Seas
Seas is a novel by Alban Nikolai Herbst . The first edition was published in 2003 by marebuchverlag .
Content and subject
Meere describes the love story between the object artist Fichte and the twenty years younger German Indian Irene. Right at the beginning of the book there is a short text that makes it clear that the relationship between the two has broken, because it ends with the sentence: "Fichte has refused to see Ms. Adhanari-Jessen to this day." Book a sadomasochistic relationship that ultimately has to fail due to an uninterrupted chain of border violations of a psychological and physical nature. In its uncompromising detailed descriptions, the novel takes the reader far beyond the boundaries of the familiar and sometimes bearable.
But Meere is also an artist novel in which the protagonist Fichte finally realizes that his "self-invention" has failed. Because his real name is Julian von Kalkreuth and is the grandson of the Nazi criminal Wernher von Kalkreuth, who was sentenced to death. As Fichte, he apparently succeeded in everything in the art scene that was denied him as Kalkreuth. In this figure, Herbst explores his own life story without considering, because he was born as Alexander von Ribbentrop and the great-nephew of the Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was hanged in Nuremberg . In Fichte's description, he explores how grandchildren deal with the guilt of their grandparents.
Prohibition story
On September 24, 2003, Herbst was forbidden to read or have read from his novel by means of a temporary injunction and under threat of a fine of up to 250,000 euros. The plaintiff was a former partner of the author who saw her personal rights violated by the novel. In the same month the publishing house was forbidden from further sales and any advertising for the novel by the Berlin Regional Court. Despite the ban, the author read from his book on an ARD cultural broadcast in early October 2003. The television viewers, however, heard nothing, but instead were able to read a fade-in which pointed out the reading ban and which ended with the sentence: “'Literature in the foyer' welcomes the clearing out of German literary history that has been initiated and suggests Goethe's ' Werther ', Thomas Mann's ' Lotte in Weimar ' and the ' Buddenbrooks ' as soon as possible. ”The author and Marebuchverlag appealed against the injunctions. Herbst's lawyer expressly denied that the plaintiff was recognizable to the vast majority of the readership - at least until the complaint was filed. On October 23, however, the Berlin Regional Court rejected the applications, and seas remained prohibited.
Public response
The makers of literature in the foyer were not the only ones who reacted with incomprehension to the ban. In view of the similar history of the prohibition surrounding Maxim Biller's novel Esra , taz culture editor Gerrit Bartels “had the inkling that temporary injunctions against novels and writers would soon be issued in an inflationary way”, Julia Encke asked in the Süddeutsche Zeitung “whether the border crossing was really that radical is ". And Gregor Eisenhauer praises the work in the Frankfurter Rundschau as “one of the few really moving” romance novels and “key novel about the artist business”.
The literary critic Christoph Jürgensen summarized the public debate in 2004 as follows: “The question of the alloying relationship between poetry and truth in a text is about as old as literature itself identify the text-context boundary so easily (and probably also intentionally) that courts decide to prohibit the texts, as in the extremely prominent cases of Klaus Mann's ' Mephisto ' or Thomas Bernhard's ' Holzfälle ' Effective strategies the decipherability of their allusions but constitutively belonged “. In the case of Meere , according to Jürgensen, this question of the relationship between reality and fictionalization cannot be decided, since Herbst's ex-girlfriend is not a person in contemporary history and therefore nothing is known about her. Nevertheless, Jürgensen turns against the charge of censorship, because censorship is an “intervention by the state against which no legal defense is possible. In the case of the prohibitions on 'Esra' and 'Seas', two fundamental rights collide instead, namely the freedom of art and the protection of personality. ”And in both cases the courts gave priority to the protection of personality.
Herbst himself was naturally hostile to the judgments. Although he considers the contempt of a person recognizable to the general public to be justiciable, but: “That which turns a real model into an artificial figure - namely the style of a book and the semantic courts that shine in it - can (and may!) The judgment of a court of law. ”For him, as a writer, the only question that arises is,“ To what extent has the formal penetration of a material been successful, that also means: To what extent did a (recognizable) natural person become a literary figure. The latter is always the case when the character described in the novel gets along without the knowledge of the person allegedly portrayed. "It must be" possible to literarise both what has been experienced and what is mythical and traditional, otherwise one narrows the legal scope of literature deals with very few segments, or leaves it to chance whether or not there will be plaintiffs against a book ”.
agreement
After the author and the plaintiff reached an agreement before the Berlin district court in March 2007, the injunction was settled. Alban Nikolai Herbst then decided - "without recognizing any legal obligation" - in favor of a modified, slightly changed final version, which appeared unhindered and was printed in full a few weeks later in a special edition of the Viennese literary magazine Volltext . Since then, the novel has been publicly available again and has been available as a book again since May 2008.
Release of the original version
After the plaintiff in an interview with the author Alban Nikolai Herbst in spring 2017 gave her consent to have the book published in the original version, the Mare publishing house can, from autumn 2017, be able to sell the book that was printed 14 years ago, but only in small numbers deliver to bookstores. Readings from the original edition by the author are also possible again.
Reviews
Web links
- I am not a realist . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 2007, p. 167 ( online - interview AN Herbst).
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Christoph Jürgensen: I am someone else. In “Meere”, Alban Nikolai Herbst narrates close to reality . In: literaturkritik.de No. 7, July 2004
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 26, 2003; Privacy versus freedom of literature . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 30, 2003, p. 11
- ↑ inheritance burdens. Where we come from Where we are going . In: Literature in the foyer , ARD / SWR. First broadcast: October 3, 2003
- ↑ Christian Bommarius: “Seas” remains forbidden . In: Berliner Zeitung , October 24, 2003, p. 12
- ↑ taz , September 26, 2003, p. 17; Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 27, 2003; Frankfurter Rundschau , October 8, 2003
- ↑ Christoph Jürgensen: I am someone else. In “Meere”, Alban Nikolai Herbst narrates close to reality . In: literaturkritik.de No. 7, July 2004.
- ↑ Stephan Kleiner, Roman Kern: People of Public Interest. An interview with Alban Nikolai Herbst . In: literaturkritik.de No. 7, July 2004
- ↑ s. Stefan Andres: The novel »Meere« is no longer prohibited ( memento of the original from January 1, 2008 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. , Critical Edition v. March 8, 2007; I am not a realist . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 2007, p. 167 ( online - interview AN Herbst).
- ↑ Full text No. 2/2007 ( Memento of the original from January 23, 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. .
- ↑ Seas appears . In: boersenblatt.net. Weekly magazine for the German book trade . May 16, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/meere-erscheint-nach-14-jahren-verbot-so-ein-prozess-waere.700.de.html?dram:article_id=395608
