The three leaps of the Wang-lun

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The three leaps of the Wang-lun. A Chinese novel is a historical novel by Alfred Döblin . The book was written in 1912/13 and published in 1916 by S. Fischer Verlag . After the writer had published several short stories, he achieved his literary breakthrough in 1916 with his debut novel. Döblin tells the life story of the historically guaranteed Chinese rebel Wang-lun (Chinese Wáng Lún 王倫), who led an uprising against Emperor Qianlong at the end of the 18th century and was defeated in 1774. Despite the historical subject, the novel is primarily about “ Taoism , to which the doctrine of Wu-wei, heard of inaction and non-reluctance ”. Furthermore, the strategies of passive and active resistance against a violent regime and the way the government deals with a peaceful movement of "non-resistance" are discussed.

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The novel consists of four books: Wang-Lun, The Broken Melon, The Lord of the Yellow Earth and The Western Paradise. They are preceded by an appropriation : the view through the window panes shows a prosperous city determined by technical innovations. In people's faces, the author sees the "grimaces of greed", the "hostile satiety", the "lust", the "lust". He contrasts this “progress” with a quote from the Daoist Chinese philosopher Liä Dsi , to whom he “[sacrifices] his impotent book”: “We go and do not know where to […] Who can speak of winning, owning?”

First book Wang-lun

Wang-lun grew up with his parents and siblings in the coastal village of Hun-kang-tsun, Hai-ling district, in Shan-tung . His father, the fisherman Wang -schen, sells roasted squid and sandworms and runs a meager agriculture on the limestone terraces on the coast. He is a nerd and is mocked as a clown by the neighbors. After meeting a magician, he offers his services as "wind and weather master" and conjures up the demons with a tiger mask. After being driven out of spirits, he collapses and dies.

His talented son Wang-lun is supposed to go to university, but he has no desire to do so. He is “agile and very strong” and, in contrast to his softer brother of the same age, he is raw, irascible and boastful. He cunningly extends the monthly theft day, which is determined according to custom, to the whole year. That's why everyone is happy when he leaves the village. On his wanderings through the mountains, he made a poor living from casual work like transporting pottery, extortion and robbery. After a robbery, he escapes and collides with a girl who falls into a ravine. For fear of her ghost, he dares not attempt to rescue them. In the city of Tsi-nan-fu , he steals the offering money in the temple of the musician god Hang-tsiang-tses. But the bigwig Toh-tsin sees through the thief, treats him in a friendly and submissive manner like a benefactor, but traps him by securing the increasingly difficult hiding places with tar strips. Wang gets stuck with the hair of his head and tears it off. So Toh-tsin lets the thief unmask himself. In mutual admiration of their tactics, they become friends and Wang becomes an employee of the cunning bigwig. So they supposedly protect houses from theft with their magic, discover the hiding places, steal the money and discover it again in a hidden place, whereby they prove their magic power. But they keep some of the booty for themselves. Wang-lun is considered a rogue in the city because of his high-spirited foolish pranks and associates with the petty criminal beggar milieu. He lands a big coup when the Mohammedan Su-koh, a harmless wick manufacturer, and his sons are arrested and brought to justice because of their relatives with a sectarian troublemaker against the Qing dynasty . Wang-lun disguises himself and his friends as Nieh-tai, i. H. Kwan-ping-fu provincial judge and his entourage. They solemnly move into the city and transport the prisoners in a cage before the real judge shows up and realizes the fraud. When he left, Su-koh returns and, because of the tense political climate, wants to leave the city voluntarily after his property has been sold. But he is recognized by soldiers and saberbed down by the troop captain in pursuit. Wang-lun is shocked by these events and strangles the captain in an ecstatic run with his magician deer mask. This incident turns out to be a key moment in his subsequent rebellion.

Wang-lun flees from Shan-tung to the northern religion Chi-li , where he found himself near the sacred mountain of the Buddhists Wu-tai-shan together with other poor vagabonds who have found shelter in caves in the Nan-kuberge. beats through life with begging and robbery on caravans and pilgrimages. In winter these travelers stay away and the homeless criminals have nothing to eat. So they form a gang, attacked, in a scene expressively designed by the author , brutally in desperate anger at the non-starving farmers in the remote village of Pa-ta-ling, killing many residents and nestling in their houses. Here he lives together with a heterogeneous bunch of lost fellows: personal or economic misfortune, layoffs, illness, famine, unfair treatment by officials, dissatisfaction with the Manchu emperor and his feudal system, maladjustment, instinct, inability or unwillingness to work have made them outsiders made by society. These include individual intellectual or enigmatic refugees such as the merchant Chu from Po-shan, who speaks of the abuse of power by the rulers and of the survival power of the Chinese people and gives Wang-lun the idea of contacting the sect of the White Lily . The gang of outcasts looks for the opaque, depending on the situation, harshness, rascality and rhetorical skill set Wang-lun to the captain. He encourages her in her victim role, calls her the “Truly Weak” and refers to the religious knowledge of Wu wei in his speeches one that he won through visits to the hermit Ma-noh. Because of the strict order, he left his Buddhist monastery on the island of Pu-to-shan and was on the road for a long time afterwards. Now he lives in his hermitage, furnished with Buddha figures and a rock crystal sculpture of the compassionate goddess Kuan-yin , in order to attain the last level of wisdom. The vagabonds puzzle over Wang-lun's interest in the priest and suspect that he learned how to conjure demons from him and that he is a magician. This, together with the “zigzag course” in his behavior, makes him both uncanny and attractive to them and they see something sacred in him when he preaches to them: “Trying to conquer the world through action fails. The world is of a spiritual nature, one should not touch it. Whoever acts loses it; if you hold on, you lose it. "

