The prodigal son

The Prodigal Son or The Prince of Sorrows. The novel from Criminal History is the third of the five great delivery or colportage novels that Karl May wrote at the beginning of his writing for the publishing house HG Münchmeyer . The total of 2,411 pages appeared in 101 delivery booklets with 24 pages each (only the last had fewer pages) from August 1884 to July 1886 . This novel started with the final delivery of the forest rose and ran from week to week in parallel with the German Wanderer .

content

The forester's son Gustav Brandt is charged with the double murder of his patron, Baron Otto von Helfenstein, and the fiancé (Captain von Hellenbach) by his daughter Alma. With the help of two blacksmiths who observed the real murderer, Helfenstein's nephew Franz, he is able to escape.

In Borneo and Madagascar he gets rich from diamond discoveries and 20 years later he returns to his homeland as the “Prince of Befour”. There he takes up the fight against Franz von Helfenstein. He functions in secret as an ominous "captain" who systematically ruins poor people and then forces them into his service. As a counterpart, Gustav Brandt appears as the equally mysterious “Prince of Misery”, who saves the victims of these machinations and alleviates their social misery. He also finds Alma from Helfenstein's brother Robert Bertram, who allegedly died in a fire.

In the end he defeats his archenemy Franz von Helfenstein and marries Alma. He is made a knight of the House Order by the king and appointed Freiherrn (Baron) Brandt von Brandtenstein.

First department

In the first division: The Slaves of Poverty , the basis of the entire novel is laid: in issues 1 to 4, the murders of Otto Baron von Helfenstein and Captain von Hellenbach occur, the castle is burned down and little Robert is robbed, Gustav is sentenced to death , pardoned and released to life imprisonment . So in volume 5 there are only a few pages left to say goodbye before a change in time, place and topic takes place in the second chapter: Twenty years after Gustav's escape, Franz and his helpers have established themselves in the royal seat as the worst scourge of the poor. But Gustav has also returned and systematically destroys all his plans. By the end of the first section in volume 20, Franz is also pretty much at the end of the city as a baron and as a robber captain and has to relocate his activities from the royal seat to the mountains. In addition, on the occasion of a duel between him and Robert Bertram, Gustav and Alma suspect Bertram to be her brother, only the last evidence is missing.

Second division

Part of the story, the entire Second Section: The Slaves of Labor , now takes place among the weavers of the Ore Mountains . In describing the misery, Karl May referred to the experiences of his childhood, e. B. the starvation of his one grandmother or the devastating leaf epidemic in his family. The conditions he describes resemble in many ways those in Gerhart Hauptmann 's Webern, written a few years later . May even campaigns for understanding for smuggling born of necessity . The blame for the misery is always only individual villains, not the system: After the "prince of misery" of the Seidelmann family of manufacturers, the world seems to be in order again, because he made Eduard Hauser possible, Seidelmann's position as publisher and To take over the merchant and fill it out for the good of the weavers - Eduard was a poor weaver's son who was supposed to be completely destroyed by Seidelmann, but then advanced to become a helper of the “Prince of Misery” and one of the protagonists of the entire mountain episode.

Third department

In the same way as he describes the conditions among the weavers in the second division , he denounces there and in the third division: The slaves of shame attack the conditions in the judiciary , in particular he repeatedly attacks the motive " miscarriage of justice after false accusation" and also shows how inhumane action was taken against even the slightest property crimes . In the chapter A Magdalene dealer he also shows how girls are forced into prostitution .

Here, too, he circumvents any explicit system criticism, which, however, in no way prevents him from implicitly inserting it into examples where he can recognize the systematic structure.

Fourth department

The third division and the short - ten instead of twenty booklets - “Fourth Division: The Slaves of Gold” deal primarily with the closer and wider criminal environment of the robber captain, who collapses more and more, and then with the total dissolution: Gustav gives to recognize the judiciary and Alma and expose Franz through Alma's former maid, the later Baroness Ella, who had been so poisoned by Franz that all of her voluntary muscles were paralyzed while she was still completely sane. In revenge, she testifies against him after receiving the antidote.

In preparation for this, Gustav shows and tells his alma not only that he is the Prince of Befour, but also that and how he came to Madagascar via Borneo and created wealth and power there through diamond discoveries and land holdings, and finally from the French emperor to rightful Prince of Befour was charged.

