Early autumn in Badenweiler

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Early autumn in Badenweiler is a novel by Gabriele Wohmann that was published by Luchterhand in Darmstadt in 1978 .

The text was translated into Dutch ( Nazomer in Badenweiler ) by Theodor Duquesnoy in 1980 , into Swedish by Karin Löfdahl in 1981 ( Tidig höst i Badenweiler ) and into Bulgarian by Ralica Abraševa in 1984 ( Ranna essen v Badenvajler ).

Gabriele Wohmann (1992)

overview

The composer and music teacher Hubert Frey, who occasionally paints or writes , wants to overcome a creative crisis in September 1977 for a cure in the historic Park Hotel in Badenweiler . In addition, the only forty-year-old hypochondriac occasional smoker - whom Gabriele Wohmann calls a primary person - is haunted by hysterical fear of death in the midst of older spa guests there in the Baden Black Forest . As an artist, Frey allows himself both a phobia and a claustrophobia . He by no means wants to relax in Badenweiler, but waits for a mental breakdown in the old Markgrafenbad, looking across from the Rhine plain to the Vosges .

content

The artist Frey is concerned with Chekhov's death in Badenweiler. In contrast to the embarrassing Russian room of his time, Frey can now afford a top-end room. Conrad Aiken in Badenweiler becomes the next subject of Frey's homage. However, it turns out that Frey mistook Aiken for Stephen Crane . The strolling spa guest Frey holds back from admiring the Moest statue of Friedrich I on the way, because the Grand Duke was unduly venerated.

The artist Frey, to whom “important critics attest chamber music asceticism” and the conjuring up of psychoanalytic soundscapes, states that music has something to do with feeling and nothing to do with intellect. As a musician - according to the Schubert- hexed Frey - it is impossible to approach the composer Schubert with a logical construct such as spoken language. There is no place for the cheerful in music either.

Married, but intending to divorce, Frey has drifted apart from his rather independent Berlin-based wife Selma. Except for the lack of sexual intercourse , everything is still right in this marriage with the bustling feature producer. On her business trips, the 41-year-old freelance interviewer Selma - a notorious chain smoker - always makes a detour to Badenweiler. Before Selma, who was able to live - because she was hard-working - Almut had played a role in Frey's love life. With his sister Cilli, who lives in neighboring Switzerland, who is married to the psychologist Florian, the artist Frey has saved a particularly intimate relationship from their childhood together into adulthood. The youngest brother Freys - a Levantine guy - is still mentioned. The family is of Huguenot descent. Frey's father - a radical at a young age - has passed away.

Frey, anxious to overcome his crisis, would like to write an essay with the parable of an uninteresting area and a calm soul. He takes the idea from Goethe's letter of September 6, 1780 to Charlotte von Stein .

Gabriele Wohmann manages a reasonably optimistic end of the novel. After four weeks in Badenweiler, Frey meets a child for the first time. And shortly before leaving, the spa guest suddenly feels "strangely strong ... incontestable, health stable."

Quote

  • What is “criticism? A busy dog ​​barking ... "

Works by the fictional composer Hubert Frey

  • Sonata in C minor
  • Concerto grosso in six movements
  • Missa Risponsa
  • Risponso , trilogy
  • to you , song
  • Entry of the nymphs
  • The music to Jonny The King - the client is a certain filmmaker Ruffo - does not materialize.
  • Cilli and Florian are waiting for Frey's quintet .
  • The dialogues for clarinet sets Frey shelved.

shape

The structure is episodic through and through. In this context, two encounters between the health insurance patient Frey and likeable women in Badenweiler are worth reading. First, there is the visit to the sturdy orthopedist Dr. Schliemann and, secondly, shopping at the very young bookseller who has not fallen on her head.

Gabriele Wohmann likes to play with the reader. The only thing that should be pointed out is the above-mentioned Aiken story persisted by romanglobal, the amusing turn of the bus driver handling the leg and the pleonasm of the concave waning moon.

reception

  • September 1, 1978, Jürgen Lodemann in der Zeit : Another owl to Athens : The author repeats what has been shown and hides her “cause for excitement” behind “Verquer-Wehleidigem”.
  • September 9, 1978 in the FAZ : Wohmann, Gabriele: Early autumn in Badenweiler : The reviewer spreads about unsuccessful things, but praises the form: "The narrative perspective is strictly maintained: everything is experienced with and through Hubert Frey."
  • October 9, 1978, Wolfgang Hildesheimer in the mirror : Hubert's Wehleiden : Although the author is portrayed as a prolific writer, the brilliant end of the novel - Frey meets a tiny mouse in his comfortable hotel room - reconciles the reviewers.
  • Häntzschel discovers an ironic point of view and misses action. However, the reader is compensated for this by linguistic constructs and densely written episodes.
  • The collaborator in Barner's literary history skips the novel by pointing out its monotony.
  • February 2, 2011, in the Badische Zeitung : An uplifting, pleasant boredom : Gabriele Wohmann is quoted, among others, about the Badenweiler spa park: “I love the trees, if only as a shade mediator and peace donor. They are effective against nervousness and agitation. Unfortunately, otherwise people hardly want trees, terrible! Everything screams for light. It should be bright, clear and bare. In Badenweiler it was different, enchanted, pleasantly padded. "

literature

First edition

  • Early autumn in Badenweiler. Novel . Luchterhand, Darmstadt 1978, 265 pages, ISBN 3-472-86467-2

Used edition

  • Early autumn in Badenweiler. Novel. With a postscript by Wolfgang Kröber . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1979, 242 pages, without ISBN

Secondary literature

  • Günter Häntzschel, Jürgen Michael Benz, Rüdiger Bolz, Dagmar Ulbricht: Gabriele Wohmann . Verlag CH Beck, Verlag edition text + kritik, Munich 1982, authors' books vol. 30, 166 pages, ISBN 3-406-08691-8
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . Beck , Munich 1994, 1116 pages, ISBN 3-406-38660-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dutch Theo Duquesnoy
  2. ↑ Swedish Karin Löfdahl
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 233, 13. Zvo
  4. ↑ Häntzschel, pp. 45–47
  5. ↑ Barner, p. 610, 5th Zvu

Remarks

  1. ↑ The year 1977 cannot be found in the novel, but Frey's cure falls in September and the kidnapping of an employer president who is not named is briefly discussed several times. In other words: The German autumn is only mentioned in passing in the text. Although - the introverted Frey calls himself disaffected with the state, but does not go into further detail.
  2. ↑ Frey is afraid of bones , he is tormented by gagging in his throat and throat heartbeat, and he tells himself a tumor in his left eye (edition used, p. 85 below). The spa doctor insists on her measurement result. His values ​​are those of a healthy person. (Edition used, p. 131, Zvu 14)
  3. ^ The Chekhov admirer Frey finds the Three Sisters boring. (Edition used, p. 134, 7. Zvo)
  4. ↑ Selma had interviewed William Holden after all . (Edition used, p. 199, 8. Zvu)
  5. ↑ Gabriele Wohmann speaks of "an incestuous compulsion to tenderness" (edition used, p. 59, 6th Zvu) between the two.
  6. ↑ Goethe says in it: "It is precisely the area from which I drew you the rising mist, iezt it is so pure and calm, and so uninteresting as a great beautiful soul when it is at its best." ( Goethe-Briefe 1780 by Zeno .org )