Purple, purple
Lila, Lila is a novel by Martin Suter from 2004 , published by Diogenes Verlag .
content
David Kern is 23 years old and a waiter in a trendy bar. There he met Marie, who, like him, did a job and made up her Abitur to study literature. David, who has had little success with women so far, falls in love with her, but Marie hardly takes notice of him. She prefers to turn to a group of regulars who make an impression on her as eloquent and shrewd life artists.
When David finds a manuscript about the unhappy love between Peter Landwei and Sophie in a junk bedside table, he is captivated by the story, scans the text and one day gives it to Marie in order to impress her as a supposed author. He succeeds in that too, he wins her love and is happy.
But Marie secretly sends the manuscript to a publisher in Frankfurt who wants to publish the novel. For David this begins a career as a writer that takes him from one reading to the next and to ever larger events. But the fear of being exposed as a plagiarist makes him so nervous that he constantly gets confused during the readings. In fact, one day the penniless Jacky Stocker stands in front of him in an autograph session and asks him for a dedication for Alfred Duster, the real author he claims to be. To keep Jacky's silence, David grants him a generous share of the profits. Jacky gradually becomes - much to the chagrin of Marie - an important part of David's life. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, he pretends to be David's agent and negotiates with major publishers about his next book. There is an argument between Marie, who Jacky doesn't like, and David, who is at the mercy of Jacky.
David manages to reconcile himself with Marie and to keep Jacky out of his private life from now on, but has to make further financial contributions. Because he can't tell Marie the truth, she doesn't understand his behavior and distances herself from him. David soon can't withstand the pressure any longer and decides to kill Jacky. But shortly beforehand he accidentally falls from the balcony of his hotel room and is seriously injured. On his deathbed he confesses to David that he is not the author of "Lila, Lila", but just a childhood friend of Peter Weiland, who pretended to be Peter Landwei under the pseudonym Alfred Duster and wrote down his unhappy love story.
Marie is further estranged from David and their love ends as unhappy as that of Peter and Sophie. David then begins to write his own book, which begins exactly like "Lila, Lila": "This is the story of David and Marie. Dear God, don't let it end sadly." (P. 345, see p. 33).
reception
“Martin Suter has won over a loyal reading audience with his stories, which are as well told as they are cleverly constructed. He manages to keep the balance between psychological thriller and detective novel - on a pleasantly high literary level. "
“A love story, a book about a fraud, a settlement with the literature business and, last but not least, the depiction of blackmail. All of this together is clearly too much and the inner unity of the work suffers from it. "
expenditure
- First edition (hardcover, linen), Diogenes, Zurich 2004, ISBN 978-3-257-06386-8 .
- Paperback edition, Diogenes-Taschenbuch 23469, Zurich 2005, ISBN 978-3-257-23469-5 .
- Audiobook (read by Daniel Brühl , director: Gabriele Kreis), Diogenes Hörbuch, Zurich 2009 (first edition: Audiobook, Hamburg 2004 ISBN 978-3-8990-3138-6 ), ISBN 978-3-257-80285-6 (abbreviated authorized Edition, 358 minutes, 5 CDs ).
filming
In 2008, Lila, Lila was filmed under the direction of Alain Gsponer with the actors Daniel Brühl , Henry Hübchen , and Hannah Herzsprung . The cinema release in Germany and Switzerland was on December 17th, 2009.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ inkultura-online.de
- ↑ Official website of the film ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
