The most distant place

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The most distant place is a novella by the German-Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann , which was first published in 2001 by Suhrkamp Verlag . In six chapters, the novel tells of the protagonist Julian's attempt to escape his surroundings, to leave behind his mediocre, middle-class life, which is described in flashbacks. The title Der Fernste Ort derives from the Ultima Thule , which is mentioned several times in the novella and which has literally stood for the extreme northern edge of the world since ancient times.

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The actuary Julian was taken to a conference in a hotel in Italy by his superior Wöllner. He is supposed to give a lecture there on electronic media in risk calculation, but has not yet given any thought to what to say. Instead of finally preparing, Julian goes swimming in the nearby lake, despite the doorman's warning of dangerous currents. Suddenly he is in the middle of the lake and actually threatens to drown. He passes out and comes to on the bank. Julian then makes a plan to fake his death by drowning in order to start a new life. He sneaks into his room through the back entrance of the hotel to get dressed and take money with him for a train ticket. He leaves his wallet, passport, watch, glasses and the rest of his belongings behind.

In the second chapter there is a flashback. As a young boy, Julian first heard about Ultima Thule , the most distant place that became the theme of his life, at school. Julian ran away from home for the first time when he was eleven. He went to the train station after lunch and got on the next train. When the conductor came, a strange gentleman bought a ticket for him. When Julian got out again in a place unknown to him, he saw the corpse of a woman on the tracks who had fallen in front of a train. This image confronted Julian with transience and haunted him for a long time. He was later picked up in the park by a police officer and taken home. A raging father and a silent mother awaited him there.

Julian has always been in the shadow of his older brother Paul. While the highly talented Paul regularly achieved excellent grades in school, Julian had no talents or interests and only made the Abitur with the help of his brother. Julian then studied mathematics. After a presentation, Professor Kronensäuler offered him a doctorate on the (fictional) Dutch baroque philosopher and mathematician Jerouen Vetering. Paul, who had been a talented programmer since his youth, found a job with Infotoy-Software. Julian met his fellow student Clara and entered into a relationship with her. Eventually Clara became pregnant.

Chapter three continues the original plot. Julian takes the train to his hometown and takes a taxi to his apartment. He makes sure that nobody sees or hears him. When he arrives at the apartment, he walks through the individual rooms and pensively looks at furnishings and personal documents. Suddenly he is surprised by his brother Paul, who also has a key for the apartment.

The fourth chapter fades back again. Julian was called to the hospital, where the pregnant Clara was stillborn. They moved into the shared apartment anyway. Julian also took the job at the university and wrote the monograph on vetering. He also took a trip to his home in a suburb of The Hague. Eventually he finished his job and gave her the title of Vetering. Person, work and effect . It was printed and panned by the trade magazines . After his mother took her own life with an overdose of sleeping pills, Paul got him a job with an insurance company. Julian didn't enjoy the work, however, and he didn't get along with his colleague Mahlhorn. He began a brief affair with his colleague Andrea. At the birthday party of his boss Wöllner, he announced that he would be taking him to a conference in Italy, although Julian had believed that he didn't like him.

Chapter five continues the current plot. Paul explains to Julian that he received a call from a hotel in Italy. He was told that Julian was missing and may have drowned. Therefore, he went to Julian's apartment. Paul gives him money, although he doesn't understand Julian's actions. Afterwards Julian walks through the streets of his hometown and suddenly finds himself in front of the building of his insurance company. Since it is Sunday and nobody will be around, he goes back to his office. There he dials Clara's number, but does not answer when she answers. He then visits his father in the hospital. But he is not recognized by the terminally ill. He has a taxi driver take him to a nightclub to get a fake passport. The managing director, who looks very much like his boss Wöllner, hands him a pass without payment. At the train station, Julian uses the money he received from Paul to buy a train ticket for a long journey. On the platform he unexpectedly meets Paul, who gives him more money. Finally, both of them say goodbye to each other.

Chapter six first describes the train journey. Julian is robbed on the train by two men who not only take away all of his money, but also his passport. When the train stops in the open, it jumps out to prevent the robbers from escaping. The train is now starting again. However, Julian fails to jump up again. He continues between the rails and comes to a train station. There he waits for the next train.

Press reviews

“The most distant place [...] is also told in a low voice, but in vivid language. This narrative, as finely as it is precisely "worked", with many hidden references, often hidden references and gently gliding transitions, barely reveals the imperceptible loss of reality. Julian loses himself at the end and thus catches up with the beginning. "

- Martin Lüdke , DIE ZEIT January 3, 2001

“Is it possible to break out of a supposedly fixed life into a completely different reality? Can an already existing identity simply be left, deleted and a completely new one created? To have brought all this into an exciting and linguistically extremely precise form - the impressive portrayal of the bathing accident at the beginning of the story should be particularly emphasized - is due to the twenty-six-year-old author. A good book, a very good one. "

- Nicole Katja Streitler in Der Standard

“It is difficult to say where the greatest strengths of this fully trained narrator lie: in his sharp-sighted (everyday) powers of observation, his subtly biting humor, his tendency to philosophically enrich his own prose? The simultaneity of these qualities, their captivating mélange in a laconic, melancholy narrative tone, also make up the charm of Kehlmann's new story, in which the author experiments with the question of a second beginning in an amazingly perfect form. "

- Oliver Stenzel in Kiel News

The literary scholar Gunther Nickel pointed out that Der Fernste Ort takes up and adapts an idea in its narrative structure that was found earlier in literature, for example the novella The Baron Bagge (1936) by Alexander Lernet-Holenia .

Movie

The film version of the novella has been in development since summer 2019. Stephan Littger wrote the script and directs .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Luedke: Coincidence and the magic word . In: The time . No. 02/2002 ( online ).
  2. ↑ Quoted from kehlmann.com (PDF file; 14 kB)
  3. ↑ Quoted from Weltbild.ch
  4. ^ Gunther Nickel: Daniel Kehlmanns "Die Vermessung der Welt": materials, documents, interpretations. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2008 ISBN 978-3-499-24725-5 p. 155f.
  5. ↑ Projects funded by the Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund from 2002. In: www.ffhsh.de. Retrieved December 14, 2019 .

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