Ensel and Krete
Ensel und Krete - A fairy tale from Zamonia is a novel by Walter Moers published in June 2000 . Like other works by Moers, it is set on the fictional continent of Zamonia . Described by the author himself as a fairy tale parody, the story takes up elements of the Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel . The protagonists are the Fhernhachen siblings Ensel and Krete von Hachen - amiable and decent half-dwarfs.
The work is in the tradition of the art fairy tale , because Moers uses the figure of the Zamonian poet prince Hildegunst von Mythenmetz as the supposed author of the book for the first time. This emerges as an independent narrator in the context of the fictional stylistic device of Mythenmetzschen digressions .
Moers pretends to only act as a translator from Zamon. From this role he provides the alleged original with numerous illustrations, fictitious lexical explanations and occasional comments on the translation process. He also adds the half biography of Hildegunst von Mythenmetz to the actual story .
content
Fairytale part
Ensel und Krete is set in the so-called Great Forest of Zamonia. This was partially populated decades ago by the variegated bears and expanded into the exemplary nature colony Bauming. The von Hachen family spends their holidays here. During the settlement, the bears found the corpse of the giant forest spider witch, which they tried to burn. However, this succeeded only incompletely and with the development of hallucinogenic poison fumes. Access to this uncivilized part of the forest, where the poison is still widespread and has even changed the vegetation, is therefore prohibited.
The two children, the boy Ensel and his sister Krete, get lost one day in this same area of the forest. You meet a stud troll who pretends to help you but deliberately sends you in the wrong direction. On their wrong track, they accidentally wake a leaf wolf, a dangerous predator that is preparing to eat them. At the last moment they are rescued by bears in camouflage clothing who introduce themselves as secret rangers. They bring the children to Mayor Baumings, who portrays the two heroes who killed the leaf wolf. They are cheered and celebrated. However, the scene suddenly takes on bizarre features and Ensel and Krete awaken from their hallucinations. You are at the point of the forest where the wood spider witch was burned and which all the variegated bears, apart from the brave Boris Boris, avoid and have always avoided.
They flee and get into deeper and deeper areas of the forest. You meet a creature with a pointed hat who apparently speaks with animal voices and whom you think is a witch, but can escape. They discover a molten meteorite with telepathic powers from which the forest spider witch emerged a long time ago. There they meet the tunnel troll again, who wants to show them the way again. Full of suspicion, however, they go in the opposite direction, which again turns out to be the wrong one. Flora and fauna are increasingly taking on surreal forms. Colors and shapes seem unnatural, the plants in a meadow turn out to be grotesque, weeping hybrid creatures. You come across the ancient star-wondering, overgrown with the ground, who try to persuade them to sacrifice themselves to the witch who is up to mischief in the forest. They see this as a chance to return to calmer conditions in the forest. The children run on indignantly. In doing so, Krete gets into a potentially deadly field of drift grass. Ensel only succeeds in rescuing them with the help of a speaking orchid, which he promises to transplant into a more beautiful environment in return.
They dig up the orchid and it carries them on. Meanwhile, you will witness how the witch kills small forest animals with her song and steals their souls. The plant shows them the way and they find themselves in increasingly normal areas of the forest. When they finally discover a small clearing with a stream and a house, the flower insists on being planted. Ensel and Krete, at first unsettled, decide in turn to explore the house. As soon as you have entered it, however, it closes and begins to fill with gastric juices. It is one of the figures of the witch who tries to suck up their souls.
A colored bear rushes to help them with a mushroom on their head and turns out to be the creature with the animal voices from which they fled at the beginning. It is about the bear Boris Boris, who lost his mind after eating the poisonous witch's hat mushrooms, now lives in the forest and leads an animal campaign against the witch. With the help of the liberated, not yet digested animal souls, the forest animals manage to seriously injure the witch; the house sinks into the ground. Boris, who says he knows the way, goes to Bauming with his siblings.
Biographical part
After the end of the actual story, Moers includes a section with further information about the fictional author. This is entitled From the Lindwurm Festival to Bloxberg - Half the biography of Hildegunst von Mythenmetz . Numerous invented secondary literature works are cited as sources in the form of footnotes.
