The big families

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The large families ( French: Les Grandes Familles ) is the first volume in the trilogy of novels by the French writer Maurice Druon , which was published by Julliard in Paris in 1948 . The author received the Prix ​​Goncourt 1948 for this work .

Volume 2 - The Fall of the Corps ( La Chute des corps ) and Volume 3 - Rendezvous in Hell ( Rendez-vous aux Enfers ) came out in 1950 and 1951. The German edition of the entire trilogy in the broadcast by Lotte Frauendienst was published by Henry Goverts in Stuttgart in 1961 . Humphrey Hare translated the novel into English in 1952 ( Curtain falls. A modern trilogy ). Another English translation is aptly called Rise of Simon Lachaume . Marisa Zini translated the novel into Italian in 1956 ( Einaudi , Turin : Le grandi famiglie ). In 1963 a Czech ( Burziáni ) and an Armenian ( Ays ashkharhi hzornerě ) version and in 1987 a Chinese ( Dàjiāzú ) by Liú Zhìwēi appeared.

The domineering banker Noël Schoudler - born in 1856, got rich as a sugar factory and newspaper printer owner and operator of trading companies - does not give his only son an ounce of power.

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Paris, Avenue de Messine and its environs in early 1916 to 1924.

Schoudler family

According to the title of the novel, there must be at least one family in addition to the Schoudler banking family. This second family lives on Rue de Lubeck. They are the married couple Jean and Juliette de La Monnerie. The poet Marquis Jean de La Monnerie, a member of the Académie française , was born near Vierzon in 1846 .

Baron Noël Schoudler's father Siegfried Schoudler - founder of the Schoudler banking house - laid the foundation stone for the Schoudler empire. In his youth, Baron Siegfried even dined with his father once at Prince Metternich 's. Siegfried dies in early 1924 at the age of around ninety-four.

The massive, gigantic Baron Noël Schoudler, one of the most powerful men in Paris , now a member of the board of directors of the Banque de France , rules as the sole heir.

Noël and Adèle Schoudler's son Baron François Schoudler, born around 1879, married Jacqueline, the daughter of Jean de La Monnerie, in 1914. Marie-Ange Schoudler is born. The young father takes part in the First World War. At the beginning of 1916, Jacqueline gave birth to her son Jean-Noël. He bears the first names of his grandfathers.

During a business trip to America in 1922, Noël Schoudler was represented by his son François. After his return from overseas, the father is amazed. How independent the son has become! Baron Noël cannot approve of any of the innovations, he pushes the son off as director of the Sonchelles sugar factory founded by Baron Siegfried in 1857 , but ultimately refuses him a loan for upcoming investments in Sonchelles. Desperate, François Schoudler turns to Lucien Maublanc. The latter takes pleasure in refusing to help the son of his enemy Noël Schoudler. François Schoudler shoots himself. Noël Schoudler rejects all guilt, blames Lucien Maublanc and wants to take revenge on him. Lucien Maublanc does not put up with that, but blames Noël Schoudler for François' suicide. The doctor Professor Lartois diagnosed Lucien Maublanc with an erupting dementia senilis . The patient dies at the age of 62 in the state mental institution.

Simon Lachaume becomes the second man in Noël Schoudler's newspaper Echo du Matin .

Simon Lachaume

As the trilogy tells of the deep fall of Noël Schoudler, it can also be taken as the story of the rise of Simon Lachaume. In 1920 , Simon Lachaume, born on October 12, 1887 in Mureaux and a student assistant at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand , lived with his unloved wife in modest circumstances on Rue Lhomond. He has finished his dissertation on Jean de La Monnerie or the fourth generation of romantics , is called to his master's deathbed and meets Isabelle d'Huisnes in the house on Rue de Lubeck, who is around the thirty-year-old niece of the dying poet. Jean de La Monnerie hands Simon Lachaume a sheet of paper addressed to Madame Marie-Hélène Eterlin and dies. Professor Emile Lartois, the family doctor of the deceased, asks Simon Lachaume for an obituary for the deceased and gives the assessor the address of Madame Eterlin. The new journalist - the obituary appeared in the Echo du Matin - visits the 43-year-old mistress of the poet, hands her the sheet and begins a liaison with both her and her enemy Isabelle d'Huisnes. Simon Lachaume publishes the dead poet's estate together with Isabelle. A good six months after the death of her uncle, Professor Lartois found in his practice on Avenue d'Iéna that Isabelle is pregnant and also guesses the father: Simon Lachaume. The important physician makes a fruitless attempt to rape the expectant mother on the medical examination table. Isabelle's aunt, the widow Madame Juliette de La Monnerie, who is on a cure in Bagnoles-de-l'Orne , knows more. The aged Olivier Meignerais, an extremely stubborn admirer of his aunt, agrees to marry Joseph with the much younger Miss Isabelle. The Meignerais couple had to retire to Switzerland . There she is waiting for Isabelle to give birth. After a miscarriage, the couple can return to Paris. Isabelle has fallen in love with her aged Olivier and over time she overstrains him sexually. Olivier Meignerais, who stimulates himself by taking " white balls ", dies in the middle of an act of love.

