The thirteenth month
The thirteenth month (original title: Black Swan Green ) is a novel by the British writer David Mitchell . The book was first published on April 2, 2006 by Hodder & Stoughton; the German translation was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 2007 .
action
The action of the novel takes place from January 1982 to January 1983 in the village of Black Swan Green in the English county of Worcestershire . First-person narrator is thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, who initially lives with his parents and his sister, who is already of age.
Jason is a stutterer, which he knows how to cover up well in most situations. He is a good student and writes poems under a pseudonym, which are regularly published in the local parish gazette. Much of his peer and classmate relationships are determined by maintaining a manageable position in the group hierarchy. Jason experiences highs like the brief admission into the youth gang Spooks , but also considerable lows after he was seen going to the cinema with his mother, which is seen as unforgivable by his peers. His stuttering also becomes apparent as the plot progresses, which means another setback.
For Jason and his peers, social standing within the age group is not just a matter of reputation, but a low position leads to public exposure and reckless abuse by opinion leaders and their aides. After Jason has reached rock bottom in the last quarter of the novel, the revelation of his situation to the faculty of his school turns into a liberation, which does not label him a traitor, but rather puts him in a position independent of the hierarchy in which he is theirs Can ignore constraints.
That Jason's problems are reflected outside his age group can be seen in various places, for example in the relationship between Jason's father and his brother-in-law, which is determined by status thinking, or in the behavior of Jason's father towards his employer.
Parallel to the description of these group relationships, the novel shows further developments in different levels of action. The Falklands War is just as much a topic as the economic problems of Great Britain at the time of Thatcherism . Both play a role in Jason's life: the brother of a peer died in the war, the crisis cost Jason's father his job in the management of a supermarket chain. Changes within the family result from the fact that Jason's sister Julia is moving out because of her studies and that Jason's parents split up, as an extramarital relationship between the father becomes apparent.
At the end of the novel, the family leaves the house in Black Swan Green. Jason's father has moved to live with his lover in Oxford, Jason and his mother are moving to Cheltenham.
Structure and characteristics of the text
The novel is divided into thirteen chapters ( January, hangman, relatives, bridle path, stones, spooks, winter garden, souvenirs, worm, scissors grinder, fair, disco, January ), which on the one hand advance the overarching plot, but on the other hand also as short anecdotal stories in each of them shed light on a single aspect in Jason's development or from his environment - such as his stuttering, the Falklands War, his work as a poet. As the author states in the acknowledgment at the end of the novel, the first two chapters were consequently also published individually in anthologies in other versions.
It is very common to put individual words in italics in the text to indicate their emphasis. This gives the romance text to a certain extent the appearance of a spoken text.
Again and again, elements such as newspaper headlines, notes or blackboard letters are incorporated into the text as images.
background
Several details in the author's life and in Jason's living conditions match. Mitchell grew up in Malvern , in the immediate vicinity of which he settles Jason's hometown Black Swan Green. Both are the same age, both stutter. Mitchell himself describes the novel as a "semi-autobiographical novel".
The fictional character of the text emerges just as clearly, however, when Mitchell allows people from other of his novels and stories to appear, for example Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, the daughter of the fictional composer Vyvyan Ayrs from his novel The Cloud Atlas or the figure of Neal Brose from his novel Chaos .
Reception through literary criticism
A part of the German-language literary criticism took the novel cautiously positive. For instance, criticized Hubert Winkels in time , the linguistic perfection of the novel and its construction prevented him to represent the linguistic weakness of the protagonist succeeded. His conclusion: "That is why The Thirteenth Month is a good, but not an outstanding novel." Moritz Schuller expresses himself similarly in Cicero : "The novel is entertaining enough, also funny and of course nostalgic, narrated with routine, but completely irrelevant."
Ulrich Sonnenschein, on the other hand, is far more enthusiastic in the Frankfurter Rundschau . He describes the book as a “wonderful novel”, as “a book about literature and the power to turn words into reality”. Julia Bähr also sees the novel positively in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : “That the novel was rightly nominated for the Booker Prize last year can now also be confirmed by German readers.” And Martin Ebel states on Deutschlandfunk : “The diversity of References, playing with the motifs, even the playful re-enactment of a character from the 'Cloud Atlas': that is done admirably. "With this, David Mitchell confirms" his position in the first row of English authors ".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Mitchell, The Thirteenth Month, Reinbek (2007), p. 495
- ↑ Lost for words Mitchell's review of The King's Speech in Prospect magazine
- ↑ Hubert Winkels, A year in limbo review in Die Zeit from September 27, 2007.
- ↑ Moritz Schuller, David Mitchell: The thirteenth month review in Cicero from July 7, 2009.
- ↑ Ulrich Sonnenschein, Just not to be seen with mom, review in the Frankfurter Rundschau from October 30, 2007.
- ↑ Julia Bähr, The Stuttering Poet - David Mitchell's Easy Puberty Novel Review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on October 11, 2007.
- ↑ Martin Ebel, the first cigarette, the first kiss review in the Germany radio telecast book market from 25 January of 2008.