Mythenmetz is born and raised in the Lindwurm Festival. There he experienced multiple sieges, which he addressed in later works. After he left the fortress, he wandered through Zamonia for several years, exploring the undead city of Dullsgard, among other things. He then lived for many years in Gralsund, where he read the entire university library there. During this time he wrote the poem Die Finsterbergmade , which later became well known. He made friends with his fellow poet Horken Smö, with whom he shared a variety of literary and political views. However, one day Smö Mythenmetz challenged a duel over a rift, which prompted him to flee from Gralsund.
He made money by cheating on fake love letters from alleged heroes to aristocratic women. These writings later became known as heroids and are notorious for their extraordinary romantic qualities. After turning away from any criminal activity, his trail is lost for a while. Mythenmetz himself speaks of a year of hunger fasting, during which he wrote his novel Das Nattifftoffenhaus , which made him widely known.
A rich oil manufacturer noticed him and gave him board and lodging and paid him considerable pocket money. In return, Mythemetz committed himself to promoting the businessman's products in his next novels. Even at this point in time, his works were the target of sharp criticism from his future arch enemy, the literary critic Laptantidel Latudas.
Spurred on by his success, the still young writer developed increasingly bizarre airs. At the height of this phase he became convinced that he was getting his new works whispered by supernatural powers; they all dealt with sea cucumbers and fur cleaning. It later turned out that he was only able to overhear conversations from the neighboring sea cucumber factory by means of an incorrectly installed ventilation system, which made him a mockery of the general public.
To avoid this, he retreated into exile in Florinth. Under mysterious circumstances, allegedly a dimensional hole fall, his attitude changed. He is again looking for proximity to the literature industry, met his future wife Yette there and wrote numerous masterful works. Among other things, The Talking Furnace , in which he dealt with the difficulties of his own relationship. A little later he got divorced and married a young girl. This marriage also broke up.
The next hundred years brought him continued success. In the following, however, he began to experiment with increasingly profane and bizarre stylistic devices, which met with little understanding from the readership - as did his pseudoscientific works, which were treated with much malice.
Mythenmetz disappeared for seventy-five years, leaving nothing but rumors of alleged sightings. During this time he probably traveled again to Zamonia and then to the mysterious and largely unexplored continent of Yhôll. After his sudden return, he dedicated a ten-thousand-page novel to this, which heralded a new period of literary masterpieces.
Startled by the realization that there were no new challenges for him and that his situation could only get worse from now on, he climbed Bloxberg on the last day of his four hundred and ninety-ninth year and was not seen for another 99 years.
The book ends with the remark that Mythenmetz's further life can only be discussed in the context of much more extensive texts.
Narrative levels
Moers works in Ensel and Krete with different narrative levels. In addition to the actual adaptation of the fairy tale, he employs the author Hildegunst von Mythenmetz as the narrator, who on the one hand comments and reflects on the narrated text, and on the other hand makes his own life the subject of narration. A third level is provided by the comments on the alleged process of translation and the biographical section on Mythenmetz 'life, which Moers claims to have added to the original manuscript.
Level I: fairy tale story
The first level represents the actual fairy tale plot. Within this, too, Moers works with the protagonists' various states of consciousness. The toadstools that grow in the great forest cause them hallucinations that take time to turn out to be such. They also come across a telepathically gifted lake that, as an ensel touches its water, shows him visions of a journey through space.
Level II: The Mythenmetzsche digression
Another narrative level is added by the Mythenmetz digression . This is a literary stylistic device that Moers' character Hildegunst von Mythenmetz allegedly invented for his work Ensel und Krete . It allows the author - a term that can be used at this point to describe both Mythenmetz and Moers - to interrupt the narrative flow of his story and either digress to a completely different topic and then suddenly continue with the story, or to use his own literary techniques reflect in order to highlight his achievements as an author.
“May I at this point point out my finesse as a writer? Of course I can, within a Mythenmetz digression I can do everything. "
It is a variety of metafiction , a typical stylistic device of postmodern literature , which was used much longer ago. In this way, the narrative takes on a seemingly more real level. Moers uses it as an opportunity to vividly stage the figure of Hildegunst von Mythenmetz. This complements the purely informative biographical presentations in the second part of the book. The theme of Mythenmetz's digression is taken up again in the fifth Zamonia novel, Der Schrecksenmeister .
