The wild story of the water drinker

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The wild tale of the water drinker , English original title The Water-Method Man , is a 1972 novel by the American writer John Irving .

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Fred "Bogus" Trumper is studying languages ​​at the University of Iowa . On a study trip to Austria he met the successful skier Sue "Biggie" Kunft in Kaprun . They spend some time together, Biggie becomes pregnant, and they return to America. Trumper's father cuts off his support, Trumper lives off small jobs, he is also a sound engineer on projects for documentary filmmaker Ralph Packer, an activity that hardly brings him any money, Biggie works as a nurse. The young family's financial situation is difficult, and Trumper is increasingly neglecting his dissertation, a translation of the (fictional) epic “Akthelt und Gunnel” from the (equally fictional) Old Lower Nordic.

After an argument with Biggie, Trumper runs away. In Vienna he tries to find his friend Merrill Overturf, from whom he has not heard from for years. He can't find Merrill, but without wanting to, he gets a large amount of hashish. That's why American drug investigators try to convict an Austrian drug dealer with his help. The plan goes wrong, and Trumper comes back to New York without the drug but with the money actually intended for the purchase. Now he has to learn that Merrill died in an accident two years ago.

In Maine he wants to visit his old friend Couth; he hopes he can tell him how Biggie is doing. When he discovers that Biggie and her son Colm are now living with Couth and that the two have already prepared Biggie's divorce from Trumper and marriage to Couth, he returns to New York. Ralph Packer has relocated his film studio there, and Trumper will be his sound engineer again. He moves in with Tulips, who is responsible for the pruning there and who also takes care of his finances.

Ralph Packer decides to make Trumper the subject of his new film. While filming, Tulpen asks Trumper if he would like a child; he is not enthusiastic about the idea. Trumper also decides to finally have an operation on his urethra, which is prone to frequent urinary tract infections due to a narrowing. So far, Trumper had tried to avoid further infections by drinking more water so that the urethra should be flushed sufficiently (this is also what the title of the novel refers to).

When he comes home after the operation, he hears Ralph and Tulips talking about him while Tulips is in the bathtub. Jealous, he disappears again without realizing that this conversation is only part of the filming; he leaves a message in the studio that he is getting out of the film and that he does not want a child. He then goes back to his university in Iowa, where his supervisor offered to help him finish his dissertation. After the successful doctorate and subsequent job interviews, Trumper has time to look at the documentary about himself, which bears the telling title Fucking Up . Only through the film does he find out that Tulpen was already pregnant by the end of the shooting. He drives to her at once, and the two make up again. A final chapter shows a celebration of the three couples Biggie and Couth, Trumper and Tulips as well as Ralph and his wife Matje and their children.

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The narrative style changes in the book at short intervals. Some sections are told in the third person, in others Trumper appears as the first-person narrator. Some sections are also presented in the form of a script. The - often very short - chapters do not adhere to a chronological order, but jump very freely between different time levels.

Trumper is characterized as a person who tends to be fraudulent, as his nickname "Bogus" alludes to. He writes letters to his creditors with excuses, he invents stanzas for his translation from Old Low Nordic and footnotes. In addition, despite great potential, he is unsuccessful: As a wrestler, he usually has the upper hand until shortly before the end, but is then thrown. Reviewers consider his language ability to be "tremendous," but for most of the time in the novel it looks like it won't do him much good. Only after his operation does Trumper come to the conclusion:

"All he knew was that he had never finished anything, and he felt a need that was almost as basic as the urge to survive: the need to find something he could finish."

He finds this task in his dissertation. In doing so, he also finds sincerity, erases all his own inventions and also admits gaps in knowledge. Even if it is not clear what his professional situation will look like in the end, the final chapter shows that he and Tulpen are happy.

The epic “Akthelt and Gunnel”, translated by Trumper, takes up a large space. Irving integrates a stanza and numerous individual words in the "original language", and there are extensive summaries.

expenditure

  • The Water-Method Man . Random House, New York 1972, ISBN 0-394-47332-9 (first edition).
  • The wild story of the water drinker . Translated by Edith Nerke and Jürgen Bauer. Diogenes, Zurich 1989.

Secondary literature

  • Sally Robinson: Men's Liberation, Men's Wounds Emotion, Sexuality, and the Reconstruction of Masculinity in the 1970s . In: Milette Shamir and Jennifer Travis (eds.): Boys Don't Cry? Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the US Columbia University Press, New York 2002, pp. 205-229.