The enchantment

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The Enchantment is a novel by Hermann Broch that appeared posthumously in 1953 and was edited under the titles Der Versucher , O Encantamento, Demeter and Die Verzauberung .

Origin and edition history

Begun in 1935, the text was completed in early 1936 as the first volume of a planned Demeter trilogy. But the author only completed this one volume in the trilogy. In the years 1936 to 1950 Broch began making changes to the text, but not finished them. After Broch's death, in 1952, a version was published that Felix Stössinger compiled under the title “Der Versucher” from the author's attempts at post-processing. The sections of the novel that were missing in the incomplete second version were added after the first version. This version is therefore more comprehensive than the (first) version, which is distributed today under the title "The Enchantment", which Broch gave up. “The Tempter” was published from 1960 to 1970 in French, Japanese, Hungarian, Czech and Polish. In 1967 the fragmentary third (definitive) version was published for the first time under the title "Demeter" in the Suhrkamp library. In 1969 an integral edition of all three versions of the mountain novel followed in four volumes.

Time and place of the action

The novel is set in an alpine village from March to November of a year - about ten years after the end of the First World War .

prehistory

The first-person narrator, an aging, obese country doctor, inserts the story of his love into the middle of the novel. The incident dates back over 15 years. The then 42-year-old doctor, who worked scientifically in the city, confesses his love to a 28-year-old colleague. The relationship continues even when it turns out that the doctor is active in the communist resistance. The young woman, who is expecting a child from the narrator, is poisoned after a failed attempt on a politician.

The doctor then travels (14 years before the actual start of the action) to a recreational stay from the city to the mountain village of Kuppron and stays there. One of his motives for fleeing the city, the narrator wants the reader to believe at the beginning, was the contempt for scientific progress.

content

In that village of Kuppron, the location of the action on the mountain of the same name, the narrator gets into conversation with all sorts of inhabitants. So he learns that 18-year-old Peter Sabest impregnated 16-year-old Agathe Strüm. The cottage owner Strüm is happy that he will be a grandfather. The Doctor always interferes in the affairs of his customers. In that case, he recommends that the family of the father-to-be in the picture. The cottage owner Strüm thinks little of that. Such as the landlord and butcher Theodor Sabest “don't want a farm's daughter, they want to go higher”. "An evil and foolish mysticism " is celebrated in the novel. This increasingly unsettling event revolves around the person of the petty bourgeois and vagabond Marius Ratti. Marius called Agathe a witch. In general, the person who walked around took strange "back to nature" views in front of the mountain farmers. He wants to abolish both the radio and the machine threshing in the village . Some from the village think that Marius, a dowser , will redeem them. Marius Ratti claims that gold can still be mined from a disused tunnel in the Kuppron mountain, and many of the guests in Sabest's inn have an open ear. The doctor, however, tells Marius his opinion in private: "You want power." Marius affirms it. Apart from the doctor, only a few villagers see through the foolish goings-on of the newcomer: Mother Gisson and her son, the mountain mathias.

Marius Ratti is staying with mother Gisson's son-in-law, the farmer Miland. Irmgard Miland, mother Gisson's granddaughter, becomes the mountain bride. This is to be freed from the clutches of dragons and lindworms. In the stone blessing in question, following a procession up to the Kuppron, the chosen virgin is then married to the mountain every year as part of a prehistoric evocation of nature at the dwarf tunnel. The long-time residents, mainly from the upper village, led by Mother Gisson and Thomas Suck, lead the sweaty march uphill. Suck is a lumberjack with many children and occasionally appears as the cheerful storyteller in the village. Mother Gisson intends to take her granddaughter to Oberdorf after the harvest. Because Irmgard is now a slave to Marius. Marius and Wenzel have already stirred up the whole of the lower village - where Irmgard lives. Mother Gisson thinks Marius is a magician who wants to play the world redeemer. And seduced sorcerers. Wenzel, a vagabond like Marius, was also temporarily placed with farmer Miland by the latter. The first test of strength between the Bergmathias and the Ratti supporters comes when the young prospectors from the lower village want to open the walled-up shaft entrance to the dwarf tunnel. Wenzel leads the drill paramilitary unit like a general. Wenzel has Peter Sabest with him as one of his assistants. Only Suck and Herr Doctor are on the Bergmathias side. However, the Bergmathias and Suck are armed with guns. In contrast, those from the lower village only carry knives. The three can put the superior force to flight. Afterwards Suck regrets several times that he was not allowed to shoot Wenzel at the order of the Doctor.

