The lights from Bullet Park
The lights of Bullet Park (English original title: Bullet Park ) is a novel published in 1969 by the American writer John Cheever . With its portrayal of life in the American suburbs and the failure of the American Dream , the book still exerts an influence on literature and culture, most recently on the successful US series Mad Men .
content
The first part of the book describes life in the fictional New York suburb of Bullet Park using the example of the family man Eliot Nailles, whose life follows a routine and is interrupted by episodic confrontations with his family or dealing with his pill addiction. He only casually knows his new neighbor Paul Hammer, whose life story is described in the second part of the book: from his birth as an illegitimate child to a secretary, to the increasing decline due to his alcohol addiction - to the decision to move to Bullet Park and Eliot Nailles (or later Nailles' son Tony) to murder in church: "As he explained, he wanted to shake up the world with this act." The third part ends with the thwarting of the ritual murder, Hammer's admission to the hospital for insane criminals and the resumption of the usual routine in Bullet Park.
German-language publications
In the translation by Kurt Wagenseil and under the title Die Bürger von Bullet Park , the first German edition was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 1972 , and in the same year as a licensed edition by the GDR publisher Volk und Welt .
In 2011 DuMont-Buchverlag published the book as Die Lichter von Bullet Park , newly translated by Thomas Gunkel .
reception
"A masterful, bizarre-evil reckoning with American dream mendacity." star
"If a book like this survives forty years, makes us laugh and sad and can still be read smoothly, that speaks for the author's ability to form [...]" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"With linguistic brilliance and abysmal wit, the author, who died in 1982, succeeded in creating a gripping social satire." Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
The quotations refer to the DuMont new edition from 2011.
literature
- Klaus Bonn: suburbs and decay. On the figuration of house, family and melancholy in John Cheever's novel Bullet Park . In: Weimar Contributions 3/2014. Passagen Verlag , Vienna 2015, ISSN 0043-2199 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Alexander Schimmelbusch : Cesspits of conformity . April 9, 2011. Retrieved from freitag.de on January 31, 2012.
- ↑ John Cheever: The Citizens of Bullet Park. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1972. p. 244.
- ↑ The lights of Bullet Park at dumont-buchverlag.de ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved January 31, 2012.
