German son
German son is a 2010 published by Ingo Niermann and Alexander Wallasch jointly authored novel . It is the first German novel to deal with the subject of German returnees from Afghanistan . German son was the subject of controversy and became one of the most talked about German novels in autumn 2010.
content
The novel tells the story of the staff sergeant of the German Armed Forces Harald Heinemann - called Toni, after the German goalkeeper Schumacher - who was seriously injured in a suicide bombing near a German armed forces camp near Kunduz / Afghanistan and who was flown home as a war invalid.
Having returned to the former border area , he lives alone in his parents' house, who moved into the half-timbered house of his grandparents in the nearby Harz region . Toni's center of life is a multi-function reclining chair to which his injury ties him, the television and a Lidl laptop on which he watches the relevant offers from local prostitutes and gangbang offers. A person doing community service with Ethiopian roots becomes a carer and confidante.
Modern trauma coping therapies with a focus on hypnosis are part of a comprehensive treatment plan that a Bundeswehr hospital has put together.
At some point, the young high school graduate Helen appears in tow of the Ethiopian. She feels drawn to the invalid veteran and soon becomes a permanent fixture in the house. Helen has confidence in Toni. At first playfully, then more and more excessively, they live out their sexual fantasies.
Toni's family story is also a story of German religion. His father is chairman of this splinter group of a Germanic religious community, which is getting poorer in members . A dark family secret has something to do with the also German religious garbage entrepreneurs from the neighborhood of his garbage mountain to Epidauros - Amphitheater remodel and there Parsifal wants to perform.
War topoi: returnees motif
Physical immobility: limitation and pain
For a whole hour I wondered whether I should wait for him [the Ethiopian] or grab my crutches and sneak up to the Biersozi. (P. 25), Without showing off: In 2004 I ran the 100 meters in a decent 12.53 seconds. (P. 9)
Due to the injury, Harald (Toni) Heinemann is severely restricted in his actions. A speedy recovery is not in sight in his current condition. This is not easy for a soldier as he needs his legs to do his job. Physical activity and sport are part of his everyday life, which has suddenly changed drastically. His helplessness and efforts to deal with the situation in the best possible way are z. B. on page 7 clearly. On this page, the bitterness and dissatisfaction of the protagonist, which are typical of the returnees motif, are also clearly highlighted. Due to his physical injury, he can no longer cope with the world in which he used to get along. Overall, he has not yet come to terms with the role of the homecomer, the protagonist often expresses his dissatisfaction and makes it clear that at 28 years of age he should not be in such a situation.
Mental "immobility": disillusionment and isolation
After an experience like the attack that caused Harald Heinemann to break off his stay in Afghanistan, the victim now has to process the traumatic images and feelings. He has to deal with the disappointment that he could not take part in the mission until the official end of his stay, and with the permanent pain and all other consequences of the attack.
On the right, just a few centimeters below the hip, my thigh is open almost to the bone. Not just since yesterday, but for exactly 264 days and 17 hours. How do I know that exactly? Just because I have the shitty time to figure it out. (P. 7) Injuries to the extent that Harald Heinemann has them usually cause fear, panic or disgust. The injury is always visible to the protagonist and limits him. Since Toni has had the wound for so long and there is no improvement in himself, this causes him additional worries and gives him the feeling of hopelessness. No matter what everyday things the protagonist tries to pursue, the injury always plays a role. He makes a personal match of how long he can focus on different things without his leg hurting too much and stopping him again. Due to the injury, the protagonist is constantly fixated on his "physical immobility". The physical limitation and the constant pain that accompanies him make it difficult for him to keep up with everyday tasks or to concentrate on anything other than his injured leg.
The longer the situation lasts for Toni, the more he loses goals he once had from his sight. - The seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks and even the months pass without anything changing. I wait and wait and have long forgotten what actually. Aims? (P. 8) Because the protagonist is constantly alone due to his limitations and has little contact with the outside world, time does not pass for him. He is constantly reminded of his life-limiting situation and isolates himself more and more. A certain senselessness enters his life. Although the protagonist was happy with his girlfriend before the attack, the two split up. Toni does not feel understood and then isolates himself. This means that an important support in his life is lost. This also underlines how much his life after the attack differs from his life before.