The narrator and mother Gisson agree that Irmgard - in Marius Ratti's vicinity - is in great danger. Mother Gisson takes the granddaughter to live in Oberdorf. But the impotent Ratti follows her from the lower village. Irmgard says he loves her. The young girl wants him to have a child, but knows he will kill her. Ratti does not do the deed himself. Since he enchanted the Kupproners almost without exception with his "singing tone", Theodor Sabest does it. The authority is notified. Sabest, the "devil guy", judges himself. A scapegoat has to be found. The completely innocent Wetchy, agent of the threshing machine factory, a city dweller like the narrator, is to be lynched. The narrator prevents the crime. Irmgard is buried. Irmgard's father, the farmer Miland, did not send the Ratti away - against the doctor's will; is still for him. Ratti is launched by the powerful of the village into the municipal council and stays there.

The dwarf tunnel is reopened under Wenceslas command. The search for gold begins. Wenceslaus and a prospector are buried in the tunnel. Wenzel, seriously injured, is saved. The mining authority will close the dwarf pit. Wetchy backs down; moves to the city. Mother Gisson, broken, gives up the resistance against Marius Ratti and dies. Agathe, the bearer of hope in the novel, gives birth to her child.

The above seems almost unbelievable. unheard of incident. What is meant is the nocturnal ritual murder of the mountain bride Irmgard Miland, committed by Theodor Sabest on the occasion of a mountain church consecration at the Cold Stone. The girl is killed on a Celtic sacrificial table with a butcher's knife in front of the almost completely assembled village population . More precisely, immediately before the crime, one torch after the other is put out. But almost all of the people involved in the act were gathered at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. The monstrous thing is that no one is reported who opposed the murder. The most monstrous thing: Even the narrator, an enlightened, formerly actively researching scientist, a well-behaved, prudent and humane man of reason throughout the novel, does not rebel - neither internally nor externally. How can this be possible? The narrator promptly delivers the concise answer: Marius Ratti has enchanted the whole village - including his opponents, when the narrator and mother Gisson are present at the crime scene; mainly made drunk with words in the "prophetic tone". Marius Ratti has prepared the murder with mystically tangled garbage. Bergmathias and Suck, the two defensive men, are apparently not present at the scene at the time of the crime.

The behavior of the parish fair participants after the crime is unacceptable. After the torches are lit again, one does not disperse oneself concerned and disillusioned, but gets drunk with free beer. Actually, the roughness of feeling fits in with the brutalities reported immediately before the crime. Several villagers wanted to see human blood flow. Even after that, the Miland family circle goes back to business as usual. "Sensory confusion at the moment of the act is a reason for suspension of punishment". Life goes on. Mother Gisson brings the younger granddaughter to safety from Marius Ratti, takes care of Ms. Sabest and her potential daughter-in-law Agathe.

shape

Sometimes the narrator suddenly jumps into the present tense, but quickly falls back into his past tense. Excessive descriptions of alpine nature over the seasons alternate with deep glimpses into the psyche of the protagonists, including that of the narrator himself. The author has only narrated a few people from the pool of numerous novelists. Broch says that the rich, enterprising Robert Lax, the “real ruler of the community”, the first councilor, is clearly significantly complicit in Irmgard's death, but the reader has to guess: Who or what kind of person could Lax be?

In some passages, the narrating country doctor almost provokes the reader's displeasure. For example, the narrator finds “the amalgamation of community politics and mountain magic ridiculous”. His reasonably objective writing attitude may follow from this. But he doesn't get through this. Because at the end of the novel, the writing doctor unexpectedly switches to the mystical subject. This is the scene in which mother Gisson dies in the presence of the narrator in the mountain forest and meanwhile the voice of the dead Irmgard Miland speaks.

The portrayal of the country doctor borders on complacency. At no single point in the novel is the authority of the narrator questioned. Respect, yes, awe, the established physician dominates throughout - even among the notorious villains, as Marius Ratti and Wenzel stand out. As soon as the doctor appears and speaks his word of power, without exception - at least temporarily - every bully and every troublemaker pinches.