At the end of the “fourth division” Gustav, as “prince of misery” Franz, sets a deadline of three days to confess Alma, and thus initiates the gang's last coup, a second break-in at himself, whereby everyone is caught.

Fifth division

However, this only happens in the “Fifth Section: The Slaves of Honor” , in the fifth of thirty issues. Shortly afterwards the captain is freed again and escapes into the mountains before he can be captured again.

One last time there are complications with the evidence of Robert's identity, then finally the judiciary can get down to the mammoth trial. After more than a year of investigations, the verdicts are pronounced: many high and highest prison sentences, some lesser and finally the rope for Franz. Gustav however sells his principality and title, acquires lands, builds a castle for Alma and a village for all his many friends , is ennobled and marries Alma.

Lost text part

For a “lost” part of the text see: Ulane and Zouave .

plant

Frames

• May manuscript (lost)
• First sentence
• Fischer edition
• Collected Works
• Historical-critical edition (HKA)

First sentence

The first version appeared from August 1884 to July 1886 in 101 delivery booklets, of which the first 100 have 24 pages each, the last only 12.

Structure :

• First Division: The Slaves of Poverty.
  • A double murder. (Issue 1 / Page 1)
  • Chapter two: the libertine's victim. (Issue 5 / Page 103)

• Second Section: The Slaves of Labor.
  • The fight for love. (Issue 21 / page 481)
  • Breaking weather. (Issue 33 / Page 780)

• Third Division: The Slaves of Shame.
  • A Magdalen dealer. (Issue 41 / page 961)
  • A ballet queen. (Issue 48 / Page 1130)
  • Third Chapter: A Tau = ma. (Issue 54 / Page 1276)

• Fourth Division: The Slaves of Gold.
  • At the gaming table. (Issue 61 / page 1441)
  • Chapter Two: Counterfeiters. (Issue 66 / Page 1573)

• Fifth Division: The Slaves of Honor.
  • Crashing family trees. (Issue 71 / Page 1698)
  • Second chapter: God's judgment. (Issue 79 / Page 1885)
  • Third chapter: All's well that ends well! (Issue 93 / page 2209)

A sixth department was planned ( rescue from misery ), but this no longer appeared (for reasons of size).

Fischer edition

5 volumes:

1. Slaves of misery
2. Slaves of work
3. Slaves of shame
4. Slaves of gold
5. Slaves of honor

This illustrated edition has been slightly edited by Paul Staberow and is the basis of most current editions.

Collected Works

The Karl-May-Verlag isolated the individual storylines in this novel and divided them into different volumes:

• GW 64: The Bush Ghost (1935)
• GW 65: The Stranger from India (1939)
• GW 74: The Prodigal Son (1985)
• GW 75: Slaves of Shame (1993)
• GW 76: The Hermit (1994)

The volumes Das Buschgespenst , but especially The Stranger from India , published in 1935 and 1939, were treated with a strong anti-Semitic approach and were distributed in this version as a licensed edition long after the end of the Nazi era (=> Verlag Carl Ueberreuter ).

Historical-critical edition

The historically critical edition of Karl May's works in the name of the Karl May Foundation has been published under the series title Karl May's works since 1987 , and “HKA” has established itself as an abbreviation for the series. Initially, Hermann Wiedenroth and Hans Wollschläger were responsible as editors , from 1998 only Hermann Wiedenroth. The Karl May Society has been the publisher since 2008 .

The novel The Lost Son appeared in the HKA in six volumes in 1995/96.

Differences between the first version and the Fischer edition

Apart from the topic of the "immoral" passages, there are some differences in content.

• In the first edition Gustav Brandt returns from Madagascar after years of absence - in the Fischer edition he returns from Ceylon .
• The valid currencies in the first edition are guilder and cruiser - in the Fischer edition marks and pennies .

Others

The poem Wenn um die Berge von Befour appears in various places in Karl May's work and is each time ascribed to different poets, until it is finally identified as May's text. Karl May

• lets the poem appear in the “mailbox” of the Schacht und Hütte magazine he oversees ;
• uses it in the third section (tellingly in the chapter In the Dark of Ancient Times ) of the Book of Love and even gives an interpretation to it;
• and in Scepter and Hammer Katombo, the "best poet of his people", puts it in his mouth as an ingenious improvisation on given material.
• The “Prince of Befour” in the Prodigal Son praises the verses, this time from the pen of a Hajji Omanah, as unreachable - the author Robert Bertram is a genius;
• and finally, in the long unpublished text In der Heimath , the first-person narrator acknowledges himself as the author, who has the honor of setting his opus to music.

