Chase (novel)
Hetzjagd (Original title: The Statement ) is a novel by Brian Moore , which was published in 1995 by Bloomsbury-Verlag , London . The German translation by Bernhard Robben was published in 1997 by Diogenes Verlag , Zurich .
action
1989 in Provence : Three men are shot one after the other at three different crime scenes. The influential Maurice de Grandville from Paris at his age does not want to be overtaken by his Nazi past. That is why he silences an accomplice who was born in the south of France, the former Standartenführer Pierre Brossard, forever and ever.
Brossard drives his decrepit small car from Salon-de-Provence to the nearby Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Cros. On the way, the 70-year-old shoots a young killer in cold blood who was apparently set on him. The shooter found a letter of confession from the dead man: Brossard, the former "head of the second section of the milice in the Marseille area", was guilty of the murder of "fourteen Jews on June 15, 1944 in Dombey, Alpes-Maritimes ". Brossard cannot explain how the opponents could find out about his whereabouts. In the abbey, his current hiding place, Brossard does not want to stay a day longer. Although Abbot Vladimir Gorshakov - a Russian exile who advised Maréchal Pétain during the Vichy regime - weighed in on him, the two old men have a powerful enemy. Cardinal Delavigne, "Gaullist, resistance fighter and reformer" has forbidden all abbots in his diocese to accommodate Brossard.
Not every abbot adheres to the instructions of this cardinal of the "post-war church". Brossard knows those autonomous abbots very well and looks for them in turn during his escape from the hostile crowd. Opponents, according to Brossard's deep conviction, are the Jews first and then the Communists . Besides a few veterans of the Catholic Church, Brossard has other friends who regularly give him money or just give him shelter. The former Commissaire Henri Vionnet lives as a winegrower near Avignon . Of every special occurrence, Brossard makes the gruff Commissaire a. D. notification by telephone. Brossard is also a member of a "group of Catholic rights activists". He belongs to the "Chevaliers de Sainte-Marie".
The noose around Brossard's neck is tightened. Brossard, who loves his France, is thinking, after decades of fleeing all over the south of France, now in old age to flee to a country where at least French is spoken. The great stranger in Paris - introduced as a rich old man - puts the next killer on Brossard.
At the same time, the state power wants to bring Brossard to trial. The modern République française is represented in the novel by the post-war generation - as there are the intelligent Colonel Robert Roux from the military police and the active examining magistrate Annemarie Livi. Not only the "little fish" Brossard, the wanted criminal, should be accused of crimes against humanity, but mainly three honorable gentlemen who are known as "negotiators of the Vichy regime with the Nazis" and who have lived freely in Paris for decades remained completely unmolested. Now the Colonel and the judge hope that the three wealthy gentlemen can finally be tried. However, Brossard has to go to the dock first. The Colonel and the DST suspect that Jewish Nazi hunters such as B. Serge Klarsfeld or the Simon Wiesenthal Center are also after Brossard.
A certain Pochon is named as the liaison for the second killer. When it became more and more difficult for Brossard to find shelter in abbeys, he remembers his ecclesiastical wife Nicole. Because the husband avoided his wife for a long time, he dared a short stay with her, but soon returned to the bosom of the church. Clever old Brossard also shoots the second young killer.
When the rich old man sends out the third killer, the reader is surprised. The Jews have nothing to do with the attacks on Brossard. The third killer is the Pochon who sent the first two killers on behalf of the wealthy Maurice de Grandville. Vionnet is in contact with Inspector Pochon. Grandville cleverly chose Pochon. Brossard was a paid informant at the time of the OAS Inspector Pochons. So Grandville suspects Brossard won't be suspicious if Pochon lures him with a Canadian passport. The badly cornered Brossard has no other choice, he has to deal with Pochon. This is one of his few mistakes and his last at the same time. Brossard is shot by Pochon.
background
In forty chapters the narrator constantly changes his perspective between the hunter and the hunted. Only once - on the penultimate page of the novel - does Brossard suspect who is going to judge him. Otherwise he suspects almost three hundred pages in the wrong direction: The Jews are supposed to be his hunters. As an SS man who murdered Jews, he has every reason to believe. But these thoughts are wrong.
The reader is a little wiser here. He knows about Maurice de Grandville (see above). In the search for the client of the two killed killers, the reader gets the first tangible clue quite late, and it leads astray. The client is an "important person" who wants to prevent Brossard from being brought to justice. Colonel Roux and the judge Livi later conclude that razor-sharp. And the second killer persuades the reader that his client is a Jew. That is not right. Grandville is an enemy of the Jews.
With three letters of confession - each at the three crime scenes - Grandville attempts to portray the Jews as avengers. Grandville does not want to be charged with crimes against humanity . That's why he unleashes one killer after the other on the old Nazi Brossard.
Inconsistent
- The Belarusian aristocrat Abbot Vladimir Gorshakov presides over the Carmelite Benedictines.
review
- Christian Seiler in profile, Vienna: "Hunting is a new format of the political novel" .
All in English:
- In a short review from October 1996, Roger Kaplan highlights one of Brian Moore's merits. The author dealt with the subject of collaboration in Vichy France in a prose work.
- In a brief review in April 2005, Bob Corbett tackled the hot iron in the novel: Rome's standpoints on the crimes of World War II.
- Philip Spiers complains that the author has inadequately worked out the motifs of the protagonists.
- The numerous book editions (with cover images) are listed on the fantasticfiction website . In the accompanying short discussion it is emphasized that the abysmal evil in Brossard is one side of the novel. On the other hand, there are Brossards - mostly invisible - protectors.
filming
The novel was filmed in 2003 by Norman Jewison under the original title The Statement with Michael Caine as Pierre Brossard and Charlotte Rampling as Brossard's wife Nicole.
expenditure
- Chase. Novel . Translated from English by Bernhard Robben. Diogenes, Zurich 1999. ISBN 3-257-23096-6
- Chase . Verlag SZ , Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-86615-272-4
- radio play
- Chase . Translated from the English by Bernhard Robben, adaptation and direction: Alexander Schuhmacher , production: SWR 1997.
Web links
- Review and discussion in BUECHER4UM
- Review by Hans-Rainer John
- Brief discussion by Alfred Ohswald
- Review by Dieter Wunderlich