Lost and found office (Roman)
Lost and Found is a novel by Siegfried Lenz from 2003, which was launched with an initial print run of 100,000 copies.
The people
- Henry Neff , 24 years old, is the central figure in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, he takes a new job at a lost property office. He is an active club player in ice hockey. The federal railway division, to which Henry's lost property office belongs, is managed by one of Henry's uncle.
- Hannes Harms is Henry's manager in the lost property office. Occasionally he is surprised that Henry is not very determined in his job.
- Albert Bußmann is considered to be the most experienced employee in the lost property office. He lives with his ninety year old confused father.
- Paula Blohm , who is a little older than Henry, is responsible for correspondence in the lost property office. She is married to a man named Marco Blohm, who works on the dubbing of films. Paula's brother, Hubert, belongs to a motorcycle gang.
- Barbara Neff is Henry's sister. She works in the purchasing department of Neff and Plumbeck , the largest porcelain shop in town. Your grandfather was the founder of the company.
- Dr. Like Henry, Fedor Lagutin is 24 years old. He comes from Bashkiria , a part of the former Soviet Union. He is a mathematician and was invited by the local TH to take part in a research program. In his home country he learned a German that seems a bit old-fashioned.
action
The novel begins with Henry taking up his new job in a lost property office. He has given up his previous work as a travel companion because it was associated with too much nerve tension. You learn that he has expressly decided against career advancement. Quote: "... I like to leave the ascent to others, it's enough for me if I feel comfortable at work."
Henry is very pleased with his colleague Paula. He urges her to have dinner with him. When he returned to his apartment from meeting Paula, he was harassed by a motorcycle gang of around five people in front of the house, but was able to save himself from them.
The whole novel is pervaded by the motif “Rationalization in the Railway”. Even in Henry's early time in the lost property office, there was a visit from an expert. Its task is to write a report on the work situation in the lost property office.
Doctor Lagutin has had an accident. He injured himself when he jumped off a moving train and also lost his bag. Henry brings the bag to the hotel for him. He befriends him; at the end of the encounter there is a hug.
Henry and Paula have to deal with a find of a special kind. It is a doll, inside of which you will find 12,000 DM. After this discovery it is clear that the railway police must be notified if a stranger should inquire about the doll.
Doctor Lagutin and Barbara, Henry's sister, accompany Henry to an ice hockey game in which he is used as an A-class player for the first time. He is hit in the forehead by the puck and is taken out of play early. Henry and Barbara then invite Doctor Lagutin to visit their mother.
A boy of around fourteen asks about the doll in which the money was found. Soon after, he runs away and is followed by Paula and Henry. However, you lose sight of him. Your boss is now demanding a written report from you on what happened.
On the following evening Paula has the plan to watch a film in the cinema, which her husband helped to synchronize. Henry asks to go with her, and Paula agrees. In the cinema, Henry tries to be physically close to Paula, but is rejected by her. However, she allows him to accompany her to her apartment. There, surprisingly, they get into Paula's husband.
Fedor Lagutin receives a special scholarship. So he reports to Henry and announces his visit. He wants to celebrate the scholarship with Henry. In front of his house, however, he is intercepted by the motorcycle gang. He can only save himself by smashing the glass door with a stone at Henry's house and pressing the door handle from the inside. He sustains cuts that are treated by an emergency doctor.
Albert Bussmann has to look for his father because he seems to have lost his way in the city. Henry accompanies him. You can find the old man behind a barrel organ. He had taken over the representation for the barrel organ man in his absence. Henry accompanies them to their apartment, where the old man tells stories of alleged journeys on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Henry pays a visit to Fedor Lagutin and runs into Barbara. One advises on the question of how the attack by the motorcycle gang is to be assessed. Fedor Legutin shows that he is at a loss when faced with the attack he experienced. After a while, Barbara expresses the wish that we should visit the ethnological museum together. In the museum it becomes clear to the other two why Barbara lured them here. There is an installation "Bashkirs in front of their marquee" in the museum. For Fedor Lagutin, the sight triggers a sense of home.
Paula reproaches Henry because her brother's motorcycle gang was attacked by members of an ice hockey club - assuming that he was also involved, which Henry denies.
Henry runs into a drunk Albert Bussmann in the lost property office. Bußmann has learned that he should take early retirement. Henry accompanies his colleague home that evening. Henry then pays a visit to his uncle, the Bundesbahn division manager. He wants to get the railway to reverse the decision that was made with Bußmann in mind. However, the uncle explains that it is not possible for him to change anything in the decision.
Fedor Lagutin has received an invitation to a student party and asks Barbara and Henry to accompany him. At the celebration, a robot is presented that is able to correctly answer the question of how many people are present in natural language. There is a lot of amusement that evening; Fedor Lagutin and Barbara dance a lot together. However, there comes a point when Lagutin gets up, shaking slightly, and leaves the celebration.
During a conversation between Henry, Paula and their superior, Paula learns that Henry has asked his uncle to be dismissed - apparently with the intention of ensuring that Bussman can keep his post. Henry, in turn, learns that Bußmann is on sick leave.
Fedor Lagutin left a letter for Barbara in which it says: "You can tear out the arrow that hits you, but words get stuck forever." This confirms their suspicion that there were words for Lagutin that were hurtful.
Outside Henry's house, Barbara and Henry see that the dark-skinned postman called Joe has been surrounded by the motorcycle gang and is being beaten by them. Henry interferes and fights the gang members with an ice hockey stick. Soon afterwards, a large number of men from the area came to their aid. The motorcycle gang is evicted.
