The difficult or J'adore ce qui me brûle

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J'adore ce qui me brûle or The Difficult was the title of the second novel by the Swiss writer Max Frisch . It was written between the summer of 1941 and the beginning of 1943. At the end of the same year the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the National-Zeitung published preprints of the novel, which was published in March 1944 by Atlantis Verlag in Zurich . In 1957, Frisch revised the novel and changed the title to Die Schwierigen or J'adore ce qui me brûle . A new edition of the second version was published in 2010. The French saying “J'adore ce qui me brûle” can be translated as “I love what inflames me” or “I love what burns me”.

In terms of content, the novel follows on from Frisch's debut, Jürg Reinhart. A summery journey of fate and follows his title character on the further path of life. Two women named Yvonne and Hortense appear in Reinhart's life. He experiences a brief, fulfilled love with both of them, but a lasting relationship turns out to be impossible. He gave up his artistic activity as a painter in order to take up a civil profession in which he failed. In the end, he only sees the possibility of obliterating himself from the world. The novel also describes the lives of Yvonne and Hortense and the other men who step into their lives. The archaeologist Hinkelmann is in despair when Yvonne leaves him. The entrepreneur Heimwart marries Yvonne, but their marriage remains aloof. The architect Ammann is married by Hortense out of defiance.

content

The 1943 version was preceded by a section Reinhart or Die Jugend , which consisted of an excerpt from the novel Jürg Reinhart . In the 1957 version, Frisch deleted this section.

Hinkelmann or an interlude

Yvonne, Swiss and daughter from a wealthy family, grew up with inferiority complexes because of her high forehead. At the age of 21 she married the archaeologist Hinkelmann, who is already a famous scholar and works on excavations in Greece. Hinkelmann, of outstanding stature, has an unshakable self-confidence. Everything in his life has worked out for his best so far. The young, albeit not beautiful, Yvonne impressed him when she was able to predict the living conditions of his bachelor life down to the last detail. He is convinced of her love, but in truth she only feels sorry for him from the first moment.

At the age of 25, Yvonne met 21-year-old Jürg Reinhart briefly on his trip to Greece. At this point in time, Jürg had no eyes for the young woman who was predicting that he would become a painter. But Yvonne, who usually feels superior to all the men around her, upsets his simple question what she is. All she has to say is: 25 and married.

In her marriage to Hinkelmann, Yvonne has long felt like his mother. When she becomes pregnant, she breaks off the relationship and explains that she could not father a child with her son. Hinkelmann realizes for the first time that something could fail in his life. He desperately fights for his wife, sends her flowers to the abortion clinic, but he is unable to change her mind. From one day to the next, Hinkelmann disappears without leaving any traces. Yvonne is sure that he killed himself.

Turandot or Homesickness for Violence

Years later, Yvonne lives alone in Switzerland. There are many men in her life who adore her, but none whom she lets close. She feels tenderness only for Merline, a young violin student, until she, disturbed by her contradicting feelings, breaks off contact with Yvonne and becomes engaged. Yvonne gives up violin lessons and works for a while as a secretary for the landlord, but quits when he proposes to her. From then on she lives from her parents' inheritance.

Yvonne meets Reinhart again, who actually became a painter. He lives in the Schopf a former nursery, which simultaneously serves as his studio. Reinhart has even less money than she and Yvonne can stand him, but he is happy in his work. In order to get money, he paints a young lieutenant named Ammann, whom Reinhart takes for a wooden head. And he gives painting lessons to a young bourgeois daughter named Hortense.

Reinhart is a man that Yvonne can love, and they both have an intense and happy relationship for one summer. The inevitable happens on a holiday in Ticino : Yvonne's savings have been used up. She takes money from the landlord who is still wooing her. When Reinhart shows no reservations about this arrangement, Yvonne's love for him expires. She leaves Reinhart and decides to accept the landlord's advances, who can at least offer her a comfortable life. Yvonne will soon have a child. Reinhart fights for a while to get her back, then sees the futility and explains to Ammann today's women with Turandot : They are afraid of the freedom they have achieved and their superiority over the man.