Compensation through sex
The theme of sex plays a huge role throughout the novel. The protagonist tries to compensate for the messed up situation with sex fantasies and to suppress the physical and mental pain. He tries to distract himself with sex or the thought of it. He often visits a website called "gangbang-nordlust.de". There he looks at photos of women, some of whom he has already met. Many of his sexual fantasies would not even be possible with his physical injury. Since this never plays a role - or is overplayed - in his fantasy scenarios, the compensation becomes clear. He fantasizes that the submissive protagonist of a novel that he has read before is his girlfriend, with whom he can live out his wishes together. Parallels to the novel Wetlands can be found on many pages that deal with the topic of sex .
displacement
Citrus fruits represent a central motif in the entire course of the novel. Again and again these are thematized in partly completely disjointed scenes. The protagonist talks about the citrus fruits for the first time on page 64 while he is being hypnotized by the doctor. The appearance of the fruits is followed by the "big bang", as the protagonist describes the attack that caused him to suffer his injury and to return home. In the following novel, the citrus fruits are almost always associated with a feeling of malaise. Toni suppresses the thought of the "big bang", but the lemons and the feeling clearly show that he is preoccupied with him. At one point he was given food by members of the German faithful, and at another time he felt he was being controlled by Helen. There are situations in which the protagonist himself does not have control over the actions and the consequences. As a result, they are strongly reminiscent of the attack in which he was wounded. At the end of the novel, Toni plans to build a lemon plantation with his father.
Feeling strange
The relationship with his mother has become more difficult after the "big bang" because she worries more. Otherwise, the relationship still looks very harmonious. The relationship between Toni and his father, however, was already very much shaped before Afghanistan, namely by Toni's decision to join the federal government. On page 237 f. Toni reflects on the relationship with his father from early childhood and explains the changes in the relationship. At the end of the novel, in the last chapter, a very close bond arises (again) between the two.
He also perceives his surroundings very differently and only to a limited extent due to his injury. For example, he is no longer able to move through his childhood house because it has several floors and this would put too much strain on his leg. Even if Toni himself says about the Harz, where he often visited his grandparents as a child, that hardly anything has changed, that contradicts his perception. In several places in the novel, he compares memories of his surroundings from the past with those of today. He describes the former appearance of the grandparents' hometown in very extravagant and detailed terms, but hardly anything of it is preserved during the narrative presence. The big changes that have a strong effect on him lead to a feeling of alienation.
reception
Christopher Schmidt reviews for the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “Niermann and Wallasch tell full of rage and wit about a traumatic reality that we would like to have moderated and treated out of, that we delegate to professionals, and for which we would like to have a consensus-based solution without worrying residues How she last offered the little TV game with the homecoming film 'Nacht vor Augen'. But you can also put it quite differently: The authors put their fingers in the wound, and that just hurts. "
Georg Diez found in November 2010 for the news magazine Der Spiegel that in “Deutscher Sohn” “the war only occurs as a curiosity between avocado kernels in the bottom and German-faded dark fantasies”. The positive reviews of other reviewers on Deutscher Sohn im Delirium were written for Diez . And he diagnosed the authors Niermann and Wallasch with neuroses typical of the country and that they were kids' heads or state writers .
Ingeborg Harms for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung : "'Deutscher Sohn' lives from a realism that does not have to shrink from any human fact because it has the strength to save it from the cliché." And "With its election periods, its referendums and its excitement journalism, so the novel seems to say, Germany is a hormonally female-controlled country in which the dark and eruptive, the whispering and evocative, the ecstatic and the emotional still set the tone. "
Richard Kämmerlings stated in the FAZ that the authors “discovered the trauma of the war in Afghanistan for literature and unfortunately immediately forgot it”.
