Child's head - a visitation

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Kindskopf - A Visitation is a novella by Ulrich Karger , which varies the story of the prophet Jona from the Tanach as a story in the present.

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Summary

The desire to have children becomes a life-threatening fundamental question. Jonas Brandeiser flees and would rather die than accept his wife Gisela's request. However, the escape does not end with his death, although Jonas does everything possible to be pushed into the cold water of an "unfathomable lake". Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly forced under a table to grapple with the reasons for his rejection of Gisela. Like tennis balls, memories from childhood to adulthood fly to him chronologically, which form the basic structure of his defense against family life in general and his own desire for a child in particular - and remain so for the time being. God, whom he doubts, but always addressed, gives him the time to come across that memory that he can no longer so easily ward off and that finally makes him give in half-heartedly. In it he is now able to see his dead father detached from his father role as a traumatized, “thrown child”. After the birth of his own child, Jonas is by no means at peace with himself, but sees most of his fears confirmed. In the end, however, a question of knowledge arises that could point beyond him and lead to new conclusions:

“So you mean there is innocence that just wants to live in spite of all the plagues - every child a possible miracle? Is To Err Divine? And should I be your likeness in this? How do you put up with yourself ... "

Course of action

Chapter 1

The married couple Gisela and Jonas Brandeiser live in Berlin and for many years they agreed that they wanted to remain childless. Unexpectedly, apparently infected by the Wende celebrations on October 3, 1990, Gisela changes her mind. Your unexpected desire for children lets Jonas Brandeiser, like his biblical namesake, flee without further discussion to the end of the world, which for him is in Bavaria. For Jonas Brandeiser can only close the circle of his life at the place of birth that has been repressed into the nameless. For a bottle of gentian an old boatman willingly takes him across the “unfathomable lake”, but suddenly the boat stops and Jonas wants to be pushed off board.

Chapter 2

Jonas Brandeiser finds himself in the "belly of the table", i. H. under his parents' dining room table, where he kept hiding as a child. Here he allows himself to be "bombarded" by his memories in dialogue with God - which does not frighten him, since, in his opinion, these memories can only demonstrate the numerous counter arguments for Gisela's desire to have children. But looking back at the dead father, there is an unexpected argument for turning his intentions about, as he is now able to see him as a "thrown child" and to forgive him for the poorly fulfilled father role towards Jonas.

Chapter 3

Back in Berlin, Jonas gives in to her desire to have children after Gisela's numerous promises and appeasements.

Chapter 4

For Jonas, it will turn out exactly as he feared. The child is there and demands a level of attention that Jonas actually demands for himself. When the child is "out of the woods" and at least his upper lip resembles that of Jonas, the book finally ends with the question of whether, despite all the experiences and the probabilities that can be deduced from them, a miracle could not be inherent in every child, as well as another that could come very close to self-knowledge.

Class assignments

Novella

Neither on the book cover nor on the front pages of the text is a generic name given, but instead the subtitle A Visitation, which is ambiguously related to the plot . Klaas Huizing, however, already admits to the text itself the characteristic of novellas of being "an unheard of occurrence". He can also be quoted on the back of the book as saying that the author "gains completely new insights in the 'child's head' of the novella". One of the characteristics of a novella is the “unheard-of incident” of an escalating conflict, which is at the center: A man would rather kill himself than have a child with his wife. Furthermore, the self-contained form of the text, which dispenses with any epic expansion and is limited to the essentials analogous to the biblical model, also refers to this.

Jonah book variation

The first name of the protagonist as well as the number of chapters and the two insertions from the Zurich Bible refer to the book of Jonah. In addition, this connection also becomes clear in the plot set in the early 1990s, which takes up the structure and dynamics of the Jona book in order to interpret it from the author's point of view or to vary it as a much more extensive novella compared to the original.

Structuring or set in analogy are u. a. the commission of God as Gisela's desire to have children, the unconditional flight of the eponymous protagonist ( Jona 1,1–3  EU ) as well as his accepting acceptance of his own death in a deep body of water ( Jona 1,15  EU ). Being swallowed by the “big fish” ( Jona 2,1 f.  EU ) finds its counterpart in the unexpected finding itself under a table, which marks a time for reflection and reflection. The third chapter describes here as there the fulfillment of the initial requirement with a maximum of restrictive signs ( Jona 3,1 f.  EU ). In the final chapter, as in the submission, there is criticism because of fears that have become reality, which ultimately leads to a fundamental question that remains unanswered ( Jonah 4.1 f.  EU ).

In the book of Jonah, the satirically pointed fundamental question is the focus of God's compassion, which the prophet Jonah, who strives above all for justice, cannot endure and allows him to flee to Tarsis , the synonym for a place at the end of the world, which is still thought of as a disc. In the child's head , it is his wife's specific desire to have children, which Jonas Brandeiser does not seem to be justified "in these times" and which challenges him with his previously applicable fundamental answers. His sought-after end of the world must start from a different insight, so that for Jonas Brandeiser it can be found at the end and thus in turn at the beginning of a circular path - his own place of birth. And like the biblical Jonas, as an involuntary survivor, he quarrels with “his” God, which is always in question despite his Christian upbringing, and argues with reminiscences of the political and family everyday life of a childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. However, precisely this questioning of God is by no means remote from the Bible, because what else does a prophet than questioning God when he is as confidently evading God's commission as the biblical Jonah.

As a religion teacher who is familiar with the exegesis of biblical texts, Karger does not understand his current exaggerations as arbitrary, arbitrary, but sees them based on the form in the template. Ten years before the child's head was published , he had already commented on this in an interview and explained the book again on his homepage: The Jonah book proves “the literary as broadly diversified as original power of biblical texts, the satires that are also critical of God have in the 'repertoire'. "

According to Hans Mendl et al., The very narrow, but very broad and strongly interpretative appropriation of the Jona book has . a. the “real and potential life stories of today's forty to sixty year olds” in the “story of the biblical Jonah [...] parallelized and contrasted”.

