Michael Unger

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Heinrich Vogeler's book cover for Vita somnium breve (1903)

Michael Unger is Ricarda Huch's second novel , published in two volumes by Insel in Leipzig in 1903 under the title Vita somnium breve (German: Life - a short dream ). Insel has been using the title "Michael Unger" since the 5th edition from 1913.

The title hero - "a failed Wilhelm Meister " - rebels "against the rotten bourgeois world", but returns to this " vicious circle " out of love for his son .

content

The marriage of the wealthy Protestant merchant Waldemar Unger and the beautiful Mallow Santen have produced three sons - Michael, the eldest, Raphael and Gabriel, the youngest. The action runs in Germany and Italy for decades. Michael is fifteen years old at the beginning of the novel and fifty-two at the end of the novel. Baumgarten assumes the work was created before 1900. So the action begins before 1864.

Michael marries Verena. Mario is born. With his eldest son in the management, his father Waldemar did a good job. Business people in the city - for example the wealthy Peter Unkenrode, father's best friend - appreciate Michael as a businessman. Michael falls in love with the young painter Rose Sarthorn. When he visits the artist on a spring night on Lake Constance and returns home the next day, Verena - the woman with the sharp mind - tells him to the head where he has been. Michael does not deny the guessed truth and realizes that the commercial profession is not for him. He wants to change saddles; take a leave of several years; study medicine for five years. Michael chooses a university far away. He leaves behind the wife and the beloved child and the family. At home, Raphael takes the place of Michael. At the university, Michael is attracted to Freiherr Gilm von Recklingen, professor of zoology and botany. Both men are sympathetic. The professor, a spouse's opponent, lives in bigamy and propagates an “elitist, aristocratic philosophy”.

Michael also studies medicine on the side, because the baron and other non-medical students - i.e. natural scientists - expect something important from him. During his college years, Michael met both Rose and his family. The painter illustrates a zoological work for the baron.

Verena, left alone at home by Michael, is with the poet Feska. This is the son of a little postal worker. When Michael's upper-class parents were unable to understand their daughter-in-law's dealings, she poured them pure wine: Michael loves rose. At the next suitable opportunity, the father calls the son to order.

Raphael marries. The new relatives see a scholar in Michael. Michael speaks to his brother's conscience because he doesn't want to end his relationship with a waitress. Raphael can’t be told anything by Michael, who is also dating two women.

After completing his studies, Michael does not work as a doctor. The baron referred him to a "zoological institute" that examines marine animals on the Adriatic . Michael wants to marry Rose. Verena, meanwhile become a Catholic , is resisting the divorce. The son Mario, who adores his father, is Verena's trump card in the nerve-wracking game.

The aging baron indulging in "free love" loses his professorship because of polygamy, wins the young rose for himself and travels through the country as a traveling preacher. Rose gives birth to several children over the years. Of course, she no longer works artistically.

Michael's father, who has always had a tendency to melancholy, signals the difficult business situation at home in a confused letter. Raphael largely failed as managing director. After the sad father's suicide, Michael decides against Rose and for Mario. Michael returns to the family for good. Peter Unkenrode doesn't want to give anyone other than Michael the money to save the business. The old friend of the deceased father has no confidence in Raphael. Michael clears the table. It begins with a monstrous process. Michael forces his brother Raphael, the incompetent businessman, to commit suicide. Raphael's widow moves with her older son to live with her parents and leaves the younger daughter Malve, a toddler, with Verena. The little mallow grows up with Mario.

After about a year of tense work, Michael's business is slowly picking up. Verena works in the city for charity and returns from church after confession, cheerful and satisfied. Michael longs for Rose sometimes, but he no longer travels, but gradually restores his lost reputation at home. Years later - just like before together with Verena - he is invited by the city's dignitaries.

Mario lets himself be persuaded to go to university. Of course, like his father and his uncle Raphael once, he has two wives - one a little poorer and one beautiful, rich, well-educated.

At the end of the novel, Michael has returned to his family in every respect. For example, the little mallow - this daughter of Raphael is now thirteen years old - has "gradually and imperceptibly grown on him".