A force from the sub-prefecture of Cha-tuo was repulsed by the occupiers while attempting to liberate the village of Pa-ta-ling, but they were able to arrest and take away a few vagabonds as they retreated. The gang consults with Wang-lun at Ma-noh about the violent liberation of the abducted people. Wang wrestles with himself over his decision. In the end he orientates himself on his mentor and advises to leave the village, to go back to the mountains and to do nothing against oppression, but to live as an outcast without resistance to the course of the world. He himself migrates south to Shan-tung Province. In the city of Po-shan he is looking for work with the owner of a coal mine, Chen-yao-fen. With the recommendation of Chu, he asks him and his friends of the merchants of the secret society of the "White Lily" for support or acceptance of his poor brotherhood of the "Truly Weak".

Second book The Broken Melon

The doctrine of “poverty, chastity, equanimity” and “non-reluctance” exerts an ever greater attraction on people who are dissatisfied with their lives and who have been expelled from society. Many believe that in the “ring of the pious” they could “immerse themselves in that last thing that was sometimes called the“ Western Paradise ”on the Kun-lun, now the fifth Maitreya, now the kin-tan powder, which grants eternal life”. Legends are already being told about the absent leader Wang-lun that he was a magician, a divine leader. Hundreds of people from all walks of life join the “Truly Weak”. After a few weeks the number grows to several thousand, including criminals who want to hide from the persecutors and unfortunate members of the upper class. One of them is Ngoh. He was a commander of the palace guard in Beijing who was valued by the Emperor Khien-lung and distinguished for his services. Because of the infidelity of his fourteen-year-old lover, he retired from the military, took a job at the river transport office on Yang-ho, went into hiding and was considered missing. Another example is Liang-li, the beautiful daughter from the respected and wealthy Tseu house in Chön-ting town. She becomes depressed out of grief over the death of her mother and eventually separates from her husband and young son. Women, nuns, pilgrims, beggars and victims of every kind also join the movement. They wander around together, begging, singing, caring for and healing the sick. Because of the increasing number, they split up and migrate out of Pa-ta-ling and the Nan-ku Mountains in different directions. Some are moving north. Chu's group is advancing eastwards, against Wang. Ma-noh leads a group of two hundred sectarians south and, after a journey of more than five months, comes to the lonely area of ​​the marsh of Ta-lou, where the men set up their huts and tents separately from the women and celebrate the day of the completion of the glorious Celebrate Cakya-muni .

After the festival, the old order collapses. Ma-noh doubts that he is on the right path to consummation. In an ecstatic intoxication, portrayed by the narrator in expressive language, he storms the women's camp with the men and they unite sexually, thereby lifting Wang-lun's commandment of chastity in order to "make the old peace between yin and yang". Ma-noh justifies this new way: one has listened to the direction of the "Tao" and prevented that "the opening of [their] hearts into empty space". He calls this flowery “heaven of joy” on the “steps to Western Paradise” “broken melons” and preaches to his followers in the common camp: “Stay poor, be happy, do not abstain from lust so that you do not miss it and become so unclean and heavy . "

When Wang-lun returns three days later with a knee injury sustained in persecution, he defends his old view of renouncing the joys of life in a discussion with Man-loh about the right way to go. At that time he gave up his previous life and renewed himself and he also expects this from the people who have voluntarily joined the sect. The two leaders agree to part ways. There is a second reason for this: Wang changed during his wanderings in the south. In Po-shan, Chen-yao-fen bequeathed him the family sword of war "Yellow Springer" with the obligation to preserve the tradition of the "White Water Lily". And he's used this weapon many times now. In Tsi-nan-fu, he freed himself from prison after he was recognized and arrested as the captain's murderer. Since he was persecuted throughout the district, he gave up the tactic of walking alone and for a month and a half joined a dangerous gang that even raided and robbed villages. Only when the Horde approached a camp of the "Truly Poor" did he break away from them by stabbing one of the robbers with his sword and driving away the others. With these experiences that it makes no sense to just let life happen and that you have to fight back if you want to survive, he returns to Man-loh's group. As a result of the dispute over the direction, he leaves the camp at night after four days of care, accompanied by two girls, runaway slaves who, curious about the legendary wizard and demon slayer, sneaked into his tent and offered themselves to him as women. He wandered for three weeks through the middle Chi-li, looking for secret messages spread by fig traders in contact with the patriotic friends of the "White Water Lilies" in the towns and villages and asks them to join the scattered groups of the "Wu-wei" brothers and sisters to support.