J'adore ce qui me brûle or The Discovery

Meanwhile, Hortense fell in love with Reinhart while taking painting lessons. As the daughter of a conservative colonel, she is fascinated by his freedom and independence. And the fact that her father forbids her to interact with the painter when he learns Reinhart's name only increases his appeal. But Reinhart, who was still happy with Yvonne at this point, takes the young girl as little seriously as her obsession that he should burn all his works like Kleist because artists do that. The painting lessons come to an end when Reinhart travels to Ticino with Yvonne and Hortense remains tied to bed for months due to a serious accident.

Reinhart and Hortense don't see each other again until almost a year later. Reinhart has meanwhile become a different person. He actually burned all of his pictures, gave up his artist existence and now works eight hours a day as a draftsman on the drawing board in a large office. Bourgeois work appears to him like antics: everyone just sits down without the deep passion for their work that Reinhart knew from his painting. For the citizen's daughter Hortense, the former painter has lost part of his charm as a citizen. Nevertheless, a love relationship develops between the two of them, which only loses its magic when Reinhart Hortense proposes marriage. In Hortense's hesitation, the reservations about her origin come to light for the first time, and Reinhart, already mentally anticipating marriage, feels love stifled in its constraints.

Nevertheless, Reinhart clings to his wedding plans and even goes to see Hortense's father, the colonel. If he can win this over for himself, he believes that the troubled relationship will be saved. For days he prepares to reveal his life and his entire family history with all openness. But the colonel reveals to Reinhart that he is in fact adopted and that he is an illegitimate child. His father was a butcher's boy, his mother was a nurse in the colonel's family, who killed herself in disgrace soon after Reinhart was born and released. A world collapses for Reinhart at the opening. Now he too no longer considers himself appropriate for Hortense, and the two, although they still have feelings for one another, separate.

Anton the Servant or Real Life

Years have passed again. Yvonne settled in with the caretaker. For them, marriage is only possible if you do not place high demands on community and mutual understanding. Despite her reserve, she is looked after by the caretaker, who has Ammann, who has meanwhile become an architect, build a luxurious house for his family. Even when it turns out that the son Hanspeter is not his child, the caretaker keeps his generosity and remains a father to him.

Hortense married Ammann, whom she actually couldn't stand from the first meeting, primarily out of defiance to Reinhart, as she admits. A power failure on her family's estate leads the gardener Anton into her room for the first time, and she recognizes Reinhart in him. He reports that he met his father, the butcher, and his step-siblings. It turned out that he had known Jenny - the daughter who had been dismissed as a "slut" by her father because she was a model for men - for years and had once often painted herself. He had always been inexplicably drawn to her. Disappointed with his father, Reinhart got himself a pistol, but when he attempted to shoot the butcher, after previous shooting exercises, his pistol had run out of cartridges. He was sent to a mental institution where he learned to garden.

Reinhart's attitude towards life has changed completely. As a gardener he learned that plants need force and pruning. He advises Hortense's daughter Annemarie, who has fallen in love with a boy named Hanspeter, to always follow her parents' instructions. For Reinhart there are only three kinds of people: the “healthy” who keep life and pass it on to other generations, the “creators” who find meaning in life and are allowed to ruthlessly waste their lives on it, and those who live received so damaged that they can only extinguish themselves and are not allowed to pass themselves on to future generations. While young Reinhart himself once believed in the meaning of life, he now counts himself among the disabled. Consequently, he commits suicide in order to wipe himself out of the lives of others. Only at the end does Yvonne's report reveal that Hanspeter is Reinhart's son. Hanspeter sails out on the lake with his girl, in love and full of optimism for the future, even if he sometimes has the feeling that he has experienced it all before.

background

History of origin

Max Frisch (1955)

In the summer of 1941, Frisch graduated from the ETH Zurich with a degree in architecture . As a result, he worked in several architectural offices, including his former professor William Dunkel . After graduating, and until the end of 1942, J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen was also created as Frisch's second novel after Jürg Reinhart . The actual plot was preceded by a summary of the first book shortened to a third. In a preliminary remark, Frisch justified: "It would be immodest to expect that the reader would know that youthful history, but just as unfair if we withholding the youth of a person in our narrative - only for literary concerns." From Frisch's point of view, the Hinkelmann interlude fits better into the novel, which would then become “a decisive main character”.

