The wondrous journeys of Gustav the world traveler

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The wondrous journeys of Gustav the world traveler. Lying novel with comments is a novel by Irmtraud Morgner that was published in 1972 by Aufbau Verlag and (as a licensed edition) by Hanser Verlag .

Structure and plot

motto

The motto of the text is preceded by a quote from Jean Paul's story Schulmeisterlein Wutz , which suggests that the main character, just like in that story, did not actually undertake the journeys depicted, but thought up. The subtitle, lying novel , indicates this.

Framework story

Gustav the world driver, a retired train driver, met Gustav the Schrofel driver (garbage collector) by chance. Over the course of seven days, Gustav the garbage collector spends his lunch break every day in the cellar of Gustav the world traveler, who offers him the potato soup cooked by his wife, tells him each time about one of his wondrous journeys and, as proof of the truth of the stories, a souvenir of them Travel gives.

Internal act

After his retirement, the train driver Gustav H. takes over from the Deutsche Reichsbahn an old discarded steam locomotive including tender, caravan and material wagons, which he names Hulda. He wants to travel the world with the locomotive and his stokers Alois and Eugen. After a few years he made seven journeys to all parts of the world and even into space; Depending on the destination, the locomotive is converted into a road vehicle, ship, helicopter or rocket. On every trip he gets to know a strange people, their wonderful country and strange way of life:

  • The first chapter describes the cumbersome procurement and equipment of the train, then the first trip to the Gulf of Siam : This is filled with Siamese cats , which even rain from the sky during a violent storm and eat the three travelers' supplies away.
  • The second trip leads to a “village state”, in which almost all people have to work in a large brick factory - nevertheless there are not enough bricks and most of them have to live in houses without a roof. Only the members of the "organization" (the authoritarian ruling party) live in properly covered houses. The national sport of the country is a competition in which stacks of bricks have to be smashed with the head, which is why all residents have conical skulls.
  • On the third trip , Gustav visits an oasis town that consists of huge trousers: once the queen of the country knitted trousers from magical yarn for her son, which initially grew with the child, but then grew until finally all the inhabitants of the Lived city in the pants with over 1700 floors.
  • On the fourth voyage , the train (converted into a ship) travels to the matriarchal ruled land of the Amazons . There all women, living in simple jungle huts, work as scientists, while the men are kept in a reserve and only have to serve to procreate and raise children. The three travelers are initially held captive as exhibits, but can then break free and flee.
  • During the fifth voyage , the travelers catch a tiger on an island and (to feed the tiger) a whale. After a storm the ship train runs aground on an island. The islanders live in a city in which everything (e.g. every house) is available twice: once real, once as a dummy. The residents admire the steam train and also build a full-size image of it, as well as of the tiger that the travelers give to the residents.
  • The sixth journey , which leads north, ends in Frigideria, a land of eternal ice, in which people can let themselves be frozen before they die (see cryonics ). Gustav also made an offer for such treatment by a “representative of the freezing shop”, but Gustav refused. Frigideria is described (satirically exaggerated) as a decadent society with extreme class differences: the richer residents let servants relieve them of all activities, even eating, drinking, smoking, or life in general.
  • For the last trip , the steam train is being converted into a rocket with which Gustav, Eugen and Alois land on the asteroid Ferribdol in the asteroid belt . The inhabitants of this heavenly body are bisexual , but they reproduce asexually : the children are plucked from trees. Trees were also grown for all other things that are needed. In order to colonize the earth, Gustav is sent back with a load of children's tree seedlings - but when Gustav arrives on Christmas Day, they freeze to death in the snow.

Editor fiction

The plot is embedded in a double editorial fiction: In a foreword by the author , the granddaughter of the world traveler, Bele H., says that she got her grandfather to record his travelogues, to which she has added her own comments in footnotes. In an afterword by the editor , the (fictitious) editor Dr. phil. Beate Heidenreich that she received the manuscript from the author "as a pledge for rent owed".

reception

The response from literary criticism was positive. After Morgner's death, the novel was initially out of print. In 2006 the Verbrecher-Verlag published a new edition of the novel and a selection of Morgner's stories. On this occasion, a number of reviews were published, which emphasize the entertaining nature of the novel for today's reading public and also honor the publisher's decision to make the work of an author who had been forgotten at the time known again:

  • The anonymous review by Spiegel praised the “power of language and imagination” as well as the social satire presented with black humor.
  • The reviewer Martin Gregor-Dellin describes the novel as "refreshing" and "amusing and subtle" and enjoys Morgner's pleasure in telling stories.
  • Monika Melchert reviews the novel for New Germany . She sees it in the tradition of the picaresque novel and praises it as "great narrative fun [...] in which you can immerse yourself like in fairy tales - and suddenly you grab the bare reality by the head".
  • The reviewer of the Frankfurter Rundschau sees in Gustav's tales of lies a utopia that is opposed to the real socialist everyday life, in his travels revealed "secret wishes, after departure and after upheaval, after arrival and after return".
  • In Carola Wiemers' review for Deutschlandfunk Kultur , she sees "a systemic criticism trained in the comic and grotesque, in which the moment of pleasure is of central importance" as a typical feature of Morgner's work.
  • In her review on literaturkritik.de, Ulrike Schuff emphasizes on the one hand the metafictional play with narrative levels, on the other hand the fairy-tale and grotesque, which for Gustav represents a form of "appropriating the world" - since people like him do not appear in real history.
  • Irmgard Lumpini represents ih her review for the ColoRadio telecast Studio B , the position that the real living conditions are mirrored in the absurd travel adventures. Gustav is a “proletarian fantasy” who spins together what cannot be found in reality.

source

  • Irmtraud Morgner: The wondrous journeys of Gustav the world traveler. Lying novel with comments. Construction Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1974. 2nd edition.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rogue In Amazonia . In: Der Spiegel, published June 25, 1973, p. 124.
  2. ^ Martin-Gregor Dellin: Weltfahrer Gustav . In: Die Zeit No. 17/1973, published on April 27, 1973.
  3. ↑ Monika Melchert: Heaven and Hell of the Railway Worker . In: Neues Deutschland, published on April 24, 2007.
  4. ^ Uta Beiküfner: Daydreams from the cellar hole . In: Frankfurter Rundschau, published on January 10, 2007.
  5. ↑ Carola Wiemers: Works by a "brilliant heretic" . Posted January 8, 2007.
  6. ↑ Ulrike Schauff: Tales of Lies and Juggler Legends . Published on literaturkritik.de on November 15th, 2006
  7. ↑ Review by Irmgard Lumpini and excerpt from Katherina Reiche in the literary program Studio B on ColoRadio