Meanwhile, Ma-noh's peaceful and blissful community wanders on and falls victim to robbery gangs. The food they begged is taken from them, their carts smashed and the women abducted. But the leader adheres strictly to his teaching of pure "Wu-wei" and refuses to propose to repel the attacks by force. Rather, “holy prostitution” is developing. The women replace their beggar robes with brightly colored clothes and adorn themselves. Towards strangers to men, "they fight [with] women’s weapons" and share “everything with everyone”, thus contributing “with wisdom and determination to the consolidation of the covenant”. As more and more slaves run away from their services and join the movement, their owners are calling on the authorities in western Chi-li to intervene. However, the government officials fear that their actions against the peaceful communities will cause public unrest and leave this task to an old military in Schun-toe. He and his private militia cause a bloodbath against the resistance of the farmers and day laborers who have come to the aid of the “broken melons”. Ma-noh and the surviving defenseless sectarians flee and find refuge in a Lamaic monastery. The monks leave their buildings to them and move to a branch with their cult devices. While billeting, Man-loh becomes again aware of the discrepancy between his movement of the poor and the established wealthy clergy frozen in rituals .

In the ambience protected by walls, the coordinators discuss their future. At that time there were many popular complaints in the province about unlawful enrichment by bribing corrupt officials, e. B. the closure of a canal for pretended religious reasons, whereby the goods have to be transported over the private land of the Hou family and the owner is allowed to collect customs and set up loading stations. This causes riots and the leaders of the workers and peasants seek support from Ma Noh's group. Ma is unsure of the “melon” strategy. He decides against the contradiction of his pacifist advisors, who are only focused on their souls, to get an idea of ​​the situation and accompanies the rebels to their villages. During his absence, soldiers storm the monastery and burn it down. The result is a popular uprising: the large landowners are expropriated and driven out, and the civil servants are deposed. The occupied region recognizes the "pure dynasty" of the emperor, but separates from the central administration. Ma-noh becomes the strict reigning priest-king of the spiritual land "Island of the Broken Melon" based on the model of Tibet with two types of population: the old inhabitants and the brothers and sisters who work with them but live separately and have no property of their own. One month after the establishment of the kingship, a big street festival is celebrated in the capital with fairground attractions, masquerades and, in the evening, an elaborate re-enactment of the battle between the imperial troops and the peasant and workers' armies with costumed armed people and horses. The conclusion is musically accompanied allegorical religious representations of the Bundler and the elevator of the "royal mother of the western mountains". The next day the provincial army invades the kingdom and occupies the capital. The surviving "melons" go into hiding, like Ngoh and the Yellow Bell, or flee to Yang-chou-fu and are billeted there in the Mongol quarter.

At this point, Wang-lun intervenes in order to save his friends. Through his connection with the "White Water Lily", the imperial generals who advance with their troops on Yang-chou receive him in a neighboring village. He can obtain a three-day delay to induce Ma No to break up his group and disperse the members. He meets his teacher in town. He is desperate about the many dead. While the residents prepare for the attack and fortify the walls, the bundlers hang around apathetically and talk confused. Ma sees his mission as lost, he rejects Wang's suggestion to flee: The alliance stay together in order to enter the “Western Paradise”, they are not afraid of the imperial hordes. Wang Lun wants to prevent the "executioners and blood soldiers" from satisfying their "animal cruelty to [his friends]". He has a pharmacist brew a juice from poison mushrooms, which he pours into the drinking water in the Mongolian quarter. The "broken melons" hallucinate, u. a. the representatives of the Liang li and Ma-noh movement wriggle in painful convulsions, lose consciousness and die. When the provincial army took the city, they found only dead Wu-wei supporters.