Level III: Biographical part
As the last narrative instance, Moers installs himself by posing as the translator of Mythenmetz's work and adding a biographical part to the story. The style and presentation are reminiscent of a scientific treatise. For example, invented references are attached in the form of footnotes.
" He took off the monocle so as not to see me - arrogance as a stylistic device in the life and work of Hildegunst von Mythenmetz , by Robert von der Hö, Irrlicht-Verlag, Florinth"
Furthermore, comments are already available in the course of the actual action. It is either an explanation in the form of bogus lexicon entries on individual elements of the story or Moers' comments himself, in which he addresses the peculiarities or problems of the alleged translation process.
intertextuality
Moers' novels of Zamonien show numerous allusions to other literary works, but are also linked by common elements.
Ensel und Krete takes up many typical fairy tale motifs. Just like the title, the raspberry trail and the figure of the witch alludes to the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. The book also makes use of various elements that were already established in the previous novel, Die 13 ½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär. This ends with the construction of a colony of bears in the Great Forest, which in turn represents one of the locations of Ensel and Krete.
"The Great Forest soon became one of the tourist attractions of Zamonia again, popular because of its romantic inns, where the animals of the forest went in and out and the cunt bears cooked for them like paradise."
In addition to the bears, other Zamonian forms of existence are adopted. For example the Stollen Troll as an antagonist, the forest spider witch, the Fhernhachen herself, as well as the figure of Hildegunst von Mythenmetz. As in the previous novel, there are also insertions from the fictional reference work Lexicon of the Miracles, Forms of Existence and Phenomena of Zamonia and the Surrounding Area by Prof. Dr. Abdul Nachtigaller , here in the form of footnotes. The lexicon entries for identical lemmas have been taken over word for word.
The blue bear himself appears - although not named - in the second novel when Mythenmetz mentions a lying gladiator in Atlantis who introduced the happy ending to Zamon poetry.
“I heard rumors of an Atlantic gladiator who gave his story a happy ending and was carried on by his audience for it. Lectures by lying gladiators have precious little to do with Zamonian literature, but one should not close one's eyes to the signs of the times. "
reception
Ensel and Krete received most of the criticism positively. In the Frankfurter Rundschau, Heike Byn praises the book's wit and inventiveness, but questions whether the quality can match that of the previous novel. In his review in Der Zeit, Christoph Siemes emphasizes the clever use of different narrative perspectives.
There is disagreement about the suitability of the book for children. While the two above reviewers also attribute children's and young people's book qualities to it, Jenny Zylka sees it in her book review in Der Tageszeitung as being aimed at an adult target group.
theatre
The Landestheater Tübingen realized the book in an adaptation by Michael Miensopust as a play of about 135 minutes. The world premiere took place on November 12, 2010.
Text output
- Ensel und Krete - A fairy tale from Zamonia by Hildegunst von Mythenmetz. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3821829494 (hardcover).
- Ensel und Krete - A fairy tale from Zamonia by Hildegunst von Mythenmetz. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3821851287 (luxury bound edition).
- Ensel and Krete. Eichborn Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3821851643 (audio book, read by Dirk Bach ).
- Ensel und Krete - A fairy tale from Zamonia by Hildegunst von Mythenmetz. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3442450179 (paperback edition).
Secondary literature
- Hans-Edwin Friedrich: What is a fairy tale from Zamonia? To “Ensel und Krete” by Walter Moers. In: Walter Moers' Zamonien-Romane. Surveying a fictional continent. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2011, pp. 193-213.
- Katja Pawlik: From Atlantis to Zamonia, from Menippos to Moers: Walter Moers' Zamonia novels in the context of Menippi satire . Dissertation. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8260-5899-8 .
- Ninon Franziska Thiem: On the wrong track. From (para) textual digressions in Walter Moers' “Ensel und Krete”. In: Walter Moers' Zamonien-Romane. 2011, pp. 215-232.
- Mareike Wegner: »Knowledge is night!«. Parodic procedures in Walter Moers' Zamonien novels and in "Wilde Reise durch die Nacht". Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8498-1137-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview in the 17/2003 issue of Falter magazine ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 37 kB) Retrieved February 15, 2013.
- ^ A b Collection of summarized reviews , Perlentaucher.de, accessed on February 22, 2013.
- ↑ Information on the play , website of the Landestheater Tübingen, accessed on February 22, 2013.