Quotes

  • "It is not made easy for anyone to remain in the image of God."
  • "Those who hike run away from death."
  • "The rhythm of work is a good master of people."
  • "Anyone who hates is a poor devil."
  • "One fool finds many fools."
  • "Only those who remain in their own self can be happy or unhappy."

Testimonials

Broch commented on the novel in 1936, 1940 and 1941.

  • In the commentary from 1936, a table of contents, discrepancies with the text of the novel published in the source are apparent.
  • But in the 1940 comment, Broch hits a nerve in his novel. At first the country doctor, the narrator, kept a critical distance from the fool Marius Ratti. Finally, the doctor is “seized” “by the frenzy” of the village population.
  • In the comment from 1941 Broch finally expresses the writing concern that was taken up by the argumentative Broch research: the depth psychological analysis of a seducible people. The author wanted to lay bare the roots of "German events" (meaning the events from 1933).

reception

  • According to Lützeler, religion and criticism of the times are two major themes in the novel. The rise of National Socialism is presented in a parable.

literature

source

  • Paul Michael Lützeler (Ed.): Hermann Broch: The Enchantment. Novel. P. 9–370 in Volume 3: Hermann Broch: Annotated Work Edition . Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1986 (4th edition). Copyright 1958 by Rhein-Verlag AG, Zurich. 417 pages, without ISBN

Editions of the individual versions

  • Hermann Broch: The tempter. Novel. Rhein-Verlag Zurich 1953. 599 pages.
  • Hermann Broch: Demeter. Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1967.
  • Hermann Broch: Mountain novel. First, second and third versions. Three volumes with an accompanying volume . Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1969.

expenditure

  • Paul Michael Lützeler (Ed.): Hermann Broch: The Enchantment. Novel. Suhrkamp Taschenbücher 2365. 4th edition of August 27, 2007. 416 pages, ISBN 978-3-518-38865-5

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ von Wilpert, p. 85, 2nd column, 27. Zvo
  2. ↑ Source, p. 417
  3. ↑ Source, p. 414
  4. ↑ Source, p. 260
  5. ↑ Source, p. 373, 2. Zvo
  6. ↑ Source, p. 392, 7. Zvo; Source, p. 374, 18. Zvo
  7. ↑ Source, p. 187, 15. Zvo to 202, 11. Zvu
  8. ↑ Source, p. 113, 4th Zvu
  9. ↑ Source, p. 84, 13. Zvo
  10. ↑ Source, p. 176, 16. Zvu
  11. ↑ Source, p. 143, 7th Zvu
  12. ↑ Source, p. 73, 6th Zvu
  13. ↑ Source, p. 117, 7. Zvo
  14. ↑ This is Mathias Gisson (source, p. 148).
  15. ↑ In the source on p. 172, 5. Zvu is the first to use the word to which the title of the novel refers.
  16. ↑ Source, p. 174, 11. Zvo
  17. ↑ Source, p. 284, 9. Zvu
  18. ↑ Source, p. 281, 6th Zvu
  19. ↑ Source, p. 50 center
  20. ↑ see, for example, Quelle, p. 275, 11. Zvu ff.
  21. ↑ Source, p. 181, 10. Zvo
  22. ↑ see, for example, Quelle, p. 360, 6. Zvu ff.
  23. ↑ Source, p. 49, 16. Zvu
  24. ↑ Source, p. 55, 12. Zvo
  25. ↑ Source, p. 150, 15. Zvo
  26. ↑ Source, p. 173, 5. Zvo
  27. ↑ Source, p. 178, 2nd Zvu
  28. ↑ Source, p. 200, 4. Zvo
  29. ↑ Source, pp. 373 to 382
  30. ↑ Source, pp. 383 to 386
  31. ↑ Source, p. 387
  32. ↑ Source, commentary, p. 374: Marius Ratti is staying with the farmer Wenter (on the other hand in the romantic text with farmer Miland). Source, commentary, p. 381: Peter Sabest perishes in the dwarf tunnel (in the text of the novel the dead person is a certain Leonhard (source, p. 328, 1. Zvo), a Deus ex Machina Brochs).
  33. ↑ Source, p. 384 below
  34. ↑ Source, p. 408, 19. Zvo
  35. ↑ Source, p. 408, 24. Zvo
  36. ↑ Source, pp. 415 to 416