Third book The Lord of the Yellow Earth

In contrast to the previous locations, the narrator in the third book shows the scenery of the rulers and illuminates the conflict from the perspective of Emperor Khien-lung . The "yellow gentleman" has just returned from a hunt in the highland steppe to Beijing with his large court and explains his self-composed poetry to the director of the Ministry of Rites Song and the supervisor of the imperial eunuchs Hu-chao during a rest in an impressive landscape. His life in his palace and gardens and the tensions in his family are then described in detail. The regent repeatedly withdraws from politics and spends a lot of time with amusements, e.g. B. with the Morra game and his court jester A-kui, with rowing trips, but also with the execution of strict ceremonies and prayers. When he was informed of the cruel demise of the Ma-noh sect, he was deeply shaken by the mass murder, in contrast to his son Kia-king, who was interested in coarse amusements and skillfully intrigued . He withdraws from Beijing for some time to think, orders the persecution and arrest of Wang Lun, whom he wants to interrogate personally, arranges investigations into the unrest in the northern provinces and consults with his astrologers about the possibly demonic causes of the bundlers . When he learns that the rebels of the Wuwei sect are also directed against the "warlike, anti-people pure dynasty", this is incomprehensible to him because of his family's services to China, and he invites the Tashi Lama Lobsang Paldan Jische , the " ocean of wisdom" from Tibet for a conversation. At this point, the narrator fades in the biography of the Tibetan Pope of the Lama Church, the emanation of Buddha Amitabha , in the priestly city of Taschi-Lunpo . The lama moves to Beijing with a large entourage in winter and spring and is received with all honors by the emperor in Jehol's summer residence . In the conversations between the two, the positions of church and state meet. Khien-lung suffers from the mysterious death of the thousand sectarians by demons or poisoned water and expects his spiritual advisor to understand or absolution for the actions of the state power. In doing so, he emphasizes his role as regent in comparison to that of the Tashi Lama: “I tried very hard to think how Your Holiness spoke. It was difficult for me, you cannot be emperor and pious. ”He justifies the action against the bundlers with the fact that they left their jobs and families, only went begging through the country and lived together immorally. This has endangered order in the provinces and incited dissatisfied people to unrest. Paldan Jische, on the other hand, advocates the pure “Wuwei” doctrine and asks why these non-violent people were locked up and besieged in the city. Khien-lung is insightful and reacts to the reproaches of the Tashi Lama with an imperial decree, which forbids the persecution of the sect and grants Wang-lun impunity. However, he goes into hiding under the name Tai and lives inconspicuously as a farmer with his wife in the Hia-ho area north of the Yangtze . The decree is criticized by conservative circles at the court and in the temples of Kung-tse as giving in to the “mystical priests” of Lamaism and is only partially announced and followed by the provincial governments. Instead, the coordinators in Tschi-li continue to be driven out and persecuted. Some fight back and clashes break out. The emperor's son Kia-king takes advantage of this situation and smuggles discharged soldiers into the various brotherhoods of the "Truly Weak", which stir up the unrest against the government troops and force them to intervene. The emperor's weakness also leads to the attack on his sons Pou-ouang and v. a. Mien-kho, who, together with Dame Pei, a former house slave and prostitute who has risen to the magical circle of aristocratic society, tries to kill their father using a magic spell with a jade doll with the features of the regent, but is exposed and kills himself. Another bad omen for Khien-lung is the plague of his Tibetan guest, who has meanwhile moved to the Kuang-tse monastery in Beijing and is visited by pilgrims, shortly before his return home, which can now only take his embalmed body shell in a seven-month hike. The aged emperor, haunted by ghosts, tries unsuccessfully to hang himself. He is disappointed with the advice of Paldan Isaiah because it has not brought about an end to the unrest. After years of doubt, he chooses Kia-king as his successor on the dragon throne and laments his loneliness and the betrayal of his children. The latter acts cleverly towards his insecure and discouraged father, reminding him of the responsibility towards his dynasty to maintain power. He comforts him that the foreign lama does not know “the soil spirits” of their country, he speaks and ponders with western Tibetan wisdom, with which one can hardly calm the eastern people. So he steers the emperor in his direction and lets him make the supposedly his own decision to apply the suspended heretic laws in a more severe form, to put down the uprisings by provincial troops under the leadership of General Chao-hoei and to apply the "teachings of Kung-tse and of heaven [to] defend".

Fourth book The Western Paradise

Chao-hoei's troops pick up and execute some wandering supporters of the "Truly Weak", but most of the sectarians go into hiding in the villages and towns, are hidden and cannot be caught. In order to develop a new fighting strategy, brothers disguised as merchants wander south and persuade Wang-lun, who lives as a farmer and fisherman in Kiang-su province , to return. The latter changed his attitude for the second time and decided to launch an armed uprising. On his trip to the northern provinces, he visits the friends of the “White Water Lily” in Po-shan and receives financial support from them for equipping his people in the fight against the unpopular Manchu emperor and to save the “Wu-wei”. Meanwhile, the Yellow Bell, now an officer, meets Ngoh in Ho-kien , who has gone into hiding as a gymnastics and shooting instructor for a society of higher officials, and consults with the guilds about an armed rebellion in the pawn shop . The mood is directed against the Manchu emperor, the mandarins and soldiers and they want to protect the “truly weak” from persecution. Rumors have spread that Wang Lun is a Ming prince.

