The poisoned well

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The poisoned wells is a 1900 published novel of literary Art Nouveau in three books by Arthur Holitscher .

content

In the late 19th century , a young woman named Desirée Wulp appears in Monte Carlo . After a marriage that ended in death, she is wealthy, and a short time later her new boyfriend also dies under mysterious circumstances. After a trip through the world, during which she became seriously ill in India, she settled in Munich . This is where the real storyline of the novel begins. In Munich Desirée lives in a villa within a circle of men consisting of the Jewish chemist and explosives expert Sulzwasser, the editor and publisher of a literary magazine My world, the painter Saar cathedral and the young author Sebastian Sasse. Sasse, the real main character of the novel, was brought to Munich by Meinewelt because he considers him gifted. Sasse is now spellbound by the world, the way of life and the attraction of Desirée, from which he tries to free himself by breaking with Desirée and leaving her villa. However, this plunges him into a phase of deep misery, after which he returns to Desirée. Following a joint opium - orgy but he leaves them permanently and goes to Belgium .

criticism

From many perspectives, the novel is an excellent example of an Art Nouveau novel. The related symbols, the inclination towards the mystical and the closed world of the Villa Desirées form the basis and a large part of the furnishings of the entire novel. And at the end of the book, Sebastian Sasse breaks through the original, aesthetic world of the villa by breaking free from it. Today, however, this form of the novel does not suit the taste of the reader: "Elements from all the literary fashions of the past ten years have flowed into the book, which today - because of its obstruse images and parables - only interests the biographer", wrote Ruth Greuner in 1969 about the novel "The Poisoned Well".

Examples from the text

"There are [sic!] People who walk through the crowd like a lash of the whip. They lick painfully and shrilly, sting, insult, outrage in passing and leave wounds that are difficult to pinch. They themselves seem to have no consciousness of power they are almost like tools lying on the table of a higher master, waiting for his will, who will use them according to unknown advice. By their nature they meet the will of their master, prove to be good and useful tools in his hand and perhaps he has made them up himself from materials whose nature and location are known to him alone. "

"His name was Wilmoth. Some wanted to know that he was German. [...] For the few it was enough that he was a genius. None of those whose fame is in the bookstores and trumpeted through newspaper columns [...]. He belonged those who are proud. At whose cradle, only visible to her knowing eyes, stood a beautiful, mute fairy, the fairy with eyes full of sorrow when she looked at the cradle, full of contempt when she turned to the world. "

literature

  • Arthur Holitscher : The poisoned well. Novel in three books . Langen Publishing House, Leipzig 1900.
  • Jens M. Fischer: Fin de Siècle . Commentary on an epoch . Winkler, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-538-07026-1 .
  • Ruth Greuner: Opponent. Profiles of left-wing journalists from the German Empire and the Weimar Republic . Book publisher "Der Morgen", Berlin 1969.
  • Heribert Seifer: Objective and believing. Some information about the life and work of Arthur Holitscher . In: Jost Hermand , Gert Mattenklott (Hrsg.): Jüdische Intellektiven in Deutschland (literature in the historical process / new series; vol. 19). Argumente-Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-88619-157-5 , pp. 47-69.