Job (Joseph Roth)

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Job is a novel by Joseph Roth published in 1930. He describes the ordeal of the Jewish-Orthodox Torah teacher Mendel Singer in the (fictional) shtetl Zuchnow in Russia and in the subsequent American exile from 1900 until after the First World War . Mendel suffers severe strokes of fate in history, which shakes his piety and puts his faith in God to a severe test.

Publication history

Job was first published as a preprint in the Frankfurter Zeitung from September 14 to October 21, 1930 and in October of the same year by Verlag Gustav Kiepenheuer in Berlin. Just one year later, Dorothy Thompson's English translation was published by The Viking Press in New York and in 1932 by William Heinemann Ltd. in London . In the next few years new editions and further translations were added. Job was the most successful work by Joseph Roth to date.

content

First part

Mendel Singer earns his living, like his father and grandfather, as a Torah teacher for the Jewish children in Zuchnow. Together with his wife Deborah, he already has two sons (Jonas and Schemarjah) and a daughter (Mirjam) when their fourth child Menuchim is born. Soon this shows a severe developmental disorder. When an official smallpox vaccination was carried out, the doctor diagnosed him with epilepsy . However, Mendel decides against Menuchim's treatment because he does not trust the treatment methods of the hospitals and prefers to trust God. Menuchim's suffering becomes a severe trial for the whole family. While Mendel adds in his lot, looking Deborah, who have always tended to quarrel with their miserable fate ( "She squinted to possess wealthy and envied merchants to gain"), Council desperate for a miracle rabbi in the district town. He predicts Menuchim a late recovery and even special abilities for the future due to his handicap: "The pain will make him wise, the ugliness kind, the bitterness mild and the illness severe." The parents should not have their son despite the heavy burden for them leave.

Mendel's three older children despise and torment Menuchim because they feel neglected by their mother, who only cares for Menuchim, since he was born. They are teased by the other children in the shtetl because of Menuchim's disability, who even at the age of ten cannot speak and can only babble the word 'Mama' . So it even happens that the three older siblings plunge their little brother into a rainwater barrel and try to kill their unloved rival. Menuchim survived the attack of his siblings, but remains passive. However, the parents never give up hope. His father, who tries in vain to teach him the word of God , notices one day that Menuchim reacts unusually strongly to the ringing of a tea glass and the ringing of church bells.

The love affair between Mendel and Deborah cools down over the years. Mendel discovers to his horror that his beautiful daughter Mirjam, "flirtatious and thoughtless as a gazelle", begins a love affair with a Cossack , soon has sexual relations with other Russian soldiers stationed in the village and eventually becomes a swarm of the entire barracks. A few years later Mendel would say of her: “She couldn't live without men. She is crazy. "

One day, Mendel's two older sons received a draft order for the army . For the younger son Shemariah "smart and nimble like a fox," the mother (of Wheeler Kapturak with costly aid), the desertion organize from Russia, it is funneled through the western border and is located in Trieste the money for the crossing of America deserve. The older Jonas, “strong and slow as a bear”, left the family beforehand in order to escape the strict Jewish life in the family and in the shtetl: “I couldn't stand it with you, but I have all of you all gladly! ”He does stable duty at the Sameschkin farmer, likes to drink alcohol and has himself called up for several years of military service.

A few years later, Schemaryah's American friend and business partner Mac contacted him in Zuchnow: The son now calls himself Sam, sends his parents money and lets them know in a letter that he has emigrated to New York , found a lucrative job there, and has since been married and wants to bring his family to the “free country” with the savings he has earned. The parents make the difficult decision to leave their son Menuchim behind in Russia, contrary to the rabbi's instructions, and to hand them over to the neighboring Jewish family Billes, who are allowed to live in the Singers' house free of charge.

Second part

Mendel, Deborah and Mirjam board the ocean liner after a three-day train journey in Bremerhaven . After a fortnight in the tween deck, they arrive in New York. From on board you can see the Statue of Liberty , the symbol of a better life. Although Mac helps them with the complicated entry procedure and Sam and his wife Vega take care of them immediately, Mendel has great difficulty in feeling at home in the seething metropolis: "America invaded him, America broke him, America shattered him. After a few minutes he passed out. ”Not only the language, everything else is alien to him, even his own son seems like a foreigner to him. Deborah, on the other hand, enjoys the lively life and Mirjam wins a new lover in Mac. Mendel's relationship with his wife, however, is growing cold, he only perceives her as an aging stranger. He also longs for Menuchim, but does not want to admit it to himself.

America, which had long been neutral in terms of global politics, entered the First World War in 1917 . Sam and Mac also volunteer on the European front, where Sam falls. Deborah's pain at the news of death is so great that she dies of grief. Jonas, the older brother, is reported missing from Russia , a few days later the daughter Mirjam suffers from severe psychosis and is admitted to a psychiatric institution. Because of this stroke of fate, Mendel doubts the mercy of God. He regrets his previous, loyal Jewish teaching life: "I was crazy for more than sixty years, today I am not." He blasphemes God and withdraws completely from religious life: "I am not afraid of hell [... ] I've already suffered all the torments of Hell. The devil is kinder than God. ”He hesitates, however, to burn his prayer implements as well. His Jewish acquaintances try to appease him. They induce him to leave his shabby apartment and move into a chamber in the store of the record dealer Skowronnek. There Mendel lives very withdrawn and only does minor services in his Jewish community. In order to alleviate the misery of his widowed daughter-in-law Vega, he persuades Mac to marry Vega instead of the terminally ill Mirjam.

