The first love (after 19 unsuccessful attempts)

The correct title of this article is " The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] ". This notation is not possible in Wikipedia due to technical restrictions .

The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] (English original title An Abundance of Katherines ) is a novel by the American writer John Green . The youth novel was published in 2006 by Dutton Penguin and in 2008 in the German translation by Sophie Zeitz by Carl Hanser Verlag .

The book is about the seventeen-year-old child prodigy Colin Singleton, who, after graduating from high school and having been quit for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, is urged by his only friend Hassan to travel the United States to break up twist.

Structure and plot

Green chooses an authorial narrative situation to better convey Colin's thoughts and feelings to the reader and to awaken empathy for the main character. The book is divided into 20 chapters and has an appendix by Daniel Biss explaining some of the more complex equations used by the protagonist Colin. The numerous footnotes are an essential part of understanding Colin's brain and how it works. They also explain traditional word games and rituals between Hassan and Colin.

The story of Colin is told from the time he was discharged from high school, which alternates with looking back at events in his past and his relationships with the various Katherines. In addition, the relationship between the two main characters Colin and Hassan is described, which despite their contradictions have a lasting friendship.

content

The novel begins in early June, the morning after Colin's high school graduation early in the summer vacation after Katherine # 19 leaves him. Colin spends the day reading his senior year book in dull desperation over the loss of his girlfriend. In Chapter 2, Hassan steps into the action in the evening of the day and pulls Colin out of his stupor with his disrespectful remarks. Chapter 3 describes the two boys' farewell to their parents before they set off from their hometown of Chicago on a trip south with Colins Oldsmobile . While Colin's parents let him drive without further ado, Hassan's parents need some persuasion and an assurance to take on a vacation job. Around noon the following day, they leave the highway in Carver County , Tennessee , to visit the alleged tomb of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Gutshot, 25 km away. With the young general store operator and tourist guide Lindsay Lee Wells there, they are on their way to the grave when Colin falls and opens his forehead. While he comes to, he has the Eureka experience he has longed for and notes a complex formula for his theorem about the predictability of Katherine's . They also meet Lindsey's clique, including her boyfriend, who is also called Colin, and a girl named Katrina.

Back at the shop, Lindsey's mother Hollis, who Colin recognizes as the winner of a children's TV knowledge show, offers both of them a vacation job with free board and lodging in their villa for their oral history project to interview all residents about the city's history. With Lindsey's support, they will conduct the first interviews over the next few days. From then on, the three young people spend the evenings together and make friends. In addition, Colin continues to work on his theorem, but is desperate that he cannot derive it for all relationships as intended, but Lindsey prevents him from burning his notebook because she wants to read it first. On Saturday night, Colin stays at the villa while Hassan and Lindsey meet up with their clique. Colin tries to structure his life largely as always, while Hassan wants to experience adventures with the other young people. The next few days pass with further interviews in the factory. Lindsey reveals to him that his theorem is not working because it takes too few variables into account, like age and attraction. Together they complete the formula.

After nearly three weeks in Gutshot, Colin and Hassan begin to become estranged. Hassan spends the evening, like the previous evening, with Lindsey's friends. When he returns late, he tells Colin about his first kiss with Lindsey's girlfriend Katrina and their tomorrow's date. Colin reacts irritably and unfriendly. The situation escalates the next evening when Colin says he's tired of being friends with Hassan just so he can make fun of him. Hassan accuses him of always taking care of Colin when he was lovesick, but conversely, Colin never asked him about his problems and had no time for him once he was back with a Katherine. By understanding each other, they can eventually resolve their dispute. For Hassan's sake, Colin accepts an invitation from Lindsey's friend to go on a hunting trip with the whole gang. Lindsey secretly teaches him to shoot and takes him to her secret cave in the woods.

During the pig hunt the next morning, when he and Hassan were alone in the forest, Colin drove away a wild boar with one shot, but hit a hornet's nest in the process. On the run they wander through the forest for several hours. When they come out of the forest at the Archduke's grave, they surprise Hassan's girlfriend Katrina and Lindsey's boyfriend Colin during sex. This forbids them to talk about it. Colin secretly records his interviews on the tape recorder. At the subsequent campfire with the whole gang, Colin plays the confession. A fight ensues in which the other boys take the side of Hassan and Colin. Lindsey then provides first aid to both of them. On the following Monday, the 22nd day in Gutshot, Colin finishes his theorem, Hassan signs up for the fall at the university and Lindsey is almost relieved to have broken up with Colin. On Thursday the three of them drove to Memphis to the second plant of the factory to find out why Hollis is so in need of money that she wants to sell some of her land. It turns out that there are buyers for only a quarter of the production, and Hollis has the rest destroyed so as not to lay off workers in Gutshot. In the evening Colin meets Lindsey in the cave. He has since found out that the grave is that of her great-grandfather. Colin tells Lindsey the story of all 19 Katherines. From this evening on they are a couple. Back at the mansion, Colin puts herself and Lindsey into the formula that calculates an end to their fresh relationship on day four. The point in time passes, and finally he finds the grave mistake: the formula can only represent the past, but not calculate the future, which extends infinitely, unrecognizable and beautifully before him.

