Dragon rider

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Drachenreiter is the title of a fantasy novel by the German author Cornelia Funke from 1997. The book came first on the New York Times bestseller list in September 2004 under the title Dragon Rider , making it Cornelia Funke's third bestseller in the USA .

Content and plot

Like most of Cornelia Funke's books , Drachenreiter takes place in different locations in the real world, which is, however, supplemented with fantastic elements. In Drachenreiter, the earth is populated next to humans and animals by various classic mythical creatures , of whose existence the majority of humanity knows nothing. The main role of these play the silver dragons in the novel - lizard-like, winged, intelligent and basically benign creatures with silver scales. They draw their strength from the light of the moon and are able to spit blue fire, which has a healing effect on other living beings. In the novel, these dragons are almost extinct due to the increasing spread of humans over the earth; one of the last larger groups has found refuge in a Scottish valley. The plot of the novel begins with these dragons learning that the humans are planning to flood their valley (without knowing of their existence). When the dragons advise what to do next, the eldest tells the others about the "hem of heaven", a valley in the Himalayas in which he himself was born, which due to its location is hardly accessible to humans and that Has long been populated by dragons and used as a place of refuge.

Almost all of the dragons in the valley are skeptical and consider the “hem of heaven” to be a fairy tale, but one of them, the young and inexperienced dragon Lung, decides to set off and look for the valley. He is only accompanied by the forest goblin girl Schwefelfell, a very suspicious and mostly bad-tempered but loyal friend of his.

Shortly after leaving a town, Lung and Sorrel meet the lonely orphan boy Ben, who helps them not to be discovered in the town. In gratitude for this, Lung fulfills his wish to come with him and Schwefelfell and thus to escape his loneliness.

On the trip, the three of them meet many mythical creatures and the archeology and history professor Barnabas Wiesengrund, who knows about the existence of mythical creatures and will be of great help for their journey by telling them about a genie who can show them how to do it "Saum des Himmels" finds, as well as from a dragon researcher who can help Lung with her knowledge of dragons and their history. At the same time, Lung and his companions learn bit by bit of a great threat: the real reason why almost all the dragons still alive have hidden in the "hem of heaven" was to flee from a dangerous monster, from Nettlebrand the Golden. It is a dragon-eating creature in the form of a giant dragon without wings with a barely destructible golden armor, which was created by a malicious and greedy alchemist to hunt dragons for him. Since the few silver dragons that survived his hunts but finally hid better and better from him, Nesselbrand found no more prey after a while, which made him so angry that he ate up almost all his servants and ultimately even his creator. Since then he has been waiting impatiently to find out where the still living dragons are.

When Lung and his companions rest very close to Nesselbrand's dwelling by an unfortunate coincidence, they are betrayed to him by a gold-greedy stone dwarf named Kiesbart. Thereupon he instructs his last remaining servant to follow and spy on the homunculus flybone, Lung , also created by the alchemist , so that this nettle fire unknowingly leads to the “hem of heaven”.

Lung's companions discovered Ties' Legs shortly after his pursuit began, but he managed to earn Ben and Lung's trust. Due to Ben's friendliness towards him, however, he finally undergoes a change of heart: He decides to betray Nesselbrand to prevent him from eating Ben. Later he confesses his past to Lung and his companions and declares himself ready to support them as a double agent in the future.

With the help of the Djinn and the dragon researcher, after a while they arrive at a Tibetan monastery, whose monks know about the existence of mythical creatures and worship dragons as good luck charms. With their help they meet the Dubidai there, who are friends with the dragons from the “hem of heaven” and can finally show them the way there. At the same time, they learn of an ancient legend about a dragon rider who lived a long time ago but will one day return and help the dragons defeat the golden one. Apparently, Ben seems to be fulfilling this prophecy.

In fact, Nesselbrand quickly saw through Flybone's attempts to deceive him and pursued Lung further. Both at the monastery and in the home village of the dragon researcher, Lung is faced with the decision to turn back and abandon his search, as there is of course the danger that he will lead the dragons' greatest enemy to his prey. However, both times he makes it clear that he will not give up his goal and that he will never hide from nettle fire again, but rather will fight against it if necessary.

