Memoirs of a mediocre student
Memoirs of a Mediocre Student (first published in 1950) is the best-known novel by the writer Alexander Spoerl , son of Heinrich Spoerl .
content
Framework story is a birth. Jakob van Tast waits in front of the delivery room for his son to be born. During the waiting period, memories of his previous life emerge.
Jakob van Tast was born towards the end of the First World War and grew up in Düsseldorf in the 1920s and 1930s. The parents are well-off, the mother a singer, the father a lawyer . Jakob is a bright and curious child who always has new nonsense on his mind. Above all, school offers a rich field of activity, as - as is usual with children and young people - it forms the center of life. Jakob falls in love for the first time on a study trip to England . After graduating from high school, he began studying mechanical engineering in Berlin . He falls in love on the S-Bahninto a young woman. A “law-abiding fellow citizen” wants to blackmail him with the fact that she is Jewish. Van Tast can evade that, but Ursula, as her name is, disappears without a trace ( I thought of little Ursula, who was in danger, and also of myself. I thought of my studies, of my parents. Maybe a little too at KZ ). In 1939 he finished his Reich labor service and came to Denmark as a soldier in the Wehrmacht . Eventually he was fired because of health problems and worked as an engineer from 1944 . After the end of the war he found his parents in Bavaria. Jakob works as an interpreter for the American occupation forces and receives a disused Kübelwagen as a gift, which he takes back to Düsseldorf. Finally, he stands in front of a former teacher who has lost his mind and is recovering bricks from the mountain of rubble that was once his school.
With the exception of the “Ursula episode”, Spoerl stands alongside and sees through the whole plot of the book as an observer of his own actions as well as the actions of his fellow human beings. With increasing age he recognizes the weak points in the organizational systems in which he is integrated and hits them precisely.
Examples:
- Van Tast experienced January 30, 1933, the day the power was seized, and saw the torchlight procession from the window. He heard people shouting “Germany awake” and laconically stated that it was too late for that now, that Adolf Hitler was already in power.
- The caretaker is bothered by Jacob's flute playing, whereupon he switches to the Horst Wessel song the moment she wants to complain - after all, she can't complain.
- He is to be promoted to the Wehrmacht and during the medical examination emphasizes how extremely fit for duty he is - with the result that the military doctor who was honored in his honor found him unfit for further front service (here Spoerl apparently has a loan from the muster scene taken from the confession of the impostor Felix Krull , in case it did not happen to him himself).
style
In this autobiographical novel, Spoerl targets the behavior of his fellow men in the Third Reich shortly after the end of the war . He is addressing things that many of his contemporaries did not want to discuss at the time. With the individualist Jakob van Tast, he draws a person who defends his “private island” in a society that has been brought into line. He is not a resister, but rather sand in the gears .
The extent to which Spoerl incorporated his own biography in the process must remain open. What is certain, however, is that essential points of his curriculum vitae correspond with Jacob's in the book:
- Residence: Spoerl grew up in Düsseldorf, as did Jakob.
- 1923: Spoerl is six years old, Jakob experiences inflation in the first year of school .
- 1933: Spoerl's father publishes his book Die Feuerzangenbowle , Jakob has to tell his father about experiences from school, which he processes in a book about the school.
- Studies and work: Spoerl was a mechanical engineer and at times an interpreter, Jakob studies mechanical engineering and interprets for the occupation forces.
- Wife: Spoerl's wife was called Margot, Jakobs was called Margret.
- Smoking : Spoerl smoked a pipe, as did Jakob.
The book is a humorous work with serious overtones. While the dry humor and the virtuoso handling of the shallows and ambiguities of the language usually make the reader smile and sometimes laugh out loud, much of the suffering that happened in the Third Reich is only hinted at. It shimmers through the whole book, so to speak, without leaving the reader in the dark that this should not be suppressed.
Spoerl dedicated the book to Libertas Schulze-Boysen , whom he knew from his time in Berlin and his contacts with the Rote Kapelle at the time.
filming
In 1974 the film I was also a mediocre student based on the motifs of the novel was made under the direction of Werner Jacobs .
expenditure
- Memoirs of a mediocre student. R. Piper & Co, Munich.