At the beginning of 1943, Frisch sent a version of the novel to the publisher Martin Hürlimann of Atlantis Verlag in Zurich , with whom he had already published his war diary Leaves from the Bread Sack . His answer critically noted a few weaknesses and advised that Frisch should bring “more formal and human maturity” into the novel, but came to the conclusion that the novel's qualities already justified publication. In autumn 1943 two preprints appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of October 30, 1943 and the National-Zeitung of December 5, 1943. The copyright of the novel is for the year 1943, but it was only delivered by Atlantis Verlag on March 21, 1944 .

The novel was originally supposed to be called Nothing Returns Us , not least at the request of the publisher, but Frisch finally decided on the awkward title J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen . The French title part - in the novel the inscription of a medal from the colonel, which the colonel does not understand - is ambiguous and can be translated as “I love what inflames me” or “I love what burns me”. According to Volker Hage , both are particularly true of the male protagonists of the novel. Julian Schütt traced the German title part back to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's comedy Der Schwierige , possibly indirectly through a review by Emil Staiger , who as early as 1941 formulated the portrait problem that would later be central to Frisch's work.

Frisch did not issue a paperback license for J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen . Only at the urging of Atlantis Verlag did he agree to a revised new edition in 1957. In doing so, Frisch deleted the section Reinhart or Die Jugend as well as an introduction to the following section. The rest of the text remained unchanged, he changed the title to Die Schwierigen or J'adore ce qui me brûle . In 2010, the novel by Peter von Matt was re-published by Nagel & Kimche . The edition is followed by an afterword by Lukas Bärfuss .

Biographical influences

J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen is interpreted by many reviewers, like Max Frisch's entire early work, against the background of his private life situation. For a long time, young Frisch was undecided between a bourgeois and an artistic life plan, working as an architect and working as a writer. While his first novel, Jürg Reinhart, can still be understood as a clear commitment to the life of an artist, the story Answer from the Silence a few years later speaks out just as clearly in favor of a bourgeois existence. Urs Bircher sees J'adore ce qui me brûle as the first attempt to unite the bourgeois and artistic way of life.

There are some parallels to Frisch's own life in the novel. The unpleasant reaction of Hinkelmann - according to Bircher a "spiritual ancestor of Homo Faber " - to Yvonne's pregnancy is reminiscent of Frisch's own notes on the birth of his children. Yvonne wears the features of a woman from western Switzerland named Madelon, whom Frisch met in 1939. Even in Frisch's real relationship with Madelon, his indifference to a gift of money ended the relationship, as Frisch later described in Montauk . Reinhart's complexes with Hortense's father because of his origins are similar to those that Frisch harbored with the family of his first wife Gertrud von Meyenburg . Finally, like Reinhart, Frisch had burned all of his works in the autumn of 1937 in order to give up his writing completely and to devote himself to a civil profession.

In a conversation with Heinz Ludwig Arnold , Frisch explained: “The novel J'adore ce qui me brûle is still an attempt to praise the bourgeois world, to take it seriously, to affirm it; trying to portray this world in an affirmative way. Even in the novel it becomes evident that the hero does not succeed - but he experienced it and describes it as his inadequacy and not as the inadequacy of society; he accepts his failure and internalizes it. "

Literary influences

Max Frisch himself pointed out in a conversation that he had written J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen under the influence of Gottfried Keller . Looking back on the reading experience of Keller's Der Grüne Heinrich, he confessed: “The book, which amazed me page by page like clairvoyance, was of course the best father one could ever have”. Fatherlessness is a common theme in both novels. Heinrich - Frisch borrowed the first name for his Hinkelmann, who also made Bircher think of Faust and Winckelmann - lost his father at an early age, Reinhart went in search of his father. What both have in common is that they are mediocre painters who fail as artists. But while Keller still respects the limits of an educational novel and lets Heinrich find his place in civil society, Reinhart's failure ultimately leads to his annihilation.