In the end, both he and Nesselbrand reach the edge of heaven. There, however, Lung and his companions find a way to destroy his tank and they manage to destroy Nesselbrand. In the end, Ben is adopted by the Wiesengrunds while Lung returns to his home valley with the dragon Maia and can now convince the other dragons to travel to the edge of heaven.

Background and references to popular belief

In addition to the dragons, forest goblins and stone dwarfs already mentioned, there are countless other mythical creatures in Drachenreiter. This is how Lung Ben in the Himalayas saves from being fed to its young by the giant bird Rock . For his part, Lung barely escapes destruction by a basilisk during a rest in Egypt . Furthermore, elves , fairies , trolls , sandmen, the Pegasus and a sea ​​serpent appear or are at least mentioned in Drachenreiter . Many of these beings are typical of much of the fantasy literature and most of them appear as they are commonly imagined. Elves are little teasing and winged creatures, dragons can spit fire, stone dwarves are crazy about treasures, etc. In addition, the edge of the sky is probably inspired by Shangri-La or alludes to it.

Most of the chapters are told from the perspective of one of the mythical creatures. People, especially Europeans, are generally portrayed negatively: They are viewed as narrow-minded, greedy and disrespectful to nature. For all mythical creatures a peaceful coexistence with humans seems impossible; they must fear that they will either be turned into sensations by people without respect for their way of life and intelligence in zoos or museums or, in the case of larger and stronger creatures such as dragons or the sea snake, feared and hunted. All of this becomes clear at the beginning through the destruction of the dragon's habitat and is discussed again and again. Individual figures embody this aspect particularly clearly, especially the researcher Professor Schwertling, a colleague of Professor Wiesengrund, who accidentally catches sulfur fur and imprisons it for a short time. However, he strictly refuses to believe that Schwefelfell is supposed to be a goblin or that mythical creatures exist at all, and consistently accuses Wiesengrund of making himself ridiculous by believing in such.

On the other hand, Lung and his companions often meet people who stand out positively from their fellow species in this regard. Examples of this are, of course, above all Ben, the kite researcher and Professor Wiesengrund, as well as his entire family. The monks in the Tibetan monastery also have a completely different attitude towards mythical creatures. This becomes particularly clear when Lung arrives there: he is practically worshiped by the monks; they believe that his arrival means good fortune for the monastery.

This fact is not a pure fiction of the author, but is based on the fact that dragons are actually symbols of good luck in the mythologies and popular beliefs of many Eastern cultures . In the western world, on the other hand, they usually play a malicious and destructive role and accordingly appear in large parts of western literature. Dragon Rider is an exception with his benign silver dragons, whose fire is not destructive and has healing powers.

Language and style

As in almost all of her novels, Funke uses an easy-to-read writing style with lots of simple metaphors in Drachenreiter and gives almost all of her characters at least an approach of humorous undertone and repartee. This makes the book easy to read and entertaining throughout. Furthermore, she changes the narrative perspective in almost every chapter, sometimes even within a chapter . Most of the time it is reported directly from the point of view of a fictional character - in Drachenreiter these are almost always Lung, Ben or Twigleg, occasionally Kiesbart or, even more rarely, nettle fire - but occasionally there is also an authorial narrative situation .

Due to this constant change, the reader always has a much deeper insight into what is happening than any of the characters who appear. In the ninth of the more than fifty chapters, for example, it is told from Flybein's perspective how Kiesbart Lung reveals about nettle brandy. As a result, the reader knows about the dangerous enemy of travelers and their destinations long before they even notice.

Others

  • The “ Junge Theater Bonn ” turned the 448-page novel into a two-hour play that premiered on September 2, 2005. Production has been running in Berlin's Admiralspalast since 2007 .
  • On September 26, 2016 the sequel "The Feather of a Greif" was published by Dressler-Verlag
  • On October 20, 2017, Funke's own radio play label, Atmende Bücher, released "Drachenreiter - Die Vulkan-Mission", a spin-off as an exclusive radio play produced by German Wahnsinn.
  • On June 22, 2018, the dragon rider was premiered as a children's and youth opera (in twelve pictures) in the Lübeck Theater .
  • A computer animation film with the same title will appear in cinemas on August 6, 2020 .

Awards

literature

Web links