main characters

Seventeen-year-old Colin Singleton grew up in Chicago as the son of a French teacher and a sociology professor and has an IQ of over 200. He is skinny, six feet tall, green-eyed, with brown curly hair, which he wears as an Afro, half-Jewish and is considered to be Wonder child. He had taught himself to read by the age of two. His father tells him that a child prodigy can become a genius with the right support and knowledge. Since the age of four, he has wanted to make a “significant” discovery, which he describes as the “ Eureka experience”. From childhood he has memorized languages ​​and facts on a wide variety of topics and reads 400 pages a day. He speaks eleven languages ​​fluently, including Arabic, Japanese, Latin, Greek and Russian, and creates anagrams in his head to pass the time . He does not drink alcohol, do not use drugs or smoke.

His greatest need is to be loved by his girlfriend and not to be lonely. In addition, he constantly fears that he will no longer be anything extraordinary and that he will spend his life like everyone else in mediocrity, since he has trained his previous skills mainly through constant practice, diligence and memorization, but has no independent brilliant idea. For this reason and to avoid future disappointments, he tries to develop a mathematical formula that makes the probability of being abandoned in a relationship calculable. It is based on his assumption that all persons can be assigned to either the sedentary or the sedentary type. He has only a distant and superficial relationship with his peers at his school due to previously endured bullying and exclusion, except for his best friend Hassan.

Hassan Harbish is a smart, plump, eighteen-year-old boy of Lebanese descent who had been homeschooled by a private tutor for ten years before entering 10th grade at Colin's school and befriends him in the math class that Colin is allowed to take, though he's only in the 9th grade. He graduated from high school a year before Colin and has been taking a “break” ever since, despite a university acceptance. Sunni Muslim , but not particularly strict in observing religious commandments himself, he occasionally tries to convert Colin to Islam for fun. However, he adheres to certain religious rules that are important to him, such as not lying, having sex before marriage and his daily prayers.

Lindsay Lee Wells is a seventeen-year-old, brown-eyed, brown-haired, thin girl, Methodist and Paramedic in training, who runs the shop in Gutshot and guides the tourists to the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Her first and previous friend is called Colin, like the protagonist of the story. She lives in a villa with her mother who owns a local textile factory that makes tampon threads. Lindsey is urged by her mother to go to university but does not want to leave her hometown. Until Colin and Hassan appear, she adapts her behavior to the expectations of her counterpart, especially her boyfriend Colin.

Relationship with the Katherines

The first and so far last 19th are described as representative of all 19 relationships. In all relationships, Colin lets the Katherines take the first step to minimize the risk of being rejected. His relationships all follow the same pattern, because the Katherines split up with him because they just stopped being in love with him . So his fear of not being special or important enough is combined with the fear of being abandoned.

At the age of eight, Colin is considered "socially conspicuous" and is allowed to spend up to three school hours a day with his tutor Keith Carter, a friend of his father's and psychology professor, who lets him learn what he wants. The acquaintance with his daughter justifies his fixation on girls with the name Katherine. Katherine I is a blonde eight-year-old girl, eight months older than Colin, who asks him shortly after the start of third grade if he would like to go with her and kisses him when they visit the Singletons. Minutes later, she tells him that she is breaking up. In retrospect, it becomes the archetype of the Katherine phenomenon for Colin . When he was in 11th grade, he met her again because she asked for tutoring after winning $ 10,000 on a television game show for gifted children. They become friends again, and so Katherine I becomes Katherine XIX at the same time, who separates from Colin after just under twelve months on the day they both graduated from high school. She cannot understand Colin's fear of no longer being a child prodigy. With Katherine XIX, the previous scheme is broken, because when he meets another Katherine in Gutshot, she arouses no interest in him due to the pain of separation.