Martin Halter sums up for the Badische Zeitung : “Seldom has a novel in recent times so divided criticism as this joint work by Ingo Niermann and Alexander Wallasch, two authors from the field of pop literature . The 'Süddeutsche' raved about the first 'great novel about those returning from the war of our days', which, when we were 'ready for the cold truth', would have to hit like a bomb; the FAZ hailed a hybrid masterpiece that two centuries after Goethe 'rethinking the cosmopolitan legacy of the classical period'. Other critics, on the other hand, were disgusted by a racist and misogynist trash work: 'Veteran porn with Germanic kitsch'. "
Jan Süselbeck said in the taz : "Young NPD voters should be able to enjoy this text at least as much as unteachable pop literature dandies." After a protest by the Blumenbar publishing house and the authors about this part of the review, an agreement was reached to redo the allegations in a discussion at the tazcafé to discuss. Participants in November 2010 were Peter Unfried (TAZ chief reporter), Jan Süselbeck (reviewer, editor-in-chief of Literaturkritik.de and professor for modern German literature at the University of Siegen), Ingo Niermann (one of the novelists) and Moritz Baßler (professor for modern German Literature at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster). Georg Diez, who was also announced publicly, canceled at short notice, as moderator Unfried explained. Baßler criticized Süselbeck's review and said: “There are numerous literature titles that begin with 'American', such as 'American Psycho', 'American Pie' or 'American Beauty'. So why shouldn't a novel be called 'Deutscher Sohn'? ”Jan Süselbeck weakened his review in the course of the conversation, but continued to say:“ Porn and German-religious entanglements determine the novel. In the course of the novel, a network of Germanic-mythological family history is built up. "
In Die Zeit, Carolin Emcke described the work as a “pathetic”, “pseudo testosterone-laden ” and “pop-pornographic” war novel in the pompous language of the world of the “pop, communication or advertising industry”, filled with “poorly written banality” and created from the easily comprehensible calculation of being able to land and even top a pop literary coup similar to that of Charlotte Roche's “ wetlands ” with an easily marketable material . The "narrative effort" to get closer to the soldiers' pain was excruciatingly embarrassing. The sexual fantasies and masturbation marketing efforts of the protagonists gave the impression that the authors had even research the Sexpassagen the Internet must. For the authors, what was “particularly shocking” about this review was that an “avowed homosexual” like Emcke denied them personal sexual experiences. On the occasion of the awarding of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Emcke, Wallasch compared this with a “ curb swallow ” with reference to the six-year-old slap and accused it of hysteria .
Florian Kessler (also Die Zeit ) saw in the crude story full of festering fantasy a belated pop novel forced into camouflage colors after the hauruck process. The book has just as little to do with the mission in Afghanistan as it does with the traumatized people. Rather, it suffers from "advanced feuilletonitis: The next sow is always driven through the cultural village with as much fanfare as possible, and from 2010 it was just about war." The authors tried, "as if they were getting line money from a boys' magazine", as many "taboo breaks" as possible "To let it swirl around".
Individual evidence
- ^ Ingo Niermann, Alexander Wallasch: Deutscher Sohn , perlentaucher.de, October 9, 2010
- ↑ Wounds of Longing , Der Spiegel 45/2010 of November 8, 2010
- ↑ Richard Kämmerlings: Germany is looking for the super plaster . In: FAZ of September 17, 2010.
- ↑ Martin Halter: The Amfortas in the Adidashose . In: Badische Zeitung of November 17, 2010.
- ↑ Jan Süselbeck: Wälsungenblut, German religious . In: the daily newspaper of October 9, 2010.
- ↑ Discussion in the tazcafé [1] .
- ↑ Carolin Emcke : The time of October 9, 2010 , Perlentaucher.de
- ↑ Alexander Wallasch: Carolin Emcke - Middle, not courageous , Tichy's insight from October 27, 2016
- ↑ Florian Kessler : Afghanistan in literature: War in Banalien , Die Zeit from September 18, 2013
- Christopher Schmidt: Our battles . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of August 28, 2010.
- Ingeborg Harms : Imports from wetlands . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from October 3, 2010.
Secondary literature
- New seriousness in literature? , Kristin Eichorn (ed.), Pp. 151-163, Peter Lang Edition, Frankfurt am Main 2014, 1st edition ISBN 978-3-631-64876-6