Job's brothers
Job's Brothers is a historical novel by the German writer Rebecca Gablé . It was first published in October 2009 by Ehrenwirth Verlag .
content
The plot begins in February 1147 and ends in December 1154. The historical background is the late phase of the English Civil War , which ruled since 1135 and ended in 1154. The novel is divided into three parts. The title refers to the biblical figure Job and his fate. Although the novel is told from the point of view of two protagonists - Simon de Clare and Losian or Alan of Helmsby - the focus is more on the search and, in the end, the rediscovery of Losian's identity and past, making him the main character.
First part: Losian
The young Simon de Clare suffers from epilepsy . Because of this, he is declared possessed by the monks of St. Pancras Monastery and banished to a shabby fortress on the remote Isle of Whitholm off the coast of Yorkshire . 17 other men and boys are cooped up in the fortress who are considered crazy, sick or handicapped: The noble Reginald de Warenne (Regy) brutally murdered numerous boys, King Edmund believes he is the resurrected martyr king and the farmer Luke believes he is a living one To have a snake in his stomach. Other residents are the Siamese twins Godric and Wulfric, Oswald, who lives with Down syndrome , and finally Losian (t: to be lost), the secret leader of the group who has lost his memory. After a storm surge with water ingress, these eight prisoners manage to escape from the island. They make their way to Gilham, where the twins own land. However, this was redistributed in her absence. In March 1147 the group moved to Woodknoll in the south of England to the property of Simon de Clares, which has since been taken by a wandering gang. At King Edmund's suggestion, the men went to East Anglia and roamed the Fens before arriving at Norwich in April 1147 . The exhausted Oswald collapses on the street and is looked after by the Jewish doctor Josua ben Isaac in his apartment. Since the alleged murder of William of Norwich , the Jewish community in Norwich has been increasingly exposed to hostility. The whole group around Losian finds shelter in Josua ben Isaac's apartment not far from the castle and Losian tries with Josua ben Isaac's help to regain his memory. When Losian begins a tender love affair with Josua ben Isaac's daughter Miriam, her father throws the group out in April.
The group roams the woods for food and meets 14-year-old Henry Plantagenet , who lost his soldiers in the forest and is now wandering around. He is the eldest son of the actual Queen of England, Empress Maud , who, however, lost her power after a betrayal of the English lords to King Stephen and has been waging war for the crown for years. Together with the group, Henry arrives at Helmsby, where Losian is greeted as the returning lord of the castle: his real name is Alan of Helmsby and one of the best soldiers in the service of Empress Maud. He himself is the illegitimate child of Crown Prince William Ætheling , who died on the day Alan's birth when the White Ship sank. Alan's mother died in childbirth. Alan also learns that he is married.
Part two: Alan
Alan meets his cousin Haimon, who is vengefully speculating on Alan's property in Helmsby. Alan separates from his wife Susanna after catching her making love with Henry Plantagenet. She accuses him of having an illegitimate little daughter who lives in one of his villages. Alan leaves Helmsby and goes to see Joshua ben Isaac, who is supposed to help him regain his memory.
Alan goes to Bristol on the advice of Joshua ben Isaac . Here he sees soldiers trying to rape a little girl and kills the men. Now his memory returns: three years ago he was hunting the cruel Geoffrey de Mandeville and wanted to help a girl who was besieged by Mandeville's men. This died in front of his eyes and he was struck down, causing a shock with memory loss. He quickly realizes that he is no longer the Alan he was back then - he is less superficial and battle-obsessed and at the same time more tolerant after his experiences of the last three years. He went to Norwich in August 1147 and was able to convince Joshua ben Isaac to give him Miriam as his wife. Shortly afterwards, Alan was excommunicated by Heinrich von Blois because of his marriage to a Jewish woman .
