Hunt (novel)

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Jagd is a novel by Martin Walser published in 1988 by Suhrkamp Verlag . He describes a few days in the life of the real estate agent Gottlieb Zürn . The term hunt in this work allegorically stands for the representation of human existence as a lifelong struggle . The protagonist often changes roles between the hunter and the hunted.

The novel Jagd is the middle novel from the trilogy about the Zürn family. It was preceded in 1980 by the Schwanenhaus and much later by The Moment of Love in 2004.

action

The novel tells a passage from the family life of the Zürns and the personal and psychological experiences of the protagonist Gottlieb.

The over 50-year-old real estate agent Gottlieb Zürn has left the field service of his business to his more successful wife Anna. The two daughters Julia and Regina are about to disconnect from their parents' home.

During the summer holidays, the Zürns take vacationers in their own home on Lake Constance, this year it is the young couple Gisela and Stefan Ortlieb. Gisela takes on the role of the “huntress” and massively pursues the “hunted” Gottlieb. He gets caught in the conflict between loyalty and love for the family and the temptation of the alluring Gisi.

At the same time, 18-year-old Julia disappears from her parents 'house and becomes her parents' “hunted”. While Gottlieb is chasing his daughter to Munich, he takes the opportunity to meet Gisela, who lives there. She planned a sexual encounter for three, but it ended unsuccessfully because there was no satisfactory solution.

In the meantime, Gottlieb is leaving Munich to do a deal in Frankfurt am Main with the customer, Liliane Schönherr, who offers him sexual fulfillment. This experience brings him the peace of mind to find his way back into the security of the family.

When he returned to Munich, Gottlieb had certain information about his daughter's whereabouts. But she has already left independently, accompanied by her new acquaintance Lissi, and so Gottlieb follows her home. In the end, only the dwarf rabbit of the holiday guests called "Romeo" (sic!) Remains on the route as hunting prey .

reception

The novel received a little positive echo in the feature pages. Franz Josef Görtz saw Gottlieb Zürn's pathetic adventures not as tragic, but as ridiculous. For Hellmuth Karasek , Walser's novels were “Homeland novels of the third kind, because their heroes are uprooted, strangers at home who can basically neither flee nor stay.” In the end, he remained in conflict: “Is the hunt the novel of a banal life or just another banal novel? "

Volker Hage , on the other hand, called the novel "a bizarre, ironic, weird foray". He drew the conclusion: "It is not difficult to enumerate what is missing in this novel - and yet it is to be praised." His secret lies "as with all works of literature, whose weaknesses are noticeable and which nevertheless exude great inner strength. in the shape."

The novel has received little literary research. For Gerald A. Fetz, there was little new in the novel compared to Walser's previous work. He drew connections to the Anselm Kristlein trilogy, the first Gottlieb Zürn novel and to Brandung . Jörg Magenau called Jagd a “novel of stagnation ” that came at the end of a “chronicle of the history of sentiments in the Federal Republic” and from which Walser had to find a literary, biographical and political departure.

expenditure

  • Martin Walser: Hunt 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-40130-0 .

literature

  • Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser . Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-10299-8 , pp. 137-139.
  • Regina Rohland: to hunt or to be hunted? Relationship analysis and representation of the psychological dynamics of love . Bachelor + Master, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86341-089-6 (Bachelor thesis).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser , p. 139.
  2. ^ Franz Josef Görtz: Halali . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of September 17, 1988. According to: Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser , p. 139.
  3. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek : Hasenherz am Bodensee . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1988, pp. 198-200 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Volker Hage : Fleeing Romeo . In: Die Zeit of September 16, 1988.
  5. ↑ Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser , p. 138.
  6. ↑ Jörg Magenau : Martin Walser. A biography . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2005, ISBN 978-3-499-24772-9 , pp. 421-422.