In the last chapter, Henry learns that Albert Bußman has had a stroke and will most likely not return to the lost property office. He is offered an appointment as deputy lost and found manager, but declines the offer.
Themes and motifs
Lenz published his Lost and Found novel in 2003, and he picked up topics that he could assume would be of interest to a wide audience. Above all, these are the issues of "concern about the job" and "xenophobia". In addition, reflections on the subject of "losing and finding again" run through the entire novel.
Downsizing of jobs
Several times in the novel there is talk of the fact that the Federal Railroad is forced to rationalize. The rumor emerges that 50,000 jobs are to be saved, and an appraiser appears in the lost property office, who appears to be trying to identify potential savings.
The way in which one meets the expert in the lost property office can arouse astonishment in the reader.
At one point it is said that Harms and the appraiser looked down at Henry and Paula "in silence, persevering, as if they were waiting to be presented with work". However, the two people being watched are unimpressed. The text continues with: "Henry leaned down to her and offered her a cigarette." And immediately afterwards: "He felt the need to stroke her hair [...]."
These and a few other scenes can seem like a plea for serenity in professional life.
Meeting strangers
The novel offers illustrative material on the subject of “dealing with strangers”. Lenz shows that reactions to a foreign guest like Doctor Lagutin can be very different. Henry and Barbara are very drawn to the world that Lagutin represents. Her mother, on the other hand, is much more distant, which is explained by the fact that she was particularly worried about her son that day.
In addition to sincere interest and aloofness, there is the attitude of a couple who express hostility towards Lagutin (they explain that it smells “strictly of goat”), and there is the motorcycle gang who are prepared to use violence at the sight of Lagutin responds.
Towards the end of the novel, Lenz conjures up the vision of collective resistance against acts of xenophobia.
Lose and find again
In one scene of the novel, Paula is standing on the platform and observing a well-dressed man who gets on a train and leaves his suitcase behind and does not react to hints given by bystanders. She hands him the suitcase into the train and then sees that the stranger is throwing the suitcase out of the train.
In the lost property office, one later suspects that the man probably no longer wanted the suitcase because he wanted to say goodbye to a phase of life together with the suitcase.
There are many scenes that stimulate one to deal with losing and giving up and also with finding again.
What Professor Cassou, the deputy rector of the TH, has to say about his life story can be particularly touching. At a student party he tells how he was separated from his sister Sophie during the war. He was seven years old at the time and they didn't meet again until they met by chance as adults in Canada.
Humanity that shows itself in the small
Lenz shows an unusual view of the world of offices and authorities. While the world of the authorities with their forms and their well-regulated processes has often been presented as the epitome of inhumanity and lack of imagination, Lenz shows in his novel that there can be a good atmosphere in a facility like the lost property office.
Henry has to adhere to the given procedures in the lost property office, but he knows how to deal with the requirements with great virtuosity. When he demands proof of ownership from the "losers", it often results in the "losers" feeling encouraged to express their preferences and skills. Most of them are happy to comply with Henry's requests. Henry evidently arouses sympathy with his unconventional demeanor.
Lenz uses the character of Henry to convey to the reader that humanity can always unfold best where people are willing to pay close attention to the little stories of everyday life.
Reviews
Warmth
The novel was consistently received positively by the critics. Many reviewers state that the novel makes the world it shows seem likeable.
The reviewer of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , Wolfgang Platzeck, says:
- Even or especially where Lenz carefully steers the narrative flow in the direction of xenophobia and being German, there is no moralizing undertone. A cheerful melancholy pervades the book, which does not need a happy ending in order to dismiss the reader thoughtfully but with comforting confidence.
And the reviewer of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Beatrix Langner , notes:
- It is seldom to read a German novel in which people speak so modestly, simply and naturally, with so much sympathy, whose amiability lies solely in their inconspicuousness.
Nineties?
There are occasional irritations when asked when the novel is set. On the one hand, the novel addresses the EU's eastward expansion and laptops in radio news, so that it is clear that it was an event in the late 1990s, on the other hand there are all sorts of details that point to earlier decades, sometimes even to the 1950s:
- The train doors do not close automatically yet.
- In the lost property office, people still write on the typewriter instead of the computer.
- Paula is married to a man who is the voice actor for Glenn Ford (born 1916).
- Henry sees an intellectually demanding Irish fiction film in the station cinema - the 1950s are considered to be the heyday of station cinemas, while these were practically extinct after a long period of decline during the novel's plot period.
- The members of the motorcycle gang hardly give thought to skinheads of the nineties and are more reminiscent of moped rockers of the fifties.
- When Fedor and Barbara let off steam on the dance floor at a student party, it's rock 'n' roll they dance.
A social fairy tale?
The reviews that are available at this point in time (May 2006) show a mixed picture. Among the reader reviews that can be read on Amazon.de, the negative comments predominate. Apparently there are quite a few readers who feel provoked by the novel - because they experience the depictions as confusing and unrealistic.
But there is also the literary critic Andreas Isenschmid , who is ready to defend the novel in every respect. Isenschmid assumes that Lenz was perfectly aware that with the lost and found novel he was moving away from the current presentation clichés. If the novel seems at times like an idyllic alternative to reality, then that's what the author wanted (see the link under "Web Links").
literature
- Siegfried Lenz: lost property office. Novel . Dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-13336-8 .
- Siegfried Lenz: lost property office. Reading . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-455-30337-4 (6 CDs, 455 min.)