The dark side of the moon

This article is about the novel. For its film adaptation from 2015 see The dark side of the moon (film) . For the 2009 British science fiction film, see Moon (film) .

The dark side of the moon is a novel by the Swiss author Martin Suter . The book was published in 2000 by Diogenes Verlag .

title

The book title The Dark Side of the Moon is mostly understood as an allusion to the album The Dark Side of the Moon by the British rock band Pink Floyd . It would also be possible to refer to an aphorism by the American writer Mark Twain : Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. (Everyone is a moon and has a dark side that they don't show anyone.)

action

With the dark side of the moon , the novel describes the personality changes of the business lawyer Urs Blank, who is in a midlife crisis and who works in a respected law firm.

Blank is successful in his profession as a specialist in merger negotiations and has his life under control until he starts an affair with the young and beautiful Lucille, who runs a flea market stall with Indian smoked goods and silk scarves. She persuades him to consume hallucinogenic mushrooms during a self-awareness weekend . Blank's personality changes as a result, he behaves increasingly self-centered and violent. After killing Lucille's kitten without emotion and later provoking a serious traffic accident, Blank fears that he represents a danger to society. He therefore asks his long-time friend, the psychiatrist Alfred Wenger, for help.

The two hope to be able to stabilize Blank again with a second mushroom trip guided by Wenger. However, this does not succeed. After further outbreaks of violence, Blank was admitted by Wenger to a rehabilitation center, where he took long walks and developed a preference for the forest. He studies books about mushrooms and forest plants and finally comes across the secret of the first mushroom trip that changed him so much. The hallucinogenic mushroom mixture on Blank's first trip also contained an effect-enhancing mushroom that was missing the second time. It is extremely rare and is considered almost extinct.

Blank decides to live far away from the people in the forest and fakes suicide. When the deception is exposed, the passionate hunter Pius Ott sets out to kill him (Ott was a client of Blank's law firm and involved them in white-collar crime). The police are also active and are looking for Blank after his jaguar was seen near the now burned down yard of an old hippie.

Blank also spends his forest life looking for the rare mushroom and eventually succeeds. He returns to the place of the first mushroom trip and repeats the procedure one more time.

After several days of searching, Ott found Blank in his quarters and thus beat the police. A fight ensues between the two in which Blank overpowers Ott, has the chance to kill him, but renounces it and lets Ott shoot him. Ott buries the body. On the way back to his car he meets the investigators. They take his weapons from him.

reception

"Suter's novel is a philosophically founded mind game about the reality of the unreal and the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous and also about how little it takes to let human constructions and agreements collapse."

- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 6, 2000

"With the novel The Dark Side of the Moon , Suter [...] has presented a book from the dark realm of mushrooms that is at the same time a sophisticated business crime, toxic social panorama, prevented love story and psychological puzzle - and also a central theme of the author ( that of the creeping personality change and disorientation) consistently continues. "

- Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 22, 2000

expenditure

• Hardcover, Diogenes Verlag , ISBN 978-3-257-06231-1 .
• Paperback edition, Diogenes Verlag, ISBN 978-3-257-23301-8 .
• Audio book. Audiobook Hamburg , Hamburg 2007, 5 CDs, 388 min. (abridged reading), read by Heikko Deutschmann , ISBN 978-3-89903-780-7 .
• Audio book. Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 2013, 7 CDs, 508 min. (unabridged reading), read by Gert Heidenreich , ISBN 978-3-257-80316-7 .

filming

In September 2014, the filming of a movie adaptation of the novel began, directed by Stephan Rick , who also wrote the script together with Catharina Junk. Moritz Bleibtreu plays Urs Blank, Jürgen Prochnow his opponent Pius Ott and Nora von Waldstätten plays Lucille. The film The Dark Side of the Moon premiered at the Zurich Film Festival in September 2015 and was released in theaters in January 2016.

Web links

• The book on the publisher's homepage
• Review notes on The Dark Side of the Moon at perlentaucher.de
• Teaching project for the novel

Individual evidence

1. ^ Press release from Südwestrundfunk on the shooting of October 31, 2014
2. ↑ Official website for the film project