The end of the war comes and is celebrated with fireworks. That evening Mendel sits alone in his room, dreams of his old home and hears a song on one of Skowronnek's gramophone records that touches him very much. It's called Menuchim's song and was composed by a musician named Alexej Kossak - Deborah's maiden name was Kossak. A married couple from the neighborhood who are attending a concert by a European orchestra by this conductor in New York are asked about Mendel Singer by one of the musicians. When Mendel hears about it, he has a strong desire to finally find out about Menuchim's fate, who he now assumes is dead. However, he cannot bring himself to contact Alexej Kossak directly. However, he surprisingly arrives as a guest at the Passover festival in the Skowronnek family and brings a message from Mendel's eldest son Jonas: The long-lost thought was last seen as a soldier with the White Guard . When Kossak is finally asked about Menuchim, he confesses that he himself is the one wanted. A doctor took him on as a child and cured him of his epileptic illness. As a musical prodigy he came to military music as a conductor during the war, led a band in St. Petersburg and played before the tsar, fled abroad during the Russian Revolution , founded an orchestra in London and thus became a famous composer .

Overpowered by gratitude and sadness, Mendel found his way back to his faith. He lets Menuchim drive him to his luxurious hotel accommodation and put him to bed like a child. The next day they go on a trip to the sea. Mendel enjoys the newly awakened life, brings old memories back to life and dreams of a late death, "surrounded by many grandchildren and full of life , as it was written in Job ." Menuchim promises to look for the best doctors for his sister Mirjam and at the end of his concert tour to return home with him to Europe to introduce him to his wife and two children. “Mendel fell asleep. And he rested from the severity of happiness and the greatness of miracles. "

shape

The novel is divided into two parts with sixteen numbered chapters. The novel begins with the fairytale formulation Many years ago lived ... in fact, the story told begins around 1900, shortly before the Russian-Japanese War , and ends in the early 1920s, less than ten years before the novel was published and therefore in one Now time of the contemporary reader.

As the title suggests, Roth bases his “Legend from the Twentieth Century” on the story of Job . This applies to both the paratactic language, which is modeled on the simple and at the same time pathetic language of the Old Testament , as well as the plot: like Job, Mendel Singer seems to lose everything and to despair in the face of the severity of the “punishment” of God. This analogy in terms of content is supplemented by the connection to a second biblical text, the Joseph story . In Roth's novel, too, it is the youngest favorite son who, as a child, is envied, tormented and almost drowned by his siblings and, as an adult, meets his sorrowful father again after years and brings him to him in a reconciling way. As a salvific savior, Menuchim is not only like the Old Testament Joseph, but also the New Testament Messiah .

Reception (selection)

  • Ludwig Marcuse takes the dominance of "warmth" over "cool distance" as one of the reasons for the effect of the text.
  • Stefan Zweig is struck by the “restrained simplicity” of the material.
  • Marlene Dietrich names the novel in an English newspaper as her favorite book.
  • Heinrich Böll praises the novel as an outstanding book of the 1930s, but agrees with Marcuse on one point. The conclusion is a little "frivolous".

Book editions (selection)

Quote

"The main character Mendel Singer, a Jewish Orthodox teacher, is Job, because through the many strokes of fate he questions the justice of God, but tries to understand it"

- Joseph Roth, 1930.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Blanke: Joseph Roth, Job: Interpretation . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-88657-6 .
  • Manfred Eisenbeis: Reading key. Joseph Roth: Job. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-015376-X .
  • Martin Lowsky: Joseph Roth: Job. Novel of a common man . Bange, Hollfeld 2005, ISBN 3-8044-1821-X .
  • Eva Raffel, Helena-Lisa Näher: Joseph Roth: Job. Schroedel interpretations . Schroedel, Braunschweig 2012, ISBN 978-3-507-47731-5 .
  • Matthias Richter: The Language of Jewish Figures in German Literature (1750-1933) - Studies on Form and Function. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-89244-068-9 , pp. 304–328.
  • Christine Schmidjell: Joseph Roth. Job. Explanations and documents . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-016033-2 .
  • Wilhelm von Sternburg : Joseph Roth. A biography. 2nd Edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-462-05555-9 , pp. 372–378.
  • Stefan Zweig : The novel "Job" by Joseph Roth. In: Reviews 1902–1939. Encounters with books. 1983. ( E-Text )

Adaptations

filming

Theater production

reading

radio play

Audio book

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elisabeth Kaltenbach: Reading aids Joseph Roth - Job. Klett learning training, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-12-923076-3 , p. 120.
  2. ^ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon. Volume 14, p. 349.
  3. ^ Marcuse, quoted in Sternburg, p. 376, 2nd Zvu
  4. ^ Zweig, quoted in Sternburg, p. 377, 9. Zvo
  5. ^ Sternburg, p. 378, 8th Zvu
  6. ^ Böll, quoted in Sternburg, p. 377, 16. Zvu
  7. ↑ Joseph Roth: “Job.”. In: Michael Zimmer (Ed.): "Analyzes and reflections." Interpretations and materials. 2nd Edition. Joachim Beyer Verlag, Hollfeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-88805-160-9 , pp. 66-67.
  8. ^ Job 1978 , German IMDb
  9. ↑ TV recording on Youtube