A serious life
A serious life is a coming of age novel by Heinrich Mann , written in the first half of 1932 and published on 4 November of the same year.
content
Marie, the daughter of a drunkard and a farm worker, fights poverty and turns into a thief out of mercy. Because of the love of her friend Mingo and especially because of her own reflection, Marie breaks free from the entanglements.
characters
Warmsdorf
- Marie Lehning
- Elisabeth Lehning, Marie's mother
- Mingo Merten, Marie's friend
Berlin
- Kurt Meier from Berlin W15, Lietzenburger Strasse 21
- Viktoria Meier (also: Vicky)
- Lawyer Ignaz Bäuerlein, Syndic (also: Syndi, Igi), Vicky's husband
- Detective Inspector Kirsch
- Adele Fuchs, owner of the dance bar “Harem” in Uhlandstrasse, near Kurfürstendamm
action
Field work in patent leather shoes
They are all beautiful, the daughters of the Lehning couple in the seaside resort of Warmsdorf near Lübeck . Frieda Lehning did it. She is out of the crooked Kate , in which Marie lives with her parents and siblings. Appearances are deceptive. Frieda dies after attempting an abortion with a knitting needle. Mother Lehning is gripped by anger.
At the age of thirteen, Marie was already going out with her boyfriend Mingo, an "unreasonable, spoiled" fisherman's son. The Lehnings aren't even fishermen, just farm workers. The love affair between Marie and Mingo lasted - against all odds - throughout the entire novel. Mingo learns the carpentry trade in Lübeck.
The Baltic Sea picks up the cottage in a nocturnal storm. Father Lehning drowns in the waves of the sea. Marie is accommodated in the " Diakonissenheim ". She is given an apprenticeship as a tailor in Lübeck. When Marie's mother suffers a stroke , Marie has to do what she never wanted in life: to work as a farm worker for a farmer in order to “look after her little siblings”. When Marie was 18 years old, 17-year-old Kurt Meier marched in patent leather shoes in the field. Marie knows the young man. Ten years ago she had to supervise him and his twin sister Vicky on the beach in Warmsdorf in order to improve the family budget a little. Kurt admits his parents' wealth did not last. It had only flared like a flash in the pan during the inflation . Vicky made a good match. Her husband Ignaz Bäuerlein is a lawyer in Berlin. Poor Kurt, however, was drawn into a theft offense in Berlin and had to run away. Marie puts in a good word for Kurt at the farmer's. He is allowed to go underground as a field worker. When Kurt wants to sleep with the stately Marie, she uses her superior muscle strength, trained through years of field work, and simply pushes the "lover" out until he, "floating" and "wriggling" in the air above her, has a "crying fit" gets.
Detective Inspector Kirsch from Berlin tracks down Kurt himself on the Baltic Sea. Kirsch wants Kurt to give the “big blue stone” that was stolen from Adele Fuchs. Kurt claims that he "just gave the crooks the tip". Kirsch leaves without having achieved anything. Kurt tells Marie that he is something like the gigolo of the "old brothel landlady" Adele. The old frightening screw reported him to the police.
Muttchen Puttchen Nuttchen
Vicky's marriage is childless. Nevertheless, the farmer husband calls her "Muttchen" or "Muttchen Puttchen Nuttchen". Vicky visits Kurt in the country. Kurt wants to go back to Berlin. Little farmer wants Kurt to avoid Berlin until the end of his “probation period”. Vicky has more in common with Kurt than mere sibling love. She is jealous of Adele and Marie too. Kurt really wants to own Marie after the humiliation. So he asks Vicky to seduce Mingo. Vicky, who is sterile but wants a child, does him a favor. Now Kurt is able to impregnate a Marie who is very angry about the infidelity of her Mingo. Mingo, who wanted to become engaged to Marie, hired out of desperation “as a sailor on an ocean liner” and was gone for months. The farmer wants to marry Marie and she should say the child is his. Marie gives birth to a boy. Kurt wants to go to Berlin. Marie steals from the farmers in order to enable Kurt to travel after the stolen property has been sold. She had previously stolen food from the farmer to satisfy her mother's cravings, who is in the Brodten poor house . When Marie accompanied Kurt a part of the way on the trip to Berlin, she was caught stealing a department store in Lübeck - she was stealing shoes for Kurt. Kurt makes himself out of the dust. The "fast judge" sentenced Marie "to four weeks". Marie, who does not have to serve her sentence immediately, throws herself in front of the train. The locomotive only breaks her foot. Vicki, who wants Marie's child all to herself, comes to Lübeck and persuades the young mother to work as a house tailor for her in Berlin. After the thefts, Marie no longer sees a future for herself in Lübeck and the surrounding area and goes with them.
