Indigo (novel)
Indigo is a novel by the Austrian author Clemens Setz that was published in September 2012. It refers to the controversial esoteric concept of indigo children , which was mostly discussed in the 1990s.
action
The book tells the research of the young math teacher Clemens Setz, who works at a strange boarding school for children, the Helianau in northern Styria . Here children are taught who suffer from a puzzling disease, indigo syndrome. Anyone who comes too close to one of the children suffers nausea, nausea, dizziness and severe headaches. The math teacher Setz discovers that the Indigo children are being "relocated": Again and again children are driven away in strange masks. When he begins to investigate, he is released from teaching.
In addition, the reader learns the story of a former student in Helianau, Robert Tätzel, in whom the symptoms of indigo disease have lost their intensity with age. This storyline is told in parallel to Setz's research, but takes place around 15 years in the future. In the newspapers, Tätzel comes across a sensational criminal case in which his former math teacher Clemens Setz was acquitted of the charge of brutally murdering an animal abuser. He goes in search of his old teacher in order to tell him what happened in Helianau a long time ago.
Ultimately, the search for the two protagonists remains unsuccessful.
Narrative technique
In the novel, Clemens Setz mixes facts with fiction . The author himself appears as the protagonist and is described in the blurb as suffering from indigo exposure. The reader participates in the research of the main character, as Setz weaves different diary-like excerpts from his portfolios between the storylines , which he weaves into the text after talking to different people who are supposed to help him fully understand the indigo syndrome. These are excerpts from fictitious historical calendar stories , alleged philosophical treatises, various photographs and medical protocols. This is to make the reader believable that indigo disease actually exists.
Two storylines, between which there are 15 years, are always told in alternating chapters.
language
Setz uses simple language and, above all, relies on numerous dialogues that end abruptly. Furthermore, the novel teems with countless intertextual allusions to world literature, music, films, series and comics.
reception
For Jan Wiele on faz.de , reading the novel was partly “daunting”, partly “maddening” and it aroused “detective zeal”. Jens Jessen wrote in Die Zeit online that the author deserves “a palm” for his discovery. Sebastian Hammelehle, on the other hand, criticized the culture section of Spiegel Online for the fact that the book only appears radical on the surface, but that in truth it lacks boldness in an “anemic and oxygen-poor atmosphere”.
The book was on the shortlist for the 2012 German Book Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair . Like the other five finalists, the author received a prize of 2500 euros.
Book editions
- Indigo . Suhrkamp, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-42324-0 (hardcover).
literature
- Jens Jessen: Children throw up In: The time of October 4, 2012.
- Hartmut Kasper : Indigo. In: The Science Fiction Year 2013. Edited by Sascha Mamczak , Sebastian Pirling and Wolfgang Jeschke , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2013, pp. 430–433, ISBN 978-3-453-53444-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jan Wiele: The X-Files of the Postmodern Novel , faz.de, September 19, 2012
- ↑ Jens Jessen: Kinder zum Kotzen , Die Zeit online from October 12, 2012
- ↑ Sebastian Hammelehle: Book Prize candidate Clemens J. Setz: Mumpitz! , Spiegel Online from September 26, 2012
- ↑ Prize Winner 2012 , deutscher-buchpreis.de, accessed on November 7, 2015