symbolism

The aforementioned Archduke, Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este , was killed in an assassination attempt in Sarajevo with a shot in the stomach. Colin's pain when he is abandoned by Katherine XIX and which he defines as a tearing in the stomach area , a gnawing hole in the stomach and the feeling that he is missing a piece of his bowels , his thoughts circle around the beginning of the journey through the nocturnal Indianapolis Archduke who suffered Colin's perception as a real mortal wound. The sign on the Archduke's grave on the highway leads Colin and Hassan to Gutshot (German: stomach shot) to Lindsey, who visits his alleged grave with them. Ferdinand becomes the symbol of what matters most to Colin, namely fame, and he realizes that fame does not always depend on the accomplishments of the person, for the Archduke became famous because he was killed, not because of independent achievement. The name Franz Ferdinand is also an anagram of the name of Lindsey's grandfather Fred N. Dinzanfar .

reception

The Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media finds that "John Green makes it clear with a lot of humor and even more footnotes" that "all the books he has read, all the facts that he knows by heart", Colin in the real Do not help the situation until he learns what “he has always missed: telling stories - constantly reinventing yourself, rewriting your own story again and again”. The Office for Equal Opportunities of the City of Zurich and the SIKJM list the book among the recommended books for children and young people: "The reviewed books draw a differentiated image of the sexes and show girls and boys free of role stereotypes".

Green succeeded in the "biting, cranky-funny, sometimes wonderfully absurd view of the inner workings of a young eccentric" and "a fantastic nerdy coming-of-age road trip", judge Stiftunglesen and The Guardian .

“In addition to the obvious plot, the story has a deeper meaning and conveys important messages about fitting in and trying to see logic in everything. (…) Green understands adolescents, especially those who are nerdy and socially awkward. That gives the book a friendly tone, which is great. A large part of this book takes up Katherine's theorem about predictability, (...) which only acts as an aid (...) to allow Colin to reach his final conclusion: 'The future is unpredictable.' "(The Guardian)

Awards

• 2009: nominated for the Young Readers Jury Prize , Literaturhaus Wien
• 2008: Book of the Month August Institute for Youth Literature , Vienna
• 2007: Honorary Prize of the Michael L. Printz Award
• 2007: ALA Best Books for Young Adults of the American Library Association's best youth books
• 2006: Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
• 2006: Horn Book Fanfare - Best Books of the Year
• 2006: Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews

Web links

• Carl Hanser Verlag: The first love (after 19 unsuccessful attempts)
• John Green's website for An Abundance of Katherines
• Penguin Random House: An Abundance of Katherines

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2010, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, ISBN 978 3 423 62449 7 .
2. ^ John Green: Questions about An Abundance of Katherines - Writing and Inspiration . Retrieved January 31, 2017.
3. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, Appendix pp. 301–312.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 1 pp. 9-14.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 2 pp. 15-19.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 5 pp. 39-59.
7. ↑ ^{a b c} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 6 pp. 60-68.
8. ^ ^{A b c d e} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 7 pp. 69-99.
9. ^ ^{A b c d e f} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 9 pp. 114-137
10. ^ ^{A b} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 10 pp. 138-153.
11. ^ ^{A b c d e f} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 11 pp. 154-164.
12. ^ ^{A b} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 12 pp. 165-179.
13. ↑ ^{a b c} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 13 pp. 180-201.
14. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 14 pp. 202-215.
15. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 15 pp. 216-239.
16. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 16 pp. 240-251.
17. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 17 pp. 252-262.
18. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 18 pp. 263-273.
19. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 19 pp. 274-290.
20. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 20 pp. 291-298.
21. ↑ ^{a b c} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 8 pp. 100-113.
22. ↑ ^{a b c d} John Green: The first love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 3 pp. 20-32.
23. ↑ John Green: The First Love [after 19 unsuccessful attempts] . dtv, Munich, 4th ed. 2013, chap. 4 pp. 33-38.
24. ↑ Shmoop Editorial Team: Archduke Franz Ferdinand in An Abundance of Katherines, November 11, 2008. Accessed February 1, 2017.
25. ^ Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media: The first love after 19 unsuccessful attempts . Retrieved February 3, 2017.
26. ↑ Reading Foundation: Reading and Media Recommendations ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved February 3, 2017. 
27. ↑ ^{a b} The Guardian: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - review April 19, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
28. ^ American Library Association: Michael L. Printz Winners and Honor Books . 2010. Archived from the original on February 8, 2011. Retrieved on December 7, 2016.
29. ^ American Library Association: 2007 Best Books for Young Adults . 2007. Archived from the original on February 13, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 7, 2016. 
30. ↑ The Horn Book: Horn Book Fanfare 2006 of November 28, 2006
31. ↑ Kirkus Reviews: An Abundance of Katherines, September 1, 2006. Retrieved December 7, 2016