Three weeks later, Wang-lun captured Ho-kien with eight hundred recruited and equipped mercenaries, including many "Truly Weak". The emperor's enemies, police officers, soldiers, officials and supporters are cruelly killed, especially by the formerly peaceful sectarians. Ngoh discusses the change with Wang-lun. This explains to him that he still does not oppose the Tao and the fateful forces of nature, but that he does not include the emperor. He would have no right to kill his friends: “I need enemies. [...] The emperor is the enemy. You don't walk to Western Paradise like you go to the theater ”. He would rather go down in battle and go to the "Western Paradise". Ngoh sees the contradictions in this line of argument, moving from victim to perpetrator role and ultimately building up a violent regime with suppression himself, but he sticks to Wang-lun and calls on him to attack Beijing. Under the black flags of the “Truly Weak” and the “White Lily” and with the Ming symbol, they move with six thousand men further northeast through a landscape threatened by famine due to the lack of rain. More and more insurgents are joining them. At Pau-ting they rub up a group of Chao-hoeis. In hand-to-hand combat, the brothers and sisters of the bundlers, painted with cats and tigers and angry with arrows and burning logs, show themselves “dehumanized” and dismember their opponents: “The war was in no way different from previous rebellions; the atrocities on both sides outbid ”. The Yellow Bell is now preparing the fight in the city in Beijing. B. by calling dissatisfied regiments to rebellion or, at his suggestion, a judge's daughter seduced the officers of the guards to open the gates. Wangs, made up of fanatical “Truly Weak”, renegade soldiers, peasants and workers, mixed hordes, can penetrate the southern Chinese city and the northern Tatar city after a march through withered fields. There is relentless slaughter, looting and destruction. The opponents rub each other on and punish their discouraged fighters harshly. But the walls of the imperial purple city withstand the onslaught. Behind them, Khien-lung follows the noise of the battle with fateful devotion. The gang of Wang-luns, Ngohs and the Yellow Bell have to withdraw from Beijing and advance northward against the main army of Chao-hoei. They fight wildly, push back the imperial troops, drive them into the city of Shan-hai-kwang in Hebei province and besiege them.

Wang-lun is unsettled by the experiences of the war and does not know how his heterogeneous troops of religious, social and regional political rebels should continue on their way to the “Western Paradise”. He tries to pull the opposing General Chao-hoei into his camp by marrying his daughter, the tender Nai, with an alleged Ming prince who has joined his troops, turns up with a group in the city and disguises himself as a marriage broker for the father on. At the same time he makes contact with groups that sympathize with him and, similar to Tsi-nan-fu, plays the role of rogue and joker. Chao-hoei and his wife Hai-tang fear that Wang-lun's offer will cause them to conflict with the emperor and quickly arrange the wedding of their daughter with their previously put off applicant, officer Juen-ching. The bride's wedding procession, secured by guards, causes a stir, despite its secrecy; there is a crowd of curious people in front of the Juen residence, who are pushed into the courtyard of the groom's family. The soldiers crack down on them, the people react in panic, the unrest is combined with the charged atmosphere, from which fights against the city administration and the troops stationed in the city develop. Nai is killed in the process. The besiegers waiting outside the walls storm the walls and reinforce the rebels. At the same time, imperial troops approach and crush the uprising. Over a hundred prisoners are executed. The surviving leaders and their supporters flee through the southern Chili into the mountains of Shan-tung. They reorganized themselves within two weeks with a new strong influx, burned the city of Sou-chong, occupy two further district cities and the fortified city of Tung-chong.

Wang-lun seems strangely cheerful and enraptured, apparently the war experiences have changed him, he strictly monitors the order of his people, but lives unrestrained himself and changes his wives quickly. When he is supposed to judge a lying robber who his people have arrested, the latter reminds him of his youth and he releases him and the other prisoners. These are all signs of his crisis and his return to his Wu-Wei conversion. In conversation with his brother, Yellow Bell, he reflects on his life: “[I] I make jumps [...] Now I'm on Nan-ku [...] I have to jump on. Now in the Hia-ho. A nice time. […] The dam, the Hwang-ho, the Jang-tse; I had a wife. The Wu-wei comes to me, I'm not there yet. [...] Slaughter, my yellow sword! And now […] where am I? On Nan-ku again […] I'm back home […] bring my yellow jumper with me, because we have to fight here. ”In the last few days he has personally taken care of his followers and preaches the Wu-Wei message to them. For him, the time of the pure path, on which one can overcome the horrors of life and the iron blows of suffering only through “submission and meekness”, has not yet come. “They who were really weak against good fortune were forced to fight. The pure teaching should not be exterminated [...] Now all fighting is over for them [...] The "Wu-wei" is engraved in the spirits of the hundred families. It would spread to them in a secret, miraculous manner while they walked in the white clouds of the Western Paradise and soaked up to their loins in the beautiful scent of Ambra. ”General Chao-hoei, his son Lao-su and Juen-ching join them a large army, they want to defeat the rebels and thus avenge the dead daughter, sister and bride. Wang-lun and Yellow Bell are trapped with their coordinators in Lin-sing city. They know that they have lost, some are killing each other, others are mentally confused, delirious or are living the last few days ecstatically in anticipation of the “Western Paradise”. Before the overwhelming force of the troops quickly conquering the city, they retreat into the house and street fighting and, in readiness to sacrifice themselves for their faith, let themselves be put down after bitter resistance. Yellow bell is pierced, Wang and his people barricade themselves on the upper floor of a house, set it on fire and die in the flames. Emperor Khien-lung celebrates and awards the winners. The surviving sectarians are brought to Beijing and publicly executed.

