The adoration of the lizard or how to destroy angels

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Lyubko Deresch

The adoration of the lizard or how to destroy angels ( Ukrainian Поклоніння ящірці. Як нищити ангелів / Pokloninnja jaščirci. Jak nyščyty anheliv ) is a novel by Ljubko Deresch published in 2002 . The novel has been translated into many European languages, including German.

The protagonist , who spends his vacation in a small Ukrainian town, openly tells the story that leads to the murder. Complexes, fears, sexual desire, invisible and apparent competition, musical preferences and stereotypes of the city dwellers, all this defines the world of young people and influences their development.

Emergence

Although the novel was published second, it was Deresch's first work. He wrote it at the age of 15. There are many references to the first novel "Kult", such as the setting "Midny Buky".

action

In the summer of 1993, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union , Misko spends his vacation in a small western Ukrainian town called Midny Buky . He reads a lot, including Edgar Allan Poe , listens to a lot of Western music like Pink Floyd , smokes a lot of marijuana , is not interested in wealth and lives a non-conformist life. Misko's best friend named Glatter Hippie is in love with the girl Dzvinka. The three form a group of outsiders in the small, post-Soviet town; they are harassed by the short-haired members of the Pazany youth gang . The worst of them all is Fedya Kruhowyj.

Misko and Dzvinka are backpacking to a lake in the Carpathian Mountains . In the open air, with lightning and thunder, both lose their innocence to each other.

The hostilities in Fedja are increasing and turning into downright terror. When Misko is once again on the run from Fedja and is hiding in the well-known, cursed hyacinth house, he meets a junkie who tells him horror stories about the existence of evil.

The friends are fed up with being afraid of Fedya and plan his murder, first jokingly, later bitterly serious. Young people believe that this is the way to destroy evil and that is why the law is on their side. The murder is supposed to take place on Youth Day. They lure Fedja into a trap and kill him.

As if by miracle - or with the help of the hyacinth house, that remains unclear - the murderers are not discovered and do not have to fear any punishment. They also find that they don't mind the murder, they don't care at all.

German editions

  • The adoration of the lizard or how to destroy angels. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006. ISBN 978-3-518-12480-2

theatre

On October 11, 2008 The Adoration of the Lizard or How to Destroy Angels premiered at the German National Theater Weimar under the direction of Nora Schlocker .

Reviews

“Lyubko Deresch is considered a child prodigy of modern Ukrainian literature. He wrote The Adoration of the Lizard when he was 15 years old. With great linguistic talent, he tells the story of the first love and the first hatred, of a time in which every feeling is charged with madness. A development novel that glows. And one that only a teenager can write. «Jörg Böckem in the Kulturspiegel

»Deresch finds his own tone in his novel, which is symptomatic of the new beginning of Ukrainian literature in the 21st century. Deresch frees writing from its fixation on national problems and makes fun of the usual anti-Russian conspiracy theories. The martyr icons of Ukrainian literature appear in Deresch only as yellowed images of saints that have long given way to the new idols Jack Kerouac, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. « Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spiegel 2/2007
  2. ↑ press reviews