A woman

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A woman is a 1974 novel by Peter Härtling .

overview

The novel tells the life story of the factory owner's daughter and wife Katharina Perchtmann, née Wüllner, from her birth in 1902 to the age of sixty-eight. The narration is essentially in chronological order, but is also repeatedly interrupted by entries in the diary and letters from Katharina or letters from other people. In addition, the later Katharina comments on past events while they are being told. Inserts such as letters, diary entries and comments are indicated by quotation marks, while the verbatim speech appears without the usual quotation marks. The novel is divided into three parts.

First part

The first part describes the period from 1902 to 1922, Katharina's birth and the circumstances under which she grew up in Klotzsche , near Dresden . Her father Georg Wüllner is a successful cosmetics manufacturer and unfaithful bon vivant. Her mother Susanne, a beautiful woman of Jewish origin, gives birth to three other children besides Katharina: the brothers Ernst and Dieter and their sister Elle. Katharina grows up protected and pampered. Nevertheless, or because of this, at fifteen she tries to run away with a boy of the same age. However, the company fails after the first night and she returns to her family. Elle, restless and maladjusted, joins a romantic revolutionary group in which both workers and intellectuals associate. She dies in a car accident. When Katharina was spending a vacation in Karlsbad with her parents , she met Ferdinand Perchtmann, the son of an industrialist.

Second part

The second part describes her marriage to Ferdinand, with whom she first lived in Prague from 1923 to 1925 and then in Brno from 1925 to 1945 . In Prague she befriends Myriam Hribasch, the wife of a wealthy jeweler, and becomes the mother of twins, whom she baptizes Peter and Paul. When her parents visit her to get to know her grandchildren, Katharina learns from her father that he is bankrupt due to the global economic crisis and the inflation that followed, but also because of his own mistakes, as Ferdinand suggests . He has to sell his factory and house and plans to start a birdseed trade. Soon after leaving, Katharina discovers that Ferdinand is cheating on her: she finds a letter from his lover. Katharina ignores this fact. Soon after, however, she becomes pregnant again and has a daughter, Camilla, who is later followed by the last child, Annamaria. National Socialism , which was gaining in influence in Germany, is also an issue in Brno, and Ferdinand seems to sympathize with it. The narrative style of the novel is now accelerating, often only summarily, the further development again: Black Friday , Hitler seizure of power and the German invasion; Georg dies, Peter and Paul become pilots and enthusiastic Nazis; Susanne is billeted on a farm under a false name in order to avoid persecution of the Jews , Katharina also receives new papers; Ferdinand is drafted and falls, as do Paul and Ernst; Dieter, who was an officer, is demoted as a so - called half - Jew and dishonorably discharged from the army; he is considered missing; House and factory are bombed. Finally, as the Red Army approaches, Katharina fled to Germany with her mother Susanne, Annemaria and the old nanny Gutsi, who raised both herself and her children. While on the run, she met Werner Roßmann, with whom she began a relationship.

third part

The years from 1946 to 1970 describe Katharina's last time in Stuttgart. She and her companions are quartered in an apartment. Roßmann leaves her when he finds his family again, Susanne and Gutsi die at the age of eighty-four. Katharina worked as a packer in a chocolate factory for five years, then she found work as a secretary. Camilla and Dieter reappear, but have become strangers to her. Both live in middle-class circumstances. Only Annamaria's marriage fails. She brings her son Achim to Katharina, who develops a very close relationship with her grandson. After the divorce, Annamaria marries a factory owner, Achim stays with his grandmother. Katharina begins a love affair with a government director who lives in the house, Ferdinand Novotny, with whom she finally moves in. She takes part in Easter marches and is interested in the political ideas of Achim, who is now studying and has become part of the student movement. But Katharina does not believe in the effectiveness of this movement. On her sixty-fifth birthday, she gathers her entire family, children, grandchildren and their relatives, and celebrates with them. In the end, she snubs those present by stating that they are basically all strangers. The novel ends with a letter from Annamaria to Camilla, who asks her sister to transfer a larger amount of money so that Katharina can be placed in an old people's home.

reception

  • "With this story of the decline of a family and the deliberate emancipation of a woman, Peter Härtling is writing something that does not even exist in contemporary German literature, a serious entertainment novel." - Rolf Michaelis in Die Zeit .
  • “You read a story like that more than once. It impresses with its originality and credibility. It's packed with people and events, yet it doesn't seem overloaded or overstretched. Härtling knows how to describe feelings and situations in just a few sentences. ”- Ursula Haarseim, Rheinischer Merkur .
  • " A woman is one of the best critical novels that have been written about the German (or European) bourgeoisie after 1945." - Christian Ferber in Welt des Buches. "

expenditure

filming

  • 1975. Intermezzo for five hands , directed by Ludwig Cremer, Sender Freies Berlin

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from press reviews on www.dtv.de. Accessed September 5, 2012.