition
First edition
The first edition was published by HG Münchmeyer and comprised 2,616 pages in 108 deliveries. An illustration was included with each delivery.
Fischer edition
The version edited by Paul Staberow was published in 1904 and comprised four volumes:
- The Murenleni
- The Wurz'nsepp
- The money man
- The Krikelanton
Collected Works
In 1929/30 the adaptation of the novel appeared in the magazine Das Vaterhaus . However , it was not included in the Collected Works until 1958.
- Volume 66 The Peitschenmüller (1958)
- Volume 67 The Silver Farmer (1959)
- Volume 68 Der Wurzelsepp (1960)
- Volume 73 The Habicht (1967)
- Title story of volume 78 The Mystery of Miramare (1996)
- Title story of the volume 90 Conspiracy in Vienna (2014)
Historical-critical edition
The six volumes The way to happiness. Karl May's novel was published from 1999 to 2000 in the Bargfeld library as volumes II.26 to II.31 as part of the historical-critical edition of Karl May's works . The editor was Hermann Wiedenroth.
The text was supplemented by an editorial report on the origin and creation, which provides information on the principles of text design and contains a list of corrections. This report can be found in the last volume.
Others
The pseudo-Bavarian dialect is fictitious and “a real Boarian earwash” could be fatally offended if this “dialect” is expected to be Bavarian. And yet Karl May succeeds in actually achieving local color with just a few means - if you disregard the bad word malformations.
Dramatizations
There is a stage version by Johannes Reitmeier with the title Keryhof. A farmer's theater based on Karl May (in real Upper Bavarian dialect), which was played in 1992 and 1993 at Leuchtenberg Castle and again in 2004 on the Neuhaus natural stage.
In 2012 there were two more productions: one at Lichtenegg Castle and the other at Jexhof .
See also
Remarks
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
- ↑ Hartmut Kühne, Christoph F. Lorenz: Karl May and the music. Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg / Radebeul 1999, p. 38 f.
- ↑ karl-may-wiki.de
literature
- Klaus Hoffmann : The way to happiness. In: Gert Ueding (Ed.): Karl-May-Handbuch. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-1813-3 , pp. 335–341.
- Wolfgang Hermesmeier, Stefan Schmatz : Advertising for the way to happiness. Unknown May prints discovered (XXI). In: Karl May & Co. No. 136/2014.
- Helmut Schmiedt : Literature report I. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2000. pp. 315-330, especially p. 328 [to volumes I to IV]. ( Online version )
- Helmut Schmiedt: Literature report . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2001. pp. 353–367, especially p. 364 f. [to Volume V and VI]. ( Online version )
- Werner Thiede : Karl May and luck. 130 years ago Karl May finished his last great colportage novel - his longest and most beautiful! In: M-KMG. No. 198/2018, pp. 17-20.
Web links
- Text on the KMG website
- Entry about the first sentence in the book database
- Entry about the Fischer edition in the book database
- Muhrenleni's ascent from the Alpenjodler to the Hojotoho
- Entries for Volume I , Volume II , Volume III , Volume IV , Volume V and Volume VI in the Karl May book database.