The little brother

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Cover of The Little Brother

The novel The Little Brother by Sven Regener was published in 2008 and, according to its content, forms the centerpiece of the trilogy about Frank Lehmann alias Herr Lehmann . In the order of publication it is also the last of the three novels.

In the previous novel Neue Vahr Süd the author describes the hero's time in Bremen and his military service in 1980, in the follow-up novel Herr Lehmann the life of Frank Lehmann in Berlin-Kreuzberg shortly before the fall of the Wall in 1989.

content

In November 1980 the time frame of the novel was about 46 hours. Frank Lehmann, who has just caused his discharge from his military service in Bremen through a drug-induced breakdown, travels with his roommate Wolli to Berlin to visit his big brother Manfred (alias Manni, alias Freddie), who has been an artist there for years hits through. Freddie, whom Frank Lehmann could not reach because of his unpaid telephone bills and inform him of his arrival, has been missing for days and his roommates claim that they do not know where he is. In search of his brother, the tension-creating element of the overall story, the young Frank Lehmann got to know a niche in the Berlin underground at the beginning of the 1980s and moved in the microcosm of squatters , punks and artists that only spanned a few streets . On the nightly forays through the trendy bars with Karl, the roommate of Freddie, with whom Frank Lehmann befriends, he encounters the same people again and again and towards the end of the novel Frank has already emancipated himself from his big brother, a job in the pub “Einfall “And a shared room above this bar. During the day he tries to get rid of calls from his mother, who is worried about Manfred, and at the same time allows himself to be put under pressure to look for his brother. To find him, he finally has to get out of Kreuzberg and assert himself in a hostile environment, a sign that he is no longer “the little brother”, but a more mature character. Here the development from the inexperienced adolescent "Frankie" of the previous novel to the independent type of the successor novel as "Herr Lehmann" can be traced.

shape

Like the other two novels Neue Vahr Süd and Herr Lehmann , The Little Brother is also kept in a personal narrative style. The description of the hero's thoughts often drags on for a long time, sometimes over more than one page, without finding a conclusion. The detailed reproduction of conversations serves as a stylistic means of condensing the atmosphere, with which a communication structure is to be indicated, such as was common in the squatting and shared apartment scene at the time .

literature

Text output

Audio book

The little brother, read by Sven Regener (reading by the author), 2008, Publisher: Roof Music. ISBN 978-3-938781-79-1

Web links