The acacia

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The acacia ( French: L'Acacia ) is a novel by the French Nobel Prize winner for literature Claude Simon from 1989. It commemorates the murderous slaughter during the last two world wars . In this lament for the dead, the author wants to “try to use words to create existence for the unspeakable”.

shape

Burmeister quotes Allemand and Milat, who stated in 2004 that the subject dominates the structure. Accordingly, the twelve chapters within the period 1880–1940 jump back and forth at will. Because of the subject of war, 1914 and 1940 are preferred jump targets. None of the protagonists is named.

content

In 1919, a widow who is not yet 40 - with her little son by the hand - is looking for the grave of her husband, a fallen officer. The final resting place cannot be found. The path of the mourners leads past a point under which "the torn bodies of three hundred thousand soldiers" rotted away. Finally - at the end of this odyssey through a former French battlefield - locals help the seekers. Two unidentified French officers are said to be resting in a small cemetery. The widow evidently tells herself that one of the two is her husband.

On August 27, 1939, the above-mentioned officer's son followed his draft notice. He fears that he will not survive this frontline mission. The mother, long dead, had not survived a surgical operation. When the conscript who is traveling to the front thinks back, it seems to him as if he had been put from one uniform into the other all his life. He looks back on the get-together with his young wife (whom he will later marry on leave from the front), who dutifully typed his work, which he considers a novel, and he remembers his studies in painting.

“He's thinking of death, but” he was captured by Germany in 1940, along with a few surviving cavalrymen in his squadron . The prisoner remembers the details of the death of his regimental commander . It had been in retreat after the Charleroi defeat . The regiment had been broken up several times.

He - meaning "he", the protagonist, who is always spoken of in the third person singular - succeeds in escaping from German captivity. Arrived safely at the property (probably of his relatives) in southern France , he gives in to his literary inclination.

Enjoying the last sentence of the novel, the reader is granted a sigh of relief to divine a single relation to the title of the novel. He - again referring to the hero in the text - writes at night close to the softly shaking branches of a large acacia that grows in the garden of that property, protruding almost through the open window . After the quake, however, the branch sinks back into calm. Burmeister calls this end of the novel "the birth of a writer".

Classification in the work of the author

According to its form, the novel was assigned to the nouveau roman by literary studies .

interpretation

All crew ranks in the novel despise their noble commander. Atrocities of war are brought up bluntly several times.

reception

Burmeister discussed the novel. Like its predecessors, this work is also "difficult to read". After all, an admission by Claude Simons, quoted by Burmeister, greatly facilitates understanding. The author says: “In general, I start a new novel with what could not be said in the past.” Accordingly, Burmeister points out references to “ The Grass ” and “ The Road in Flanders ”. Burmeister reminds of Claude Simon's statement that he doesn't have to invent anything, because the stuff that his novels are made of is rooted in his family history.

literature

Used edition

  • The acacia. Novel. Translated from the French by Eva Moldenhauer . Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bibliothek 2004, Vol. 22 (Licensor of the German translation: Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991), ISBN 3-937793-54-2

Secondary literature

annotation

  1. ↑ After this Claude-Simon quote, it is obvious that the novel is the continuation of “ The Road in Flanders ”. For example, the death of the superior (who is called de Reixach in the previous novel and is now anonymous) is described in more detail and the prisoners talking can be assigned the names Georges, Iglésia and Blum, well-known from “The Road in Flanders”. Anything other than what has just been asserted is inconceivable within the overall context of the two novels.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 4
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 288, 10th Zvu
  3. ↑ Roger-Michel Allemand (French: Roger-Michel Allemand ) and Christian Milat (French: Christian Milat ), quoted in Burmeister, p. 142, 11. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 15, 5th Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 215, 2. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 270, 20. Zvo
  7. ↑ Burmeister, p. 156, 3rd Zvu
  8. ↑ Burmeister, pp. 20–29
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 268, middle
  10. ↑ for example in the edition used, p. 265
  11. ↑ Burmeister, pp. 142–159
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 142, 1. Zvu
  13. ↑ Claude Simon, quoted in Burmeister, p. 144, 9. Zvu
  14. ↑ Burmeister, pp. 146–147 and p. 156 below
  15. ↑ Burmeister, pp. 142, 17. Zvo