Design

construction

Like the four chapters of the Book of Jonah, which are only a few pages long in the Old Testament , this novella is divided into four chapters. In addition, after the first chapter the Jonah chapters 1 and 2 and after the third chapter the Jonah chapters 3 and 4 were inserted as double-column quotations from the Zurich Bible .

Narrative perspectives and language regulation

While chapters 1 and 3 are designed from an authoritative narrative perspective in the child's head , the 2nd and 4th chapters use the first-person perspective, with Chapter 2, with its review of Jonas Brandeiser's childhood memories, also being the most extensive of pages.

The first chapter, in turn, in which the protagonist flees to Bavaria, stands out on several pages towards the end of the other chapters through a dialogue held in Bavarian style. Thanks to its “moderate” phonation, most non-Bavarians can probably understand this dialogue, and it is also available in a High German “translation” on the author's website for the book.

reception

The “very special character” of the text aroused interest due to the literary form of an Old Testament reinterpretation, especially among biblical audiences and theologically oriented specialist groups. The book was therefore mainly discussed in general and specialist magazines with a corresponding focus.

The Berlin-Brandenburgisches Sonntagsblatt assesses the author's narrative attitude as “a little melancholy, very linguistic and audibly humane” and refers to a shimmering autobiographical context with “what is one's own must be learned as well as what is foreign”.

The Evangelical World attests to the protagonist Jonas Brandeiser: "Like his biblical namesake, contemporary Jonas deals intensely with God, rebels against him," and finally finds: "The question 'What for?' runs like a red thread through the journey into his Bavarian childhood and youth ", which the author tells" with a lot of sense for the bizarre things of everyday life. "

Hans Mendl, as professor of religious education and didactics of religious education at the University of Passau , gave the most detailed comments on this in the catechetical sheets , who also notes in his essay that he made a quote from the book part of an exam: “Books can be like mirrors be - you look inside and discover yourself: what has become of you or what could have become of you. Such a very unpretentious book is (the) novella 'Kindskopf' ”, which demands“ a lot of self-irony ”from the reader, but then“ is a recommendable book for everyone who wants to gain new approaches to a familiar story in an entertaining way for both of which - the biblical text and Karger's 'child's head' - can become a resonance space for one's own life-history experiences. "

Religion Today attests to the child's head "a German-Bavarian impression of the past (which) never pretends that there is something to be 'mastered'", and this specialist journal for religious educators states that the author "in addition to the knowledgeable, sovereign appropriation of the template is very important Ingenuity and great linguistic ability ”proves and that he“ has developed a piece of literature that is violently brushed against the grain, which is able to point far beyond belonging to any religious community. And that is really extraordinary. "

The non-ecclesiastical Luxemburger Tageblatt also speaks favorably of a “novella in a special style” in which “the conversations or arguments with God, without religious pretensions” give the text a “very special character”. Tina Klein at alliteratus.com sees it very similarly, but adds that the child's head described is “still on the agenda today” and honors the new paperback edition from 2012 with the highest score of five stars.

expenditure

Further edits

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ literaturport.de In Ulrich Karger's vita under Literature Port , Kindskopf - A Visitation is classified as “the most personal work”.
  2. ↑ Quotes by Klaas Huizing on the dust jacket and back of Kindskopf - Ein Heimsuchung , March 2002
  3. ↑ Ulrich Karger: "The over-empirical realities, the truths are in the sagas and parables, in poems and satires such as Jonah book and Jotham fable ( Ri 9.8-15  EU ) on demand." Quote in Wolfgang Thorns: Die I hear the message, alone ... - Religious language as a strategy? Interview in Religion Today , No. 9, March 1992
  4. ↑ Quotation: "... the original power of biblical texts that also have satires critical of God in their 'repertoire'." See the author's homepage for the book
  5. ↑ a b Quotations from the essay Auslese by Hans Mendl in Katechetic Blätter 4/2005 (July 2005), p. 311, Internet reference under Hans Mendl: Publications - Bibliography (bibliographic) , PDF file, paragraph (59), p 13 of 23 pages, online at www.phil.uni-passau.de
  6. ↑ Reference to Zurich Bible quotations see footnotes in the book on pages 25 and 97. The first insert with the four chapters Jonah 1 and 2 can be found on pages 25 to 27 and the chapters Jonah 3 and 4 on pages 97 to 99 .
  7. ↑ a b literatour.lu ( Memento of June 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ( PDF file; p. 39 of 40; 1.5 MB) Quotes from the review by Marion Rockenbrod in Literatour No. 12 (supplement to the Luxemburger Tageblatt ) April 23, 2003
  8. ↑ Quotes from the review by Helmut Ruppel in Berlin-Brandenburgisches Sonntagsblatt No. 30, July 21, 2002
  9. ↑ Quotes from the review by Dr. Claudia Puschmann in Evangelical World - This Week No. 23, June 2, 2002
  10. ↑ Quotes from the review by Gerd Perlhuhn in Religion Today No. 50, June 2002
  11. ↑ Quote from a review by Tina Klein in alliteratus.com on August 21, 2012, PDF file
  12. ↑ From the audio sample of the reading Kindskopf. A visitation at literaturport.de is only available on the audio sample page ( memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) with a table of contents
  13. ↑ youtube.com Audio sample read in by Ulrich Karger at the Literary Colloquium Berlin on November 23, 2007 from Kindskopf - Eine Heimsuchung ; Beginning of Chapter 2, pp. 29 - 35, online at youtube.com (details on the author's homepage)

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