Moon over manhattan

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Moon over Manhattan (English Moon Palace ) is a novel by the American author Paul Auster , which was first published in 1989. The German translation comes from Werner Schmitz .

background

The novel describes the young Marco Stanley Fogg's search for his identity. Paul Auster lets this search for meaning take place alternately in the big city of New York and in the “wild” west of the USA . Against the background of the late 1960s in the USA with all the peculiarities and events such as the moon landing or the Vietnam War , important motifs of the novel are the search for the unknown father, the meaning of the moon and the role of the West Movement ( New Frontier ) in of American history.

content

  • First chapter:
    • Marco's fatherless childhood, his mother's accidental death, life with his uncle Victor, his death and Marco's failure at college
    • financial problems, hunger
  • Second chapter:
    • Homelessness and vegetation in Central Park
    • Salvation through the chance acquaintance with a Chinese girl named Kitty Wu and through his college friend Zimmer
  • Third and fourth chapters:
    • Relationship with Kitty Wu and start of work as a reader for the wealthy Thomas Effing, an older, self-centered, blind man
  • Fifth chapter:
    • writing down Effing's life story and obituary; whose death
  • Sixth chapter:
    • Marco's life with Kitty Wu and meeting Effing's son Solomon Barber
    • the realization that Solomon was his father and Effing his grandfather
    • Solomon Barber's story
    • Separation from Kitty Wu after her abortion
  • Seventh chapter:
    • After Solomons death, walk to the Pacific coast and start a new life

Trivia

  • The painter Ralph Albert Blakelock actually lived from 1847 to 1919. The facts researched by the hero of the novel correspond to historically recognized facts.
  • The Bluff , Utah place that appears in the novel is real.
  • The historical references to the Move West movement are for the most part correct, for example Effing's allusions to the history of the Donner Party .
  • The biography of the Serbian-American scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla also plays a role in this novel.

literature

  • Paul Auster: Moon Palace, Klett, January 1990, ISBN 3-12-573831-8 .
  • Karl Erhard Schuhmacher: Reading aids Moon Palace by Paul Auster, Klett, September 2001, ISBN 3-12-922368-1 .
  • Paul Auster: Moon Palace , Reclam, ISBN 3-15-009083-0 , English, edited by Herbert Geisen
  • Herbert Geisen: Paul Auster, Moon Palace , reading key for schoolchildren, Stuttgart, Reclam 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-015409-0 .
  • Herforth, Maria-Felicitas: Paul Auster: Moon over Manhattan (Moon Palace). King's Explanations and Materials (vol. 458). Hollfeld: Bange Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-8044-1860-8

Web links