Rascal stories

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lausbubengeschichten is a humorous collection of stories by the German writer Ludwig Thoma , published in 1905. The subtitle from my youth indicates the autobiographical component of the boyish pranks. Olaf Gulbransson created the illustrations for a later edition. Next to the Munich in heaven , the rascal stories are Thomas's most successful work to this day.

content

The distinguished boy

A family from the Rhineland takes a summer vacation in the village where Ludwig's mother also lives and where he spends his holidays. Ludwig convinces the sheltered boy to organize a "real sea battle" with his toy steamboat by equipping the boat with firecrackers and gunpowder on a farmer's pond. The ship sinks, the farmer, who was lured by the noise, beats the Prussian boy while Ludwig flees. Ludwig's mother, who as a civil servant's widow has little money, has to pay for the damage.

On holiday

Ludwig's pranks during the summer holidays cause the mother a headache. After stealing a trout, the village teacher suggests supervising him in the elementary school (whose lessons have already started again). Ludwig rejects this as incompatible with his honor as a Latin student. But when he plays a bad trick on another summer visitor (he lights a powder frog on the tail of his Angora cat - and again his mother has to pay expensive compensation), he actually has to go to elementary school. There the teacher leaves the class to the supervision of an older student. Ludwig makes all sorts of nonsense and then mocks the looking pupil with an essay in which he describes her father as a drunkard. When she tries to bring him to reason, he fights with her while the teacher returns. Ludwig flees over the trellis in front of the window and steals the peaches from there. He doesn't have to go to school anymore.

The child

The apparently friendly religion teacher Falkenberg, known as the "child" because he always speaks to the pupils in this way, escapes the attacks of the boys Ludwig and Fritz again and again by chance. When he donated the plaster statue of St. Aloysius to the school , Ludwig and Fritz throw two stones through the window of the church in an exciting nightly action and destroy the plaster figure's nose.

Good resolutions

Before first communion , Ludwig decides to improve himself. Together with Fritz, all bad intentions are postponed until after communion. When he researched his conscience and wrote down his sins, his uncle, with whom he lived during school, reads this and found out that Ludwig had stolen money from him. A dispute ensues between uncle and aunt, in which the aunt ends up reproaching the uncle for his carelessness more severely than Ludwig for the theft. Ludwig's aunt Frieda and her daughter Anna excel in penance exercises, which angered Ludwig. When they mocked Ludwig's candle at the party, Ludwig takes revenge by shooting his aunt's mirrored cabinet with an air pistol.

improvement

Fritz and Ludwig are going home for the Easter break. They drink beer and smoke cigars on the train and irritate the other passengers until Ludwig gets sick and has to throw up in his hat. Miserable and remorseful, he returns home to his mother and sister, lies down in bed and vows to himself that he will get better.

Uncle Franz

Ludwig retired to his uncle Franz in the big city. He doesn't like it there at all. When Ludwig despaired of a math homework, his uncle solemnly solves it; The next day the teacher criticizes the solution as wrong. Ludwig then states that the uncle had made the wrong solution, which (according to the teacher) "can only make a donkey". Thereupon Ludwig is punished by the teacher as well as beaten by the uncle. After the uncle and teacher had agreed, the two declared that the solution was correct, but according to an old method, and that Ludwig only made mistakes when copying.

The perjury

After Ludwig hit a classmate so that he lost a tooth and tore his pants, he had to serve six hours of detention in the Rector's apartment on Sunday as a punishment . On Monday there is a stone in the apartment, thrown from the outside through the window, which has also broken through the canvas with the almost finished painting of one of the rector's sons. Ludwig is accused of the act and falsely swears that he did not commit the act. He thus escapes further punishment.

The engagement

Ludwig's class teacher Bindinger has an eye on his sister Marie. Marie and the mother are very positive about the possible connection and try to make a good impression. Ludwig, on the other hand, sees it with skepticism, especially since he - like all his teachers - cannot stand Bindinger. But he uses the new chance to use Marie as an excuse for poor learning performance.

Gretchen Vollbeck

Sixteen year old Gretchen is a blue sock ; Their eagerness to educate and their diligence are held up to Ludwig as exemplary. A coffee visit by Ludwig with his mother to the Vollbeck family turns out to be very embarrassing.

The marriage

The wedding celebration of Ludwig's sister Marie and Ludwig's teacher Bindinger turns into a big celebration, which Ludwig describes from the boy's point of view. In the tavern he seduces his cousin Max (the son of the little loved aunt Gusti and his uncle Franz) to drink wine and champagne , so that he is no longer able to recite the prepared poem to the bride and groom.