In addition, the early Max Frisch was strongly influenced by Albin Zollinger , whom Frisch had once met and whose early death at the end of 1941 shocked him. The conflict between artist and citizen also runs through Zollinger's work; he also lets his alter ego Byland suddenly die at the end of Bohnenblust or Die Erzieher . In addition to the same motifs, there is a parallel between Zollinger's works and J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen to individual quotes and stylistic peculiarities, such as the adoption of Zollinger's frequent “Ge” prefixes .

reception

J'adore ce qui me brûle or The Difficult ones received mostly positive reviews from contemporary critics. The Swiss Schiller Foundation also expressed its appreciation by giving 100 signed copies of the novel to its members at Christmas 1944.

Eduard Korrodi wrote an enthusiastic review in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . For him there was a “unique lyricism” in the novel that was “not indulging, but breathing in nature”. He did not share the objections of most reviewers to the incorporation of the prehistory, which for him had succeeded “organically”, and judged: “We do not know of any work in recent Swiss literature that could present us with such pages of fascinating prose [...] close to a master resonates with its own tone and excels in terms of atmosphere. ”So he drew the conclusion:“ The novel shines out of the Milky Way Swiss star blessings. ”

The reviewer for the National-Zeitung emphasized the “commonality of the poetic atmosphere” in Frisch and Zollinger, “that lyrical or lyrical coloring, the relaxed abundance of impressionisms”. He also praised the language of the novel in a "emphatically classical prose style". The Thurgauer Zeitung also praised the lyrical character of the dialogues, but saw it as evidence of a lack of dramatic talent in Swiss authors.

For Manuel Gasser , Reinhart's fear of missing out on life was a typically Swiss trait. Although he was bothered by the double change of identity of the protagonist and the pessimistic ending, he saw the novel as a "serious and honest examination of the intellectual situation of the young Swiss". The Neue Schweizer Rundschau judged less about Switzerland than about the time : "The book gives impressive testimony to the people of the interwar period, who are encapsulated in the importance of their own selves."

In later reviews, Die Schwierigen or J'adore ce qui me brûle was overshadowed by the three major novels that followed Max Frisch's Stiller , Homo faber and Mein Name sei Gantenbein . Hans Bänziger read “a work, no better and no worse than hundreds of similar novels of those decades.” For Andreas B. Kilcher, Die Schwierigen “ refers to the later great novels in the multi-perspective narrative technique and exploring possibilities.” However, Alexander Stephan did not yet recognize them the “dense network between form and content” that is characteristic of them. There remained "twists and turns of this half-baked book, which is probably a mixture of a married novel and an artist novel". Volker Weidermann found “something immoderate, driven, addicting” in the novel. Frisch's desperation and anger are “still very original, sometimes unformed and wild. Sometimes cheesy and pathetic. Sometimes just beautiful. "

The new edition of the novel in 2010 again led to some reviews. Roman Bucheli judged: "It is an abysmally dark book, told in sometimes garish, sometimes deviously soft colors, which of course reveals a considerable knowledge of human nature." Fritz J. Raddatz found in Die Schwierigen "first mastery" and "the sovereignty of one thing - already so young ! - eminent writer ”. Frisch tell "shockingly intense" about the "tremor of life", about the "splintering glass of supposed happiness, about black forlornness, loneliness; more precisely; of the impossibility of enduring ”. And he came to the conclusion: "In fact, this book is less narrative prose [...] less narrative, therefore, than a wide-ranging, great essay about futility."

literature

Text output

  • Max Frisch: J'adore ce qui me brûle or The Difficult . Atlantis, Zurich 1944. (first edition)
  • Max Frisch: The Difficult or J'adore ce qui me brûle . Atlantis, Zurich 1957. (First edition of the second version)
  • Max Frisch: The Difficult or J'adore ce qui me brûle . In: Collected works in chronological order. First volume . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-06533-5 , pp. 387-599.
  • Max Frisch: The Difficult or J'adore ce qui me brûle . Nagel & Kimche, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-312-00466-9 .

