A man comes into the room

A man comes into the room ( Man Walks into a Room ) is the first novel by American writer Nicole Krauss . It was published in the USA in 2002 and in German in 2006.

action

English professor Samson Greene wanders disoriented in Nevada's Mojave Desert near Las Vegas . He is diagnosed with a brain tumor that has partially destroyed his memory . The experiences after the age of twelve have been erased from his memory.

Samson returns to New York with his wife Anne . However, the two no longer live together and Samson moves out of Anne's and into the apartment of his former student Lana. She moved to California for a few months .

Samson is asked by a researcher to take part in a project. It is about implanting other people's memories in people. The research center is located in the Nevada desert. At the research station, Samson meets Donald, a former soldier who serves as a reminder. The memory of an atomic bomb test in 1957 is implanted in Samson. Traumatized, he runs away from the ward. First he travels to Las Vegas and tries to meet Donald, and from there on to California to visit his mother's grave. To do this, he tracks down his great-uncle Max, who lives in a nursing home and is already quite senile. Samson takes the old man to the family's former home, in whose garden the mother's urn is said to be buried.

main characters

Samson Greene
Anne, his wife, 31 years old, works as a social worker in the New York Social Services department
Lana, former student of Samson
Donald Selwyn, a former soldier and witness to an atomic bomb test in the Nevada desert, of poor health (lung problems), has acquired real estate near Las Vegas
Dr. Ray Malcolm, a neurosurgeon, lives near Los Angeles and runs a US government-funded research laboratory in the Mojave Desert.
Samson's great-uncle Max lives in a nursing home in California, a native of German , used to live in Italy and used to always sketch a small Italian town from a bird's eye view.

interpretation

Samson loses memory for much of his life and clings to the few childhood memories that remain. The eyes of the biblical Samson are gouged out and he is captured. When he gets the chance, he kills his enemies by causing a temple to collapse over them. Like the Samson of the Old Testament , the Samson in this book loses sight of his past, in this case his past. But our Samson also regains its power (that of the mind). Like many people, however, he is also trapped by his memories and he feels guilty because he cannot remember his mother's death. So he goes to his mother's grave. This mother complex is also diagnosed in the biblical Samson by modern psychology .

The implanted memory of another person is worthless to him, does not represent a hold, but the memory of the atom bomb explosion traumatizes him.

literature

A man walks into
a room. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-498-03524-X .
- as an audio book: Ulrich Noethen reads Nicole Krauss, When a man comes into the room . Argon-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86610-187-2 (8 CDs)