Faber or the lost years

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Jakob Wassermann * 1873 † 1934

Faber or the lost years is a homecoming novel by Jakob Wassermann from 1924. In the last volume of the four-volume “ Wendekreis ” , Germany is in ruins after the war . This sobering truth is profoundly exemplified by the bleak fate of the disturbed and obdurate returnees Faber.

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In the summer of 1919, the 30-year-old architect Eugen Faber returned home from a Russian captivity. He had fled inland from the banks of the Upper Amur via Beijing and then by ship across the Pacific . When he arrived in his hometown, he didn't visit his wife Martina Faber nee Wiedmann or his mother Anna Faber. He also avoids his sister Clara Hergesell, who lives in the unnamed city. Faber comes to Dr. Jakob Fleming - that is his old tutor from the turn of the century - under. The orphan Martina Wiedmann was born from Eugen's late father Dr. med. Faber was accepted into the large family during his lifetime. Eugen's older brothers are dead. Karl had succumbed to a medical self-experiment and Roderich had shot himself. The latter left Valentin, an illegitimate son. The child had been raised by his grandmother, Anna Faber.

The building company where Faber was employed before the war is not doing well economically. There is no work there for the returnees. Dr. Fleming goes to Clara and informs her of the brother's arrival. Anna Faber can't believe it. The son hides with strangers. During the first encounter the son justifies himself: “Be patient, mother, you have to collect yourself first. You first have to see where you stand and whether you still belong in your world. ” It turns out that Eugene is uprooted. He can no longer get along with his wife Martina. Martina is now going her own way. At the request of the Princess, she took her 26-year-old friend Fides into the house to take care of their now nine-year-old son Christoph and also as a housekeeper. The "extremely attractive" Fides, the impoverished daughter of a former north German landowner and high officer, went through difficult times. Martina herself has become the princess' right hand. The princess, a relative of Fides on her mother's side, heads the Children's Town, a hostel for helpless children and young people very close to Faber's hometown.

Angry Faber blames the princess for the freezing cold that has entered his marriage. Martina orders the husband to rest. His reply: “ What should I rest? Six years are behind me like a black burn hole. If I can't eradicate them now, I'll never get rid of them. I have to get rid of them. "

When Martina - without saying goodbye to her husband - goes on a business trip to England, Faber and Fides - eyed suspiciously by little Christoph - come closer. Fides is the widow of the massacred and slain private scholar Heinrich Kapruner, the author of the subversive work “Fron und bondage in state and society”. In it the author wanted to dampen the Germans' enthusiasm for war; had warned of the terrible consequences of the war for Germany from the start.

It turns out that Fides is vastly superior to all Fabers - including Hermann Hergesell by marriage, a resolute, successful man of old grist and grain. When 15-year-old Valentin stole a valuable piece of jewelry from his aunt Clara, which he had borrowed for a festive evening, Fides is the only one who is able to persuade the thief to surrender the loot.

Faber does not take his new job as an appraiser at the municipal building authority and as a building planner seriously. “Apathetically and aimlessly” he falls for a sectarian splinter group of Marxists . These “ultra-reds” are opponents of Sister Benigna 's children's aid organization, as the princess is called. After Faber turns his signature against the tireless charitable workers, he is soon called to the noble lady. The reader is surprised by the outcome of the dialogue. Faber, who had been deeply disappointed in Martina through the whole novel, suddenly admits to the princess that he could not live without his wife.

Eugen Faber wants his six "stolen years" back from Fides. When Martina returned from England, she soon recognized the newest lovers in her husband and girlfriend. Martina wished Eugen good luck with the woman of his choice. Fides wants to leave the house. It turns out differently. Eugen Faber is staying with Dr. Fleming a. Martina has her apartment all to herself again and is delighted with this pleasant turn of events: “ 'Fides, wake up! Do you know then Did you hear? He's gone, dearest! the dearest of all has gone away from me ... 'And she kissed Fides and laughed and sobbed at the same time ... Fides looked at her in amazement with a heavy look and bowed her head. "

Self-testimony

Wassermann calls the novel “a book for the noblest of women” and thus addresses Martina's unselfish activity.

Form and interpretation

The omniscient narrator sometimes has to refer to entries in Dr. Jakob Fleming's Annalenheft support. In places Aquarius exaggerates excessively. Ninety percent of the people Faber meets on the street are alcoholics or syphilitics . Sometimes it seems as if Wassermann wants to approach Goethe in pathos . The princess says to Faber: “I am glad that I finally see you, Eugene Faber. I think I would have recognized you if no one had told me your name. There's a lot of Martina on your face; and there is much of yours in Martina's face. Didn't you know? It is so. There is not just one blood relationship; there are also siblings by choice. "

This monument of pessimism culminates in the sentence: “There is no happiness in love.” The novel is not lacking in psychological depth. The easiest way to understand this work is if it is taken as the story of the love budding between Faber and Fides. But the text is more. It is the analysis of an uprooting as a direct consequence of war.

literature

First edition

  • Faber or The Lost Years. S. Fischer, Berlin 1924, half linen, 264 pages

Used edition

Secondary literature

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ Sentimentalities grow here and there. Faber, for example, kisses the hands of his Madonna (edition used, p. 120, 17th Zvu) Fides in the nocturnal tête-à-tête. Fides trivializes this approximation: “... he constantly gnawed his lower lip with his teeth, in the end so violently that he bit it bloody. So they sat side by side in silence for a long time. Suddenly, before she could know it, Faber grabbed both of Fides's hands and pressed his lips first on one, then on the other. And a little blood stain remained on each of her hands. The movement had been so sudden, the expression on his face so reverently serious, that Fides did not dare to resist; but she paled noticeably, withdrew her hands in horror and said: 'Now that's enough of talking.' With that she got up, nodded to him and quickly left the room. It was a quarter past three. ” (Edition used, p. 115, 5. Zvo).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1 , p. 67, 12. Zvo
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1 .
  3. ↑ quoted in Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1 , p. 67, 8. Zvu
  4. ↑ see Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1 , p. 63, 7. Zvo
  5. ↑ Margarita Pazi in: Gunter E. Grimm, Frank Rainer Max (ed.): German poets. Life and work of German-speaking authors . Volume 7: From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century . Reclam, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-15-008617-5 , p. 51, 15. Zvu