Immediately after the funeral ceremony for the poet Jean de La Monnerie, Simon Lachaume was remembered as an aspiring author by one of the speakers, Minister of Culture Anatole Rousseau. When the 66-year-old Rousseau becomes minister of war , he takes over the ambitious writing assessor - mainly because of his perfectly functioning brain - as an employee. In his new role, Simon Lachaume gives Isabelle's uncle Brigadier General Robert Fauvel de La Monnerie the third star. Rousseau appoints the general as division commander.

During Noël Schoudler's American tour, Simon Lachaume was welcomed with open arms by François Schoudler in the editorial office of the Echo du Matin . In addition, Simon Lachaume will be Deputy Ministerial Director at Anatole Rousseau . He breaks up with Madame Eterlin.

Lucien Maublanc

Baroness Adèle Schoudler's first husband, the impotent punter Lucien Maublanc, known as Monsieur Lulu, is the step-brother of the late Jean de La Monnerie. When drunk, he no longer believes in his impotence and falls asleep to the 20-year-old red-haired star Sylvaine Dual. He promises the actress a million francs for a newborn baby. Since Sylvaine is sterile, she goes out of sight of Lucien Maublanc and allies herself with a pregnant woman. Sylvaine passed their twins off as her children and collected the two million francs. The little boy dies; the little girl survived.

Emile Lartois

After one of the many old members has died once again, the members of the Académie française, including François de Curel , Anatole France , Robert de Flers , Boylesve , Loti and the historian Jérôme Barère, take the extremely vain 61-year-old professor of medicine for the second attempt Emile Lartois in their ranks. The second candidate, Baron Pingaud, was left behind this time. Barère is one of the two sponsors of the new Academician. Apart from an unmarried sister, the bachelor Lartois has no more relatives in the province.

filming

reception

Drissen thinks the trilogy is directed against the bourgeoisie. Maurice Druon is in good company with such a narrative attitude. What is meant, for example, is the closeness to Zola's naturalism combined with a preferred representation of immorality and the negation of generally recognized values. In the trilogy - as with Maupassant - pessimism is honored and people die hard. The story is told ironically and in parallel storylines, as in Tolstoy . The author is a chronicler like Jules Romains and a severe social critic like Aragon . He portrayed something like La Bruyère .

Baron Noël Schoudler has a certain resemblance to both Baron Rothschild and Jean Prouvost. With Schoudler's newspaper Echo du Matin the paper L'Écho de Paris could be meant.

German-language literature

German-language first edition

  • The big families . Henry Goverts Verlag Stuttgart 1961. 854 pages.

Used edition

  • The big families. German broadcast of Lotte Frauendienst. Epilogue: Manfred Naumann from February 1965. 408 pages. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1965 (Licensor: Goverts, Stuttgart)

Other issues

  • The big families. Novel. Translated from the French by Lotte Frauendienst. Rowohlt (rororo 730-731), Reinbek 1965. 315 pages paperback

Secondary literature

  • Klaus D. Drissen: Literature and Politics. Gaullism in the work of Maurice Druon . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Paris, New York 1992 (Diss. Uni Wuppertal 1991), ISBN 3-631-44717-5

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Vol. 1 was already published in 1949 in the transmission by Gustav Rademacher in the Bonn publishing house of the Europäische Bücherei under the title Who wears golden chains ( Who wears golden chains as d-nb.info).
  2. ↑ Dàjiāzú (大 家族) by Liú Zhìwēi (劉志威).
  3. ↑ Just when Maurice Druon lets the representatives of the Schoudler and de La Monnerie families in Paris stand around the bed of the woman who has recently given birth, the social critic Druon weaves in an event from the world war. A few bombs are sporadically dropped from a zeppelin over the Seine metropolis, claiming civilian casualties. Wilhelm II is called a barbarian.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ French Editions Julliard
  2. ↑ Italian Marisa Zini
  3. ↑ Reference to transfers
  4. ↑ French. Avenue de Messine
  5. ↑ French. Rue de Lubeck
  6. ^ French Rue Lhomond
  7. ^ French François de Curel
  8. ↑ French Les Grandes Familles (film) , see also The large families in the IMDb
  9. ↑ French Patrick Millow
  10. ^ French Françoise Christophe
  11. ^ French Annie Ducaux
  12. ↑ French. Françoise Delbart
  13. ^ French Jean Ozenne
  14. ^ French Aimé Clariond
  15. ↑ Drissen, pp. 49-69
  16. ↑ Drissen, p. 63, 10. Zvo
  17. ↑ Drissen, p. 60, 1. Zvo
  18. ↑ Drissen, p. 60, 4th Zvu
  19. ^ French Jean Prouvost
  20. ↑ Drissen, p. 64, 3. Zvo