Self-testimony

Ricarda Huch writes from Munich on January 2, 1903: “A review of Vita somnium breve has also appeared, and in fact quite disgraceful ... It came in the old year. But I don't really enjoy it anymore ... You can see so clearly that everything is vain. "

shape

The novel is teeming with secondary characters. Michael's mother Mallow is in love with a private scholar. This is the Jewish SPD member Arnold Meier.

The students crowd around the baron - in the front row Arabell Conz, a young girl and her bridegroom, the Russian Boris, a medical student in the upper semesters. Boris associates with "revolutionary friends and people who are happy for the people". Towards the end of the novel, it is not just Verena who turns out to be a benefactor. Michael supports Boris and Arabell. Boris finally kills himself. Then Michael Arabell supports even more.

Sometimes the omniscient narrator presents the reader with a hair-raising incident - for example the horrific murder within a family. The painter Rose has rented a room from Mrs. Kunigunde on Lake Constance. The landlady's crippled little son is killed with an ax. The landlady, who was absent at the time of the crime, hangs herself at the scene a little later. Or the “good” robber Maffurio haunts the scene.

Black and white painting: The combative hero Michael goes his way and his two brothers are no good. Gabriel comes home after four years at university without a degree. It fits: Gabriel worships Verena after his return. Sprengel writes about black and white painting that Verena unilaterally represents the “longing for beauty and happiness”, while the resigned Michael is “involved” in “prosaic professional practice”.

reception

  • According to Baum, the “breaking of a great passion” is the theme of the novel. In addition, the romanticism is an object of consideration: "The baron, for example ... is a really romantic figure ..." On the original title of the novel Vita somnium breve, Baum says that Ricarda Huch was "on the fleeting of the lifelong dream".
  • Adler does mention parallels between some action sequences and the author's vita, but immediately disregards them as too superficial. Because basically in this “family novel” the “saturated bourgeoisie” is in crisis. So Michael's solo effort, his attempt to break out of the dreary fin-de-siècle world of the bourgeoisie must be considered. There is no tragedy for Michael's failure because there is no alternative for him to return to the world in which he is “materially and spiritually rooted”. After the reader had to say goodbye to the concept of the tragic hero, the view of Michael as a seeker could continue. In Michael's dispute with Verena, i.e. in his attempt to keep both Mario and Rose, Verena emerged as the winner. Ricarda Huch would take sides for Rose and against Verena.
  • For Sprengel there is an education novel that reflects the aestheticism of the turn of the 20th century.

Book editions

First editions
  • Ricarda Huch: Vita somnium breve. A novel. Book decorations by Heinrich Vogeler . 2 volumes (335 and 307 pages) Insel, Leipzig 1903
  • Ricarda Huch: Michael Unger. Novel. The book "Vita somnium breve" fifth edition. First edition of the Vita (1903) under the new title. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1913. 487 pages
expenditure
  • Ricarda Huch: Michael Unger. Novel. With an afterword by Günter Adler . 516 pages. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1976, © 1903 Insel-Verlag Leipzig (edition used)

literature

  • Marie Baum : Shining lead. The life of Ricarda Huch. 520 pages. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins , Tübingen and Stuttgart 1950 (6th – 11th thousand)
  • Helene Baumgarten: Ricarda Huch. About her life and work . 236 pages. Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1964
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1900–1918. From the turn of the century to the end of the First World War. Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52178-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baumgarten, p. 230, eighth entry
  2. ^ Günter Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 512, 9. Zvo
  3. ^ Günter Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 510, 6th Zvu and p. 511, 15th Zvu
  4. ↑ Baumgarten, p. 51, 1st Zvu and p. 224, last entry
  5. ^ Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 513, 12. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 346, 13. Zvu and p. 354, 6. Zvo
  7. ^ Baum, p. 140, 6th Zvu
  8. ^ Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 510, 20. Zvo
  9. ↑ Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 514, 1. Zvo
  10. ↑ Adler in the afterword of the edition used, p. 514, 11. Zvo
  11. ^ Sprengel, p. 145, 15. Zvo
  12. ↑ Baum, pp. 81-84
  13. ↑ Adler in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 504–514
  14. ^ Sprengel, p. 145