Only in the Prodigal Son does the poem Wenn um die Berge by Befour have the title The Night of the Tropics .

Another text by Karl May is entitled The Prodigal Son . This is a fragment that is believed to have originated around 1877. The fragment was published in volume 90 in 2014 as part of the Collected Works .

filming

Part of the novel was broadcast under the title Das Buschgespenst in 1986 in the GDR as a two-part television film, including with Kurt Böwe and Ulrich Mühe .

radio play

Walter Adler directed the two and a half hour radio play Slaves of Labor , which was first broadcast in series in 1977. The production was released on Pidax-Film in 2014 as an MP3 CD.

Remarks

1. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Deutscher_Wanderer
2. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Gustav_Brandt
3. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Ulane_und_Zouave
4. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Fischer-Ausgabe
5. ↑ KARL MAY life and work of Thomas Ostwald , Braunschweig 1977, p 104
6. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Paul_Staberow
7. ↑ The edition, originally designed for 99 volumes in nine departments, was published by various publishers in different configurations. The HKA has been published by Karl May Verlag since 2008 . Based on the text version created for the HKA, some licensed editions as well as the CD-ROM Karl May's works were published within the digital library series .
8. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Gedichte
9. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Wenn_um_die_Berge_von_Befour_(Gedicht)
10. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Katombo
11. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Hadschi_Omanah
12. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/In_der_Heimath
13. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Karl_May_in_der_DDR
14. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Sklaven_der_Arbeit_(Hörspiel)

literature

• Volker Klotz : Where does “The Prodigal Son” come from, what and how does it come from? On the construction and attraction of Karl May's misery novel . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society (Jb-KMG) 1978. ( online version )
• Manuel Köppen / Rüdiger Steinlein: Karl May: The prodigal son, the prince of misery (1883-1885). Social fantasy between consolation and rebellion . In: Horst Denkler (Hrsg.): Novels and stories of civil realism. 1980.
• Monika Evers: Karl May's colportage novel “The Prodigal Son”. Daydream and attempt to cope with literary problems of the author's existence. In: Jb-KMG 1981. ( online version )
• Monika Degner: Father Conflict and Colportage. To Karl May's “Prodigal Son” . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Karl May (special volume text + criticism) , Munich: edition text + kritik 1987, pp. 90-100.
• Volker Klotz: Karl May, The lost son or the prince of misery , in: ders .: Adventure Romane , Reinbek: Rowohlt 1989, pp. 152–181.
• Andreas Graf : "Yes, writing and reading ...". Karl May's colportage novel “The Lost Son” as a draft of a writing career. In: Jb-KMG 1994. ( online version )
• Andreas Graf: Literarization through Kolportage novels (example: Karl Mays "Verlorner Sohn"), 1995. ( online version )
• Gustav Frank: Crisis and Experiment. Complex narrative texts in the literary upheaval of the 19th century. DUV Wiesbaden 1998, pp. 544-567.
• Gustav Frank: Trivial literature as the “prodigal son” of realism: To a literary-historical place of Karl May's early colportage. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2000 , pp. 271–301. ( Online version )
• Klaus Hoffmann: The prodigal son. In: Gert Ueding (Ed.): Karl-May-Handbuch. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann Würzburg 2001, pp. 325–331. ISBN 3-8260-1813-3
• Christoph F. Lorenz: The return home. Karl May's early narrative fragment “The Prodigal Son” as inspiration and source of motifs , in: Jb-KMG 2017, pp. 67–84.
• Rudi Schweikert : "That's where I found the word Befour". On the origin of the name form “Befour” for Karl May's early place of longing and a few things about its context , in: Jb-KMG 2017, pp. 85–98.

Web links

• The prodigal son on the KMG website .
• People and locations in the Lost Son (online in the Karl May Wiki) .
• Information about the first sentence in the book database.
• Information about the Fischer edition in the book database.
• Current book editions in the Karl May Wiki .
• The prodigal son in the audio game database.