The novel ends with Hai-tang, the wife of the victorious general, traveling south on a mourning ship to the island of Po-to-shan. She is accompanied by Ngoh, mutilated in battle. In front of the statue of the multi-armed Kuan-yin, she prays for her two dead children, Nai and Lao-sü. The goddess speaks to her: “Your children sleep with me. Be still, not resist ”and Hai-tang replies:“ Be still, not resist, can I? ”

Emergence

In 1912 Döblin came across a newspaper article about Chinese gold panners, whose uprising in Bodaibo was brutally suppressed. He began working on the novel on January 12 of the same year. After Albert Ehrenstein had drawn his attention to Martin Buber , he asked him about literature that would deal with the Chinese religion or philosophy. Buber had already 1910 under the title Tschuang-Tse. Speeches and parables published important sources of Daoism. Döblin got to know the teachings of Daoism through Richard Wilhelm's translation, The True Book of the Springing Primeval Ground . After extensive research in the Berlin Ethnographic Museum , Döblin wrote his first work within ten months. The First World War delayed publication for three years.

The author commented on how it came about in an autobiographical sketch: “Wang-lun, including preparatory work, was written in eight months, written everywhere, streamed, on the elevated train, in the emergency room during night watch, between two consultations, on the stairs when visiting the sick; finished May 1913. "

Doblin's sources

In his novel, Döblin deals with the social question and people's reactions to it using a historical example from China. His pity for the poor is based on his childhood experiences, without his father who emigrated to America, with his mother and four siblings in Stettin, whom he transfers to the Wang family in his first novel. This youth experience was extended after his doctor's practice opened in 1911 a working-class district and combined with observations of the upheaval situation of its time, on the one hand the aggressive hegemonic and colonial policy of the German Empire, on the other hand the revolutionary uprisings against repressive systems of rule in Russia, Korea and China, where the republic was proclaimed in 1912. The author projects this conflict situation onto the situation in China in the 18th century. To this end, he takes up a little-known historical regional case and, in literary terms, freely turns it into a representative liberation struggle: the resistance of the rebel Wang-lun against the feudal, corrupt state power of Emperor Khien -lung and the provincial governments.

Since the author did not know China firsthand, in the preparatory phase (1912), with the support of Martin Buber and Albert Ehrenstein, he collected materials from travel reports, from specialist literature on China, Tibet, Mongolia, on the administrative and military apparatus, the hierarchies of officials and the representatives. He also looked for descriptions of wedding and burial ceremonies as well as customs and manners of daily life in standard works of cultural and religious history and in prose works of the 18th century. Döblin has many descriptions of the urban and rural population, their clothes, their ideas of a world shrouded in spirits, their religious festivals and the incantation rituals used to banish demons, the work of artisans, farmers, day laborers and carters, the preparation of food and medicines etc. incorporated into his novel. To name his characters in the novel, Döblin de Groot used lists of names of historically authenticated people.

According to Yuan Tan, the main plot, the personality of the rebel Wang-lun and his uprising in 1774, is based on the depictions of de Groot, Johann H. Plath and Carl Gützlaff. In these descriptions and analyzes, the motives of the rebels are assessed differently: with Plath it is the hatred of the Chinese against the foreign dynasty, with the missionary Gützlaff the cruel rule of the imperial state power against which the national liberation struggle is directed. De Groot suspects that the uprising is based on the religious repression of the bundlers. He judges the sectarians as peaceful and non-violent and denied, in contrast to the historian Yuan Wei, who apparently takes the perspective of Confucian historians and sees the cause of the rebellion in the wickedness and predatory greed of the insidious Wang-lun and not in a famine as a result of one Crop failure. In his novel, Döblin changes the list of cities conquered by Wang-lun. He initially shifts the fight from Chi-li to Beijing and finally returns to Shandong, where, as in history , he lets the uprising in Lint-sing end.

Interpretation of the three jumps

Armin Arnold locates Wang Lun's first jump in meeting Ma-noh. Wang, who leads a vicious life, learns from a Guanyin statue how to observe the ban on killing and then turns to Wu-wei. The second leap is his turning away from the Truly Weak under Ma No's leadership. After the group has been decimated, he returns and ultimately leads them to non-reluctance. This is Wang's third and final leap.

