The idiots

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The idiots. A historical novel from 1972 is the debut novel by the German writer Eckhard Henscheid , published in 1973 . The total idiots form the first part of Henscheid's trilogy of ongoing nonsense , which also contains the novels Geht inordnung - anyway - - exactly - - - (1977) and The Bishop's Mätresse (1978). The idiots were considered a cult book in the left-wing intellectual milieu of the 1970s in West Germany and have been reissued regularly since then.

History of origin

The idiots initially only appeared as a subscription edition : In 1972, Henscheid had collected over 2,000 subscribers per advertisement, who each transferred ten marks to reserve the book. In his announcement, the author promised a novel in which “a Frankfurt minority” would be portrayed who “pulled off incredibly banal love scenes”: a promise that Henscheid kept. The writer Martin Mosebach writes that the book was "a roman à clef slightly promiscuous from the milieu of, alcohol blessed, work-shy Shared World" with a "peculiar dreamy [n] personnel in a startling for those years Politics Turned away unit in a limbo around rowed absurditätsgetränkter timelessness". The plot of the novel takes place in Frankfurt-Nordend and is essentially about the love story between Mr. Jackopp and Miss Czernatzke. However, the book is essentially carried by the voice of the first-person narrator , “which makes the poverty of events book-filling” and “lives from the richly varied and eloquent decoration of the retarding person”.

Numerous people from the author's environment are depicted more or less alienated in the novel - partly under real, partly under changed names, including Elsemarie Maletzke as "Miss Czernatzke" and the writer Wilhelm Genazino as "Mr. Domingo", Alfred Edel , Daniel Cohn -Bendit and Alice Schwarzer are mentioned. Among the members of the New Frankfurt School - in addition to the first-person narrator Eckard Henscheid - Robert Gernhardt , Chlodwig Poth , Hans Traxler and Bernd Eilert appear. The only representative of the older Frankfurt school who is spotted in the novel is Max Horkheimer : he appears in the penultimate chapter as an old man who steals considerable sums of money from the gaming machine in the Mentz restaurant by pouring beer into its wheels and then the House is referred. The innkeeper Mentz compares him unfavorably with Adorno , to whom he once lent twenty marks without hesitation.

The title refers to Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot .

content

→ Frankfurt am Main. Eckard Henscheid The complete idiots

reception

Die Vollidioten was selected for the fifth season of the event series Frankfurt reads a book , which took place with around 50 events from March 31 to April 13, 2014 in the Frankfurt area.

expenditure

(Selection)

  • The idiots. A historical novel from 1972 . Self-published (printing and execution: Flierl-Druck Amberg), no year (1973). 187 pp.
  • The idiots. A historical novel from 1972 . With drawings of the original locations by FK Waechter. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 1978, numerous new editions, some in a slipcase with the other two novels in the trilogy and an additional volume of explanations and small comments
  • Collected works in individual editions. Novels. 1. The idiots. It's okay - anyway - - exactly - - - . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-86150-475-8 .
Audio book

The book was read in as an audio book by Hanns Zischler in 2004 .

literature

  • Herbert Lichtl and Eckhard Henscheid: Explanations and small commentary on Eckhard Henscheid's trilogy of novels "Die Vollidioten", "Goes all right, anyway, exactly", "The bishop's mistress." Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 1986.
  • Eckhard Henscheid: How it all came about . In: Renatus Deckert (ed.): The first book. Writer on her literary debut . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-45864-8 , pp. 149-152.
  • Michael Matthias Schardt (Ed.): About Eckhard Henscheid. Reviews of "Vollidioten" (1973) to "Die Drei Müllerssöhne" (1989) . Igel, Paderborn 1990, ISBN 3-927104-08-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Professional. Eckart Henscheid . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1972, p. 108 ( Online - July 31, 1972 ).
  2. ^ A b Martin Mosebach: Eckhard Henscheid for the seventieth. Amberg and Frankfurt, world and eternity. faz.net, September 14, 2011, accessed September 10, 2013
  3. ↑ Klaus Caesar Zehrer: Enthusiastic, repulsive, boring. Four books by Eckhard Henscheid. literaturkritik.de, No. 12, December 1999, accessed on September 10, 2013