Secondary literature

Reviews

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. First volume , p. 667.
  2. ↑ a b Volker Hage : Max Frisch . Rowohlt, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-499-50616-5 , p. 34.
  3. ↑ Julian Schütt: Max Frisch. Biography of an Ascent , p. 306.
  4. ↑ Daniel de Vin: Max Frisch's diaries . Böhlau, Cologne 1977. ISBN 3-41200-977-6 , pp. 30, 276.
  5. ↑ Julian Schütt: Max Frisch. Biography of an Ascent , pp. 307-311.
  6. ↑ Volker Hage: Max Frisch , p. 35.
  7. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , pp. 110–111.
  8. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , pp. 111–112.
  9. ↑ Julian Schütt: Max Frisch. Biography of an Ascent , pp. 246–248.
  10. ↑ Max Frisch: Montauk . In: Collected works in chronological order. Sixth Volume , p. 731.
  11. ↑ Julian Schütt: Max Frisch. Biography of an Ascent , pp. 60–62.
  12. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , pp. 113–114.
  13. ^ Heinz Ludwig Arnold : Conversations with writers . Beck, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-406-04934-6 , p. 18.
  14. ^ Max Frisch: Autobiography . In: Diary 1946–1949 , collected works in chronological order. Second volume , p. 587.
  15. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , p. 111.
  16. ^ Walter Schmitz: Max Frisch: Das Werk (1931-1961) , p. 83.
  17. ^ Walter Schmitz: Max Frisch: Das Werk (1931–1961) , pp. 84–86. For a detailed list of the takeovers, see footnote 28 on p. 370.
  18. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , p. 117.
  19. ^ Eduard Korrodi : A novel by Max Frisch. J'adore ce qui me brûle or The Difficult. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of April 2, 1944. Reprinted in: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): About Max Frisch II . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-518-10852-2 , pp. 175-176.
  20. ↑ fhn: Max Frisch: J'adore ce qui me brule or The Difficult. (Atlantis-Verlag, Zurich). In: National-Zeitung of May 28, 1944. Quoted from: Daniel de Vin: Max Frischs Tagebücher , pp. 30–31.
  21. ↑ ff in Thurgauer Zeitung . After: Daniel de Vin: Max Frischs Tagebücher , p. 31.
  22. ↑ Manuel Gasser : A Swiss Novel. Max Frisch's 'J'adore ce qui me brûle or Die Schwierigen', Atlantis Verlag . In: Die Weltwoche of March 31, 1944. Quoted from: Daniel de Vin: Max Frischs Tagebücher , p. 31.
  23. ↑ Neue Schweizer Rundschau from December 1943. Quoted from: Daniel de Vin: Max Frischs Tagebücher , p. 31.
  24. ^ Hans Bänziger: Fresh and Dürrenmatt . Francke, Bern 1976, ISBN 3-7720-1212-4 , p. 47.
  25. ↑ Andreas B. Kilcher: Max Frisch. Life work effect . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-18250-5 , p. 87.
  26. ↑ Alexander Stephan : Max Frisch . Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-09587-9 , p. 32.
  27. ↑ Volker Weidermann : Max Frisch. His life, his books . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-462-04227-6 , p. 97.
  28. ^ Roman Bucheli: Art of Sincerity . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from October 30, 2010.
  29. ↑ Fritz J. Raddatz : Beware of your own heart . In: Die Welt from October 2, 2010.