His cousin Haimon receives his goods because of Alan's excommunication. Shortly before Alan had to leave Helmsby, however, Simon managed to lock Godric and Wulfric Haimon to Regy. Regy was chained in the tower of the castle shortly after the group's arrival because of his dangerousness. They elicit his deepest secret from Haimon: Haimon found Alan half insane after the girl's death and took him to the monks of the St. Pancras monastery, where he passed him off as a madman and thus ensured his banishment for several years. Haimon therefore loses his claim to Alan's goods. Since the confession was only possible through Regy's intervention, Alan fulfills his most ardent wish and beheads him.
In July 1147, Simon and the twins went to France, where they joined Henry's men and were instructed in battle by them.
Third part: Simon
In March 1152, Simon rose to be Henry's most important advisor. He essentially initiated Henry's marriage to Aliénor of Aquitaine . Although the bishops refuse to prematurely crown King Stephen's son Eustache de Boulogne as King of England, Henry Plantagenet must act as the English feel increasingly abandoned by him. The center of the clashes between King Stephen's people and Henry's supporters is Wallingford , whose castle has been besieged by King Stephen's men for almost a year. Simon and the twins go to Wallingford in September 1152 and Simon manages to get into the castle via a secret route. There he falls in love in a seemingly hopeless situation with the commandant Philippa of Wallingford, daughter of the recently deceased Brian FitzCount ; they only have one night of love. In the following days, Simon and the twins feed the castle residents before all three are captured and fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty Eustache de Boulogne, in whose company Haimon is also. Shortly before King Stephen's visit to his son Eustache saves Simon and the twins' lives, Simon succeeds in killing Haimon.
The abused twins recover with Josua ben Isaac and then go with Simon to Henry Plantagenet, who lands with his army on the coast of Dorset in January 1153 . Alan joins Henry and in the course of the war more and more English Lords submit to Henry, who comes to Wallingford in July and liberates the castle. Simon learns that Philippa of Wallingford has just given birth to his daughter. The armies of King Stephen and Henry Plantagenet finally meet in Wallingford. Since both armies are the same size, the war-weary Stephan renounces a fight and surrenders. Alan's excommunication is lifted and Simon marries Philippa. In December 1154, Henry was crowned the new King of England. Henry appoints Alan Sheriff of Norwich, who in this capacity can significantly improve the situation of the Norwich Jewish community.
particularities
In contrast to Gablé's previous works, which are based on realism, this novel adds a mystical dimension: at the end of the novel, in the action in December 1154, Alan, Oswald, Simon and the twins Godric and Wulfric go to Bury St. Edmunds , where they secretly look at the body of the Martyr King Edmund. They notice that the corpse is wearing a hunting knife on his belt, which King Edmund had with him when he left the group, which confuses them.
It is neither confirmed nor denied that King Edmund and the Martyr King are the same person, but it is left open as a possibility, not least because of the uncertainty and disagreement of those present.
background
Rebecca Gablé wrote the novel from May 2007 to November 2008. Already in the epilogue to her novel The Second Kingdom Gablé had written that “the strange events [about Henry's] reign and what it was about the White Death Ship [...] were different History [is] and [...] should be told another time ”. Gablé found inspiration for the original act while on vacation in Crete , where she looked out over the offshore island of Spinalonga from her terrace . The fortress there served as a leprosy station until 1957 . Another inspiration for the novel was a report by journalist Christoph Wiechmann in Stern . In it he wrote about a group of 17 mentally ill and drug addicted men who formed a group on the run from Hurricane Katrina and who survived the subsequent odyssey together because everyone cared for everyone as well as they could.
expenditure
- Rebecca Gablé: Job's Brothers . Hardcover. Ehrenwirth Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-431-03791-3 .
- Rebecca Gablé: Job's Brothers . Audio book read by Detlef Bierstedt . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-785-74182-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rebecca Gablé: Historical Notes and Thanks . In: Rebecca Gablé: Job's brothers . Ehrenwirth, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, p. 907.
- ↑ Rebecca Gablé: The Second Kingdom . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2000, p. 876.
- ↑ Rebecca Gablé: Historical Notes and Thanks . In: Rebecca Gablé: Job's brothers . Ehrenwirth, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, p. 906.