Glis-Glis (narrative)
Glis-Glis is a short story by the German writer Albert Vigoleis Thelen . The exact title is: Glis-Glis. Dormouse dormouse book mouse. A zoo-Gnostic parable. Developed as a finger exercise for the visually impaired .
content
The dormouse ( Glis glis ) and the other dormice remained unnamed in the Bible , and so the animals - unexpectedly for the people - begin a vengeance campaign against the "Book of Books" and gnaw all the copies. Poison or an increase in Bible production cannot prevent the animals from winning.
In the second - no longer fictional, but autobiographical - part, the author, who with his wife Beatrice cares for the Swiss house of a millionaire as a "guardian and thief barker", for example about a copy of the Bible that was also destroyed by rodents in this building.
In a 46-page appendix there are - in addition to some photo illustrations - copies of numerous letters that the author wrote to the publisher between 1967 and 1977 regarding the publication of Glis-Glis .
History of origin
After the recognition that his novel The Island of the Second Face received, Thelen suffered from the fact that his second novel The Black Lord Bahßetup was a complete failure, and therefore did not want to write any more prose. His manuscript Glis-Glis , which was completed on May 1, 1959 and initially did not find a publisher, was therefore given to his friend, Hildesheim publisher Walter Georg Olms , who published it in 1967. Thelen suffered from an eye disease ( vitreous detachment ); His colleague Karl Otten had therefore advised him to try blind typing once; this is how the autobiographical subtitle "finger exercise of the visually impaired" came about.
reception
Although fellow writers ( Robert Neumann and Erich Maria Remarque ) praised the story, the media response was initially low. In the FAZ , the new edition was discussed in detail by Ulrich Holbein , who pointed out that Thelen's prose today "has meanwhile faded the post-war texts that were current at the time and commented x times more than these on today's situations ahead of the curve" . The literature focused on the story, the Belgian professor of for example, examined modern German literature in Antwerp , Jean Paul Beer, the numerous possibilities of interpretation and interpretation of the text.
Form, language, parable, interpretations
The story is a mixture of story and essay , of fantasy and reality, and of comedy and horror . It begins like a fairy tale “Once upon a time there was a fairy tale that came from far away” and varies and comments on the “basic theme of slow decomposition” in an essayistic way. In reality it is not the dormice that destroy the “book of books”, but the “ravages of time” gnaw at it; the rescue attempts are in vain. Jürgen Pütz thinks that Thelens "settlement with Catholicism in the" island "is finally brought to a close in the parable of the destruction of the Bible" . Striking - as so often with Thelen - are his vocabulary and word formations; for “bilch” there are numerous synonyms , for example: feistwampige sizzle mouse, billmaus, lullmouse, Grauel, Gräuelratze, Schrotmaus, shotgun, Zieseltier, Relle, Schrattratz, cellar scare, slumber lunze, burrowing Vorarr, Oberschnoberer and others. In his treatise on Glis-Glis Thelen's language, Jean Paul Bier analyzes and shows numerous possible interpretations; He sums up: “From the unrealistic parable of his mythical and allusive formulated spiritual adventure, the late wisdom arises that the modern man in need of fairy tales is no longer able to cope with the forces that destroy fairy tales,” and concludes somewhat critically: “It remains but the question of whether that lamented contemporary, in his role as a reader, is able to muster the patience to unravel such a grandiose, verbal banality ” .
literature
Text output
- Glis-Glis. Dormouse dormouse book mouse. A zoo-Gnostic parable. Developed as a finger exercise for the visually impaired . 2nd edition with drawings by Paul König. Attached are facsimile letters (1967–1977) from the author to Walter Georg Olms. Olms, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York 2001. ISBN 3-487-08432-5
- Glis-Glis. A zoo-Gnostic parable. Developed as a finger exercise for the visually impaired . G. Olms, Hildesheim 1967
Quote
“The spherical gazes glared at me rigidly, beneath the falling tail, the awns of which made the gaze appear as if it were fluffed around. I lost my composure, or was it that I won it all the more: for I hurled a pickaxe hammer, which I had with me for rummaging, at the unsatiable horror, the cellar horror of an apocalypse, the keel-headed, hideous beast of my witch's witch. "
Secondary literature
- A) Jean Paul Bier: Thelen tells fairy tales. Considerations on the mythical claim of the art of storytelling in Glis-Glis . In: Albert Vigoleis Thelen . Editors: Jattie Enklaar and Hans Ester. Rodopi, Amsterdam 1988. ISBN 90-6203-820-4
- B) Ulrich Holbein : Zieseltier und Lullmaus. Albert Vigoleis Thelens zoosophy of the dormouse . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 13, 2001
- C) Werner Jung: Albert Vigoleis Thelen . In: Critical Lexicon of Contemporary German Literature (KLG) . Edited by Heinz Ludwig Arnold
- D) Jürgen Pütz: Doppelganger of himself. The narrator Albert Vigoleis Thelen . Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1990. ISBN 3-8244-4048-2
- E) Hermann Wallmann: Laudation for Albert Vigoleis Thelen . In: Homage to Albert Vigoleis Thelen . Editor: Horst Winz. June, Mönchengladbach 1989. ISBN 3-926738-04-9
Individual evidence
- ^ Letters from the author to W. Georg Olms . In: Text Edition 2001. Pages 76–78
- ↑ see secondary literature B), page 46
- ↑ see secondary literature A), pages 70–83
- ↑ Secondary literature A), page 76
- ↑ Albert Vigoleis Thelen's novel The Island of the Second Face is meant
- ↑ Secondary literature D), page 56
- ↑ Secondary literature A) page 70ff
- ↑ ibid. Page 82
- ^ Text edition 2001, page 41