The world of ruins (novel)
The world of ruins (original title Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, 1969) is a fantastic novel by Mark Geston published in German in 1975 . The story is the first sequel to the so-called ship trilogy .
action
The world and the people for life in resignation . They lead a shadowy existence and languish there. They long for the end of the world, for a great battle that will end their bleak existence once and for all.
The young Amon VanRoark is an outsider. While his father takes care of the great cathedral in the city, unlike his fellow men, he is interested in the happier days of the past. One day, when a ship returns from a lost war and VanRoark listens to a prophet , he decides to go to war himself. He leaves his parents' house and his homeland and after a few days joins a group of adventurers who are heading in his direction.
When the group arrives at the sea, VanRoark meets the alcoholic sailor Tapp. This also joins the caravan and together they move on to the next port city. There they board a shabby ship with a colorful team. VanRoark meets like-minded people for the first time. As he drives along the coast, he thinks a lot about his own situation and the world around him and decides to learn to sail . A little later, at a stopover, the ship stops and VanRoark goes ashore with part of the crew to take up supplies. Conditions in the area are dire: the people are run-down wrecks with no meaning or purpose in their lives. VanRoark is shocked by this. The travel conditions are getting worse, the ship is making headway only with difficulty.
You are approaching the destination and reaching a legendary place. There VanRoark learns that it is not at all sure whether he is fighting for the right side. He is on the verge of despair. The mood in the rest of the team also deteriorates: there is an argument. The ship finally reaches its destination, a huge army camp . There it turns out that many people are making business out of the impending war, and VanRoark wonders again if he's on the right side. A former passenger of the ship he knows is murdered in the camp. Another dies shortly afterwards in his presence. The battle breaks out suddenly, but it is not a battle against another enemy, rather the participants in the army camp slaughter each other. VanRoark loses an arm and his right eye.
When the fighting is over, VanRoark is unconscious. He is in very bad shape. His condition is only slowly improving. It comes in a moving Geländezug to be where a benevolent war veteran with an artificial lower jaw has accepted his. VanRoark now wears a prosthetic arm and an artificial eye. The two talk a lot with each other, each telling the other his life story. On the way to their next destination, VanRoark discovers old history books in a carriage, which his companion warns him about. But he ignores the warning and studies the books. Shortly afterwards, the two find a crashed fighter plane and bury the dead. All of these events are traumatic to VanRoark ; Madness begins to take hold of him. He begins to hate the old veteran for his attitude towards life and for his salvation, separates himself internally and becomes a loner again. On the way he gets out and sneaks away unnoticed. Alone he reaches a big city, but here too he finds only decay, indifference and empty streets. As he approaches an abandoned temple, he is attacked and injured by a dragon. He kills the dragon and shortly afterwards he collapses from exhaustion.
VanRoark was on the road for seven years. Again and again he experiences moments of madness. Imagination and reality blur. He settled in a town called Kilbrittin for a year , after which he went south to his hometown, where his parents' house is. It's empty, just like his old room. VanRoark is disappointed that he doesn't feel sad. Only when he visits the great cathedral does something dissolve inside him.
He walks down the old road where he once started his journey. He wanders south again, where he finally rediscovered the old train. His companion, the veteran, is long dead, only the skeleton is left. VanRoark is astonished to find that the artificial lower jaw can still speak. He made the train afloat again and traveled west with it for a year: he wanted to go into battle again. During the trip he talks to the skeleton and when he reaches the former military camp, VanRoark is standing in front of a desert of rubble. Countless dead are buried under the sand like an army of ghosts. He strolls across the plain, passes places that he remembers. But he doesn't feel comfortable here. He wants to go to war, this time it should succeed. With the speaking dead man and a few skeletons from the area, which he adds around an improvised table, he prepares a grotesque farewell party. He's getting drunk. While drunk he listens to the speaking lower jaw of the dead veteran and learns that he has long been dead, and that the skeleton actually belongs to the prophet, whom VanRoark once heard as a boy in his hometown. VanRoark argues with the dead prophet and loses all hope. Then he collapses.
The next morning, VanRoark fled the area. Contrary to his original intention, he steers the train away from the battlefield until it reaches an abandoned city by the sea. Then he drives into the city to a park on the coast. There he got out and dragged himself to the surf with the last of his strength. His grief dissolves and the world around him dies.
criticism
“The mood of the entire story is pervaded by a deep melancholy, but despite all the sadness and despair described, it is remarkable how tenaciously and persistently the characters involved pursue their quest for a better world. This time, too, the story takes place in the fantasy world designed by Mark Geston, the setting of which was already used for the first part of the ship trilogy. "
background
The German translation from 1975 is by Birgit Reß-Bohusch .
Web links
- Literature from and about the world of ruins in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mark Geston: The Ship . Ed .: Wolfgang Jeschke. 1st edition. tape 06/3423 , no. 980 . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-02770-1 , p. 122 .
- ↑ "Booklet BWA No. 402" p. 30