Holes. The secrets of Green Lake

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Holes. The secrets of Green Lake (English original title Holes ) is a novel by Louis Sachar , which was published in 1998. The German translation by Birgitt Kollmann was published by Beltz & Gelberg in 2000 .

content

This novel is about the curse that has ridden the Yelnats family for several generations. 14-year-old Stanley Yelnats IV unwittingly frees himself and his parents from this curse. Stanley's great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, had made a promise to an old lady (Madame Zeroni) in Latvia, but failed to keep it. From then on, he and all of his descendants were unlucky or, in other words, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, including Stanley. Despite his innocence, he is sent to a reform camp for a year and a half, in which criminal youths are supposed to strengthen their characters. Despite the name Camp Green Lake, there is no lake and character formation is limited to the monotonous digging of holes in the hard-dried lake bed. Stanley is astonished and realizes during his stay that the camp management only allegedly requires the excavation work to develop character, but is actually looking for something. When he brings something to light, connections to his family past become apparent.

In a second narrative thread the story of Kate Barlow and Sam is told. When the white woman falls in love with the black Sam, the village turns against the couple and after a hunt the black greengrocer is killed, Kate is able to escape and becomes a bandit , soon known and feared as Kissin 'Kate Barlow , because she is the kissed the first person killed on the forehead with lipstick. They buried the booty of their 20-year bandit life somewhere in the vast area of ​​Green Lake. One morning Trout Walker appears, a loud mouthed admirer whom she had turned away at the time. At gunpoint he demands that she reveal the hiding place to him. At the last moment, however, she is fatally bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard (this looks like a Gila crusty lizard ).

One of Kate Barlow's victims was Stanley Yelnats I, who was robbed by her on his way through the desert to California. After his rescue he had talked in a feverish state of having found refuge on “God's thumb”.

When an argument breaks out in the camp, one of the youths named Zero flees into the desert. No search team is sent out, and apart from Stanley, nobody else seems to care about Zero's fate. Stanley goes on a search alone and finds Zero. Shortly before dying of thirst, they reach the saving “thumb of God”, and soon afterwards they also find Kate Barlow's treasure in the form of a suitcase.

At the same time, after many years, Stanley's father finally had a commercial success with one of his inventions: a remedy for foot sweat. His patent attorney appears at camp and literally saves Zero and Stanley from a hopeless situation at the last second.

By rescuing Zero, Stanley had unwittingly broken the ancient curse of the Yelnats family: Stanley had carried Zero, a descendant of Madame Zeroni in Latvia. The treasure found by the two of Kate Barlow turns out to be extensive and enables Stanley and Zero to lead a carefree life.

At that time Elya Yelnats had received a lullaby from Madame Zeroni in Latvia, which had been passed on for generations. The melody remained, but the words changed. The same happened to the descendants of Madame Zeroni. The two families sang two different texts to the same melody:

If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs,
"The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies."
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
crying to the moo-oo-oon,
"If only, if only."
(sung by Stanley's mother)

If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply;
Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by.
Be strong my weary wolf; turn around boldly.
Fly high, my baby bird,
my angel, my only.
(sung by Zero's mother)

review

Andreas Steinhöfel writes in his review of the novel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : “'Holes' is one of those books whose content you can hardly say a word about, because otherwise you automatically spoil the game. So only so much: This is about more precious things than the treasure that Stanley is finally digging up. It's about the really big, fateful things. "

Awards

Filming and stage

Holes was made into a film by director Andrew Davis in 2003 and released in Germany under the title The Secret of Green Lake (original title of the film: Holes ). The main characters are Sigourney Weaver , Jon Voight , Shia LaBeouf and Patricia Arquette .

The European premiere of the stage version Holes took place on April 3, 2008 in the Theater der Jugend in Vienna. Directed by Gerald Maria Bauer.

Directed by Moritz Seibert, the play has been performed regularly as "Holes - The Secret of Green Lake" since May 2017 in the Junge Theater Bonn .

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Length, width, depth each fifty. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 17, 2000 ( faz.net ). Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  2. ^ Holes on the side of the Theater der Jugend Wien.
  3. ↑ Young Theater Bonn. Retrieved July 14, 2017 .