Vicky, who has the “big blue stone”, arranges it so that Adele can find her blue piece of jewelery in Marie's sewing box. Adele then blackmailed Marie. The young mother Marie, “tall, full figured”, “naturally blonde, Nordic breed”, has to work as a “barmaid” in the “harem” for Adele. "Kurt is my sweetheart," explains Adele. “He obeys me”. For her part, blackmailed by Marie, the childless Adele appointed Kurt as her heir on May 15, 1931. However, the beneficiary is not allowed to marry Marie.
Kurt is jealous of Vicky for taking a well-known actor as a lover. Kurt flees from Adele to Marie. Adele is willing to change her will.
Mingo, the seaman, appears in Berlin. He would like to finally marry Marie and give the child "an honest name". Vicky kidnaps the now six-month-old child. Clever Vicky did not do the deed herself.
Murder of a brothel landlady
Vicky is in league with Adele. Adele - jealous of Kurt and Marie - does the dirty work for Vicky. But Commissioner Kirsch knows. The kidnapped child is in the Zehlendorfer villa of a certain Adele Fuchs. Marie, half mad, demands that Adele surrender her child. Adele brazenly denies. Marie sees through Vicky. Beside herself, she goes to the real child kidnapper. Vicky shoots Marie and injures her hip. Commissioner Kirsch, the good spirit in the novel, brings the toddler to safety. Little farmer managed to have it withdrawn from his mother “because of her trade”. The child is being cared for in a suburb of Berlin. Mingo takes care of the gunshot wounded Marie. Mingo's father wants his son to take part in his fishery, and Mingo's mother agrees to Mingo and Marie's marriage. Marie doesn't want to go to Warmsdorf right away, she wants to take her latest inheritance with her first. Adele disinherited Kurt and thought of Marie. Kurt, pale with anger, watched the process. Adele is killed. Mingo comes under suspicion of murder and flees with Marie to Warmsdorf. Inspector Kirsch follows the escaping couple and prevents Marie's suicide. Mingo is innocent. The inspector has the killer. The reader has to assume Kurt was the culprit.
Time novel
According to Wilpert, Brentano defined the time novel as an expanded social novel . In the Zeitroman a picture of the society, the spirit, the culture, the politics and the economy of a time is painted, as it were, on a circular horizon. In the case of the novel A Serious Life , it is a picture of that time, which can be read directly from the text. This period of action extends from before inflation, i.e. from around 1922 to November 1931.
Development novel
Marie's path from “Blarrmarie”, the stupid farmer's trine, the “stupid Deern”, to a self-confident young mother in the big city is not straightforward. During a painful identification process, Marie learns how devious her opponent, the wealthy lawyer wife Vicky, is.
Quote
You shouldn't allow yourself to be exploited, it ends badly .
Testimonials
- Heinrich Mann had "received the material in Nice , 1931".
- At the beginning of January 1932, while writing the novel from Nice to Maximilian Brantl in Munich, Heinrich Mann wrote that he was “trying to overcome the unfavorable times by working”.
- A serious life is a work “that is more or less the novel of my beloved deceased,” confessed Heinrich Mann in December 1944 in exile in California after the death of his second wife Nelly .
reminiscence
Hermann Kesten remembers: In 1937, Nelly Kröger told him, “At his [Heinrich Mann's] urging, she wrote down her life, he read the manuscript, praised it and threw it into the fireplace. Then ... Heinrich sat down and wrote my entire book again, the novel 'A serious life' ”.
filming
In 1977 the novel was filmed under the title Die Verführbaren with Gisela May , and again in 1992 under the title Endstation Harembar with Susanne Lüning .
literature
- source
- Heinrich Mann: A serious life . Novel. Volume 10: Heinrich Mann: Collected Works. Pp. 305-555. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1972
- Text output
- Heinrich Mann: A serious life . Novel. S. Fischer. May 1991. 336 pages, ISBN 3-596-25932-0
- Secondary literature
- Sigrid Anger: Follow-up remarks . In: Heinrich Mann: Collected Works , Volume 10. pp. 566–576. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1972
- Volker Ebersbach : Heinrich Mann . Pp. 224-226. Philipp Reclam jun. Leipzig 1978, 392 pages.
- Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 .
- Gero von Wilpert: Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A - Z . P. 410. Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wilpert anno 2001, p. 917
- ↑ Source p. 310.
- ↑ Source p. 535.
- ↑ Quoted in Anger , p. 566.
- ↑ Quoted in Anger , p. 567.
- ↑ Quoted in Anger , p. 566.
- ↑ Quoted in Anger , p. 566.