According to Anke Detken, the first leap takes place with the “first turnaround, Wang's change from the useless to the doctrine of Wu-wei and the leader of the truly weak ”. In contrast, the second jump represents Wang's armed resistance against the emperor. Finally, Wang returns to non-violence, making the third jump.

In the novel itself, Wang-lun introduces one of his companions, the yellow bell, to the three jumps, distinguishing between his life in Chinese society (before conversion and in the interlude as a farmer) and within the union of the truly weak , but not in relation to it strategies of resistance. (See above fourth book The Western Paradise ).

reception

The three jumps of Wang-lun was the author's greatest financial success behind the 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz , was praised by the critics, sometimes enthusiastically received, and was published in twelve editions in the years that followed until 1923. Döblin received the Fontane Prize for the novel in 1916 . In 1930 almost 27,000 copies could be counted. In 1932 the work was translated into French . A Danish-language edition was available as early as 1926 . A translation into English was planned during Döblin's exile in the United States , but stalled and was not carried out until 1991. After the initial successes, the novel fell into oblivion, which was primarily due to the subsequent, literarily more demanding novels Wallenstein and Berlin Alexanderplatz .

The literary criticism v. a. of the new style, the expressive language of the crowd scenes. The novel is based on the "production-aesthetic pattern [...] which was formulated in Döblin's Berlin program (1913) and later in his comments on the novel [...] that meant a new founding of his writing under the sign of a poetics of knowledge", which he called "factual fantasy" designated. In this manifesto, the “modern epic”, which is committed to a new naturalism, includes the dynamic “cinematic style”, the restriction to “notation of processes, movements” instead of psychological insights, the polyphony and the “alienation of the author” , d. H. the turning away from the authorial narrator. For Walter Muschg Doblin debut of "breaking through was civic tradition of the German novel" Besides Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Mafarka and Robert Muller tropical counts the three jumps of Wang Lun of the outstanding novels of the early European avant-garde.

The success of the novel was also a result of the enthusiasm for China at the time. The detailed description of the Chinese people, which was considered authentic, was praised in the first reviews. Some reviewers wonder where the author got this knowledge from and whether there wasn't a Chinese model for the work or whether it was even a translation. Ingrid Schuster differentiates this contemporary assessment of the subject of China: “Wang-lun is not a chinoiserie, nor is it based on any classical Chinese work. Döblin has succeeded in freeing the Chinese philosophy of Taoism from the academic ivory tower. He was the first to give Taoism social relevance, confronting the philosophy of non-action with political and social realities. "

In addition to the dynamic style and the image of China, the reader addressed the subject of the pacifism of the Wu Wei sect: e.g. Döblin's fellow writers Ludwig Rubiner , Ernst Toller , Oskar Maria Graf and Lion Feuchtwanger , which can also be demonstrated in their works. Feuchtwanger valued the novel even higher than the later Berlin Alexanderplatz . Accordingly, literary studies on the novel dealt mainly with literary mass representation, questions about religion and mysticism , the political significance of Wu Wei , non-violent resistance and the question of the literary reception of China and exoticism . References between the novel The Three Jumps of Wang-Lun and Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theater have recently been examined.

literature

Text output

  • Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun. A Chinese novel , S. Fischer, Berlin 1916.
  • Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun , Keppler, Baden-Baden 1946.
  • Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun , Walter, Olten 1980.
  • Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun , DTV, Munich 2007.
  • Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun. Roman , Works Volume XS Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2008.

