Meat is my vegetable (novel)
Meat is my vegetables is a novel by Heinz Strunk , published in 2004 , which tells, largely autobiographically, of his time as a musician in a dance band. By February 2012, the book had sold over 400,000 times.
action
Although already approaching 30, Heinz Strunk still lives with his mentally ill mother in Hamburg-Harburg . He suffers from severe acne , has little success with girls, but plays the flute and saxophone excellently. After he was retired from the Bundeswehr as unfit and could not decide to study, he made his way as an unsuccessful music producer and with occasional appearances as a musician. He joins the dance band on a friend Tiffany , the German and international hits occurring in the 1970s and 1980s on various family or club celebrations of village surrounding region of Lüneburg and Hamburg. The first-person narrator, who is called "Heinzer" by his fellow musicians, only reluctantly accepts the beefy goings-on in front of the stage. In doing so, he describes the failures and embarrassments of the organizers and the guests present and takes aim at the weaknesses of his band members and criticizes his own quirks and inferiority complexes.
After his mother suffered a psychological relapse, threw herself out of the window and was then transferred to the geriatric ward , Heinzer lives alone in her small row house, the dwarf house . He is becoming increasingly addicted to alcohol and gambling . When his doctor advised him to drink less alcohol, he initially took it to heart, but later fell back on the addiction. His mother's death coincides with his departure from Tiffanys , who had grown from a casual job to his main source of income for over twelve years.
This melancholy plot forms the framework for a critical look at the milieu, portrayed with laconic humor and (self) ironic 80s nostalgia: the shooting festivals and other celebrations of the so-called simple people, which are saturated with alcohol and mood music, characterized by perseverance and resignation.
Real templates
Both Strunk's commitment to the dance band Tiffany and his work as a music producer based on real situations. The character of the band leader Gurki is based on Godehardt Schönherr. The character of the singer Anja, whom the protagonist invites to recording sessions in his home studio and cooks mince dishes, is based on Anja Krenz, with whom Strunk recorded the album Paradise is Far Away in 1989 under his real name Mathias Halfpape under the duo name Dis Noir . Krenz works as a traffic editor for the radio station NDR 90.3 . In the film adaptation of the book, she sings the piece Tonight . Strunk addresses the figure of a former singer who becomes a traffic announcer in the story Verkehrsfunk , which appeared in the volume Das Teemännchen in 2018 .
filming
The novel was made into a film by Christian Görlitz in 2008 .
Stage version
In 2010, Strunk awarded the performance rights to a stage version of the novel to the Braunschweig State Theater . Under the musical direction of Christian Eitner , head of the Braunschweig band Jazzkantine , a play with a lot of music was created. The play premiered on April 8, 2011 in the Small House of the Braunschweig State Theater, staged by Christian Doll. The play could also be seen in Braunschweig in the 2011/2012 season.
Bibliographical information
- Heinz Strunk: Meat is my vegetable, a country youth with music. Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 978-3-499-23711-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meat is my vegetable: Tragedy to die for , Abendblatt.de
- ↑ Back then ... | Fifty Fifty. Retrieved November 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Dis Noir - Paradise Is Far Away. Retrieved November 6, 2019 .
- ^ NDR: Anja Krenz. Retrieved November 6, 2019 .
- Jump up ↑ Tiffanys - Meat Is My Vegetables - Soundtrack. Retrieved November 6, 2019 .