My first love

Fourteen-year-old Ludwig falls in love with the caretaker's daughter, who he meets every morning on the way to school. He's too shy to speak to her. So he writes a letter that he wants to slip her. When he fails to deliver the letter, he keeps it in his Latin book. The letter falls out, the teachers find out about it and mistakenly think that the addressee is the daughter of Thomas Rupp's fatherly friend. Ludwig is punished at school and has to break off the esteemed contact with Rupp.

The baby

Marie and her husband come to visit with their baby. Everyone is delighted with the child, while Ludwig is examined by his brother-in-law because of his poor testimony. Everyone is horrified that Ludwig refuses to read into the baby's first notes ("gugudada") any more.

background

The stories take place at the time of Thomas's childhood in Upper Bavaria. Some of the chapters are based on real experiences. Martin A. Klaus quotes the criticizing testimony from Thomas's time in the Palatinate Landstuhl :

"" There is something sly about his character. In the case of reprimands and punishments, he shows an unusual coldness for his years and stubborn, defiant insensitivity. ""

- Klaus (2016), p. 21

In the stories, Ludwig is often punished, but the negative consequences for the family are played down. In the stories, mother and sister fear the family's reputation, but Marie ends up marrying the class teacher Bindinger. In reality, Maria Thoma remained single until her death - and there are indications that Thomas' behavior in Prien in 1883 led to an engagement breaking off and the mother having to move from Prien to Traunstein.

As far as the locations of the stories are mentioned by name, they correspond to the cities in which Thoma spent his school days (e.g. Burghausen and Munich ). The author's shyness towards women, which Thoma describes in the chapter on first love , has also shown in real life.

The mother figure shows not only Thomas own mother, but also his nanny Viktoria Pröbstl. "The plaintive, reproachful half [of the mother figure] is Katharina Thoma, the forgiving, comforting half is Viktoria Pröbstl." The uncle Franz of history corresponds to Ludwig Thomas pension landlord Wilhelm Ruppert in Munich. Even the "child" has real role models.

Language and style

The book is written in written German, and the dialogues also contain less dialect than Thomas' peasant novels, for example. The stories are told in the first person. The language contributes significantly to the humor, because at the beginning Thoma puts himself in the style of his youthful hero and reports about his crimes in slightly clumsy, essay-like German:

"He didn't like Fritz either, because he's my best friend and always laughs when he says" little child ". He has already locked him up twice for this, and we said we had to do something to the child. "

- Chapter The Little Children , positions 282-283 of the Kindle version

In the later chapters the style changes and the narrative self assumes the ironic position of the adult Thoma who writes and reports on his youthful deeds:

“[I] brought home a testimony at Easter that even the closest relatives could not be shown. I was threatened that I would be apprenticed to a shoemaker in the next few days, and when I showed no aversion to this respectable craft, I even got violent reproaches. "

- Chapter Gretchen Vollbeck , positions 790-793 of the Kindle version

Another stylistic device is omission. Thoma hypocritically describes the results of his misdeeds without explicitly admitting that he committed them:

“I made a deal with Fritz. He also lives in the wide alley and can see Aunt Frieda in the apartment. There is a cupboard with a mirror; and Fritz has an air pistol. But now the mirror suddenly had a hole. "

- Chapter Good intentions , positions 493-496 of the Kindle version

Origin and reception

The rascal stories originated when Thoma was editor-in-chief of Simplicissimus . Thoma wrote the stories in 1903 and 1904, which were published in 1905. The work was a great sales success for Thoma and his publisher Albert Langen . Thoma therefore had the work followed by another collection of pranks under the title Tante Frieda in 1907 .

In essence, the pranks are not harmless rascals; Ludwig steals, lies, destroys other people's property and injures his fellow men. Klaus (2016) therefore compares the rascal stories with Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz .

Work editions

The works of Ludwig Thoma are no longer protected under German copyright law. Therefore there are some inexpensive print and (free) e-book editions of the rascal stories .

Film adaptations

In 1964, Helmut Käutner filmed the material with Hansi Kraus in the role of Ludwig: Lausbubengeschichten . The successful film resulted in a whole film series.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus (2016), p. 33
  2. ↑ Klaus (2016)
  3. ↑ Klaus (2016), p. 25.
  4. ↑ Klaus (2016), p. 27.
  5. ↑ Lerchenberg (2017).
  6. ↑ Klaus (2016), p. 21.

swell