Secondary literature

  • Ki-Chung Bae: Chinese novels in the German literature of the Weimar Republic . Tectum, Marburg 1999, ISBN 3-8288-8069-X .
  • Jan Broch: Poetics in Transcultural Modernism. Alfred Döblin's novel The Three Jumps of Wang-lun (1915) . WUJ, Krakow 2009.
  • John H. Collins: A chinace story from a Berlin practice . Hein, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-88099-239-8 .
  • Zheng Fee: Alfred Döblin's novel “The three leaps of Wang-lun”. An investigation into the sources and the spiritual content . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Paris 1991, ISBN 978-3-631-43614-1 .
  • Markus Joch: The place of earthly peace. Summer 1912 Alfred Döblin begins work on the Wang-Lun . In: Alexander Honold (Ed.): With Germany around the world. A cultural history of the foreign in colonial times . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-02045-2 .
  • Ira Lorf: Masks. Knowledge and cultural patterns in Alfred Döblin's novels Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam Turbine and The Three Jumps of Wang-lun . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-89528-261-8 .
  • Jia Ma: Döblin and China . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 978-3631461068 .
  • Yuan Tan: The Chinese in German Literature . Cuvillier, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86727-169-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herbert Uerlings: The renewal of the historical novel through intercultural narration . In: Travelers in Time and Space Travelers through time and space. Osman Durrani and Julian Preece (Eds.) Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York 2001 p. 114.
  2. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wan-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, pp. 7, 8.
  3. ↑ means in Chinese "suffering without torment". Yuan Tan: The Chinese in German Literature. With special consideration of Chinese figures in the works of Schiller, Döblin and Brecht . Göttingen 2007, p. 95
  4. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wan-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 49.
  5. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wan-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 120.
  6. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 149.
  7. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 149.
  8. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 176.
  9. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 245.
  10. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 306.
  11. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 350.
  12. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 365.
  13. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 411.
  14. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 413.
  15. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 471.
  16. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 476.
  17. ^ Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of the Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 485.
  18. ↑ Cf. Ingrid Schuster (Arnold-Schuster): Fascination East Asia. For cultural interaction Europe Japan China. Essays from three decades . Peter Lang, Bern 2007, p. 112.
  19. ↑ Cf. Ingrid Schuster: Fascination East Asia. For cultural interaction Europe Japan China. Essays from three decades . Lang, Bern 2007, p. 114.
  20. ↑ Cf. Ingrid Schuster: Fascination East Asia. For cultural interaction Europe Japan China. Essays from three decades . Lang, Bern 2007, p. 116.
  21. ↑ Roland Links: Alfred Döblin . Berlin 1965, p. 36
  22. ↑ Gabriele Sander: Afterword . In: Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, pp. 499-500.
  23. ^ M. de Groot: Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China . Amsterdam 1903/04.
  24. ↑ Gabriele Sander: Afterword . In: Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, pp. 499-505.
  25. ↑ Yuan Tan: The Chinese in German Literature. With special consideration of Chinese figures in the works of Schiller, Döblin and Brecht . Göttingen 2007, pp. 550-551.
  26. ^ Johann H. Plath: The peoples of Manchurey . 1830.
  27. ^ Carl Gützlaff: History of the Chinese Empire . Quedlinburg / Leipzig, 1863.
  28. ↑ Yuan Tan: The Chinese in German Literature. With special consideration of Chinese figures in the works of Schiller, Döblin and Brecht . Göttingen 2007, p. 95
  29. ↑ Yuan Wei: Shen Wu Ji . 1842.
  30. ↑ Yuan Tan: The Chinese in German Literature. With special consideration of Chinese figures in the works of Schiller, Döblin and Brecht . Göttingen 2007, p. 91.
  31. ↑ Cf. Armin Arnold: Alfred Döblin . Morgenbuchverlag, Berlin 1996, p. 22.
  32. ↑ Anke Detken: Between China and Brecht. Masks and forms of alienation in Döblin's The Three Jumps of Wang-lun . In: Steffan Davies and Ernest Schonfield (eds.): Alfred Döblin. Paradigms of Modernism . Gruyter, Göttingen 2009, p. 107.
  33. ↑ See Anke Detken: Between China and Brecht. Masks and forms of alienation in Döblin's The Three Jumps of Wang-lun . In: Steffan Davies and Ernest Schonfield (eds.): Alfred Döblin. Paradigms of Modernism . Gruyter, Göttingen 2009, p. 104.
  34. ↑ Cf. Wulf Köpke: The Critical Reception of Alfred Döblin's Major Novels . Camden House, New York 2003, p. 84.
  35. ↑ Walter Delabar: Great China Goods. Alfred Döblin's "The Three Jumps That Wang-lun" in a new edition. In: Perlentaucher June 5, 2006, accessed August 5, 2014.
  36. ↑ Gabriele Sander: Afterword . In: Alfred Döblin: The three jumps of Wang-lun . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, p. 504.
  37. ↑ Cf. Walter Muschg: Alfred Döblin The three jumps of Wang-lun. Epilogue to the novel . Walter, Olten 1989 p. 481.
  38. ↑ See Thomas Köster: Bilderschrift Grossstadt. Studies on the work of Robert Müller . Igel Verlag, Paderborn 1995, p. 268.
  39. ↑ Cf. Ingrid Schuster: Fascination East Asia. For cultural interaction Europe Japan China. Essays from three decades . Lang, Bern 2007 p. 131.
  40. ↑ E. Pernerstorfer, Berliner Tageblatt November 27, 1916. Quoted from Ingrid Schuster, Ingrid Bode (ed.): Alfred Döblin in the mirror of contemporary criticism , Francke Bern 1973, p. 25. Reproduced in: Anke Detken: Between China and Brecht . Masks and forms of alienation in Alfred Döblin's The Three Jumps of Wan-lun . In: Steffan Davies and Ernest Schonfield (eds.) Alfred Döblin. Paradigms of Modernism . De Gruyter Berlin 2009.
  41. ^ Ingrid Schuster: China and Japan in German literature 1890-1925 . Bern 1977, p. 168.
  42. ↑ Cf. Ingrid Schuster: Fascination East Asia. For cultural interaction Europe Japan China. Essays from three decades . Lang, Bern 2007 p. 126.
  43. ↑ Cf. Wulf Köpke: The Critical Reception of Alfred Döblin's Major Novels . Camden House, New York 2003, p. 84.