No-stop time (novel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zero time is a novel by the German author Juli Zeh , which was published in August 2012 by Schöffling Verlag .

action

In the contemporary novel, a dropout from Germany and his partner have been running a diving school and holiday pension on Lanzarote for 14 years . When an obviously mentally unstable couple from Germany books diving lessons at the diving school, the diving instructor is involved in this self-destructive relationship by developing an erotically motivated protective instinct for the vacationer. This is reported on the one hand from the point of view of the first-person narrative diving instructor and also through diary entries by the vacationer. The changing descriptions in the course of the novel diverge further and further, so that the reader is in the dark about the reality of the relationship. In addition to the erotic love triangle, the largely unsuccessful life plans of the people involved are also discussed. The title of the novel is a technical term derived from diving that encompasses the time span in which during a dive with a compressed air diving device the time span specified by the decompression table, in which one can reach the surface of the water without a decompression stop (remaining for a certain time at a certain depth) can return.

main characters

The following people play a decisive role in no-stop time:

Sven Fiedler

Sven Fiedler is a 39-year-old law graduate for whom the cynical power games of his examiners during his studies were the reason to get out of his planned life and instead work as a diving instructor in Lanzarote.

Antje Berger

Antje Berger is Sven Fiedler's partner and administrator of the diving school and holiday accommodation. Both have known each other since childhood, when Antje's mother worked as a housekeeper for Sven's parents.

Jolante von der Pahlen

Jola Pahlen is a 30-year-old actress and daughter of a wealthy TV producer. So far, Jola has mostly only played in telenovelas and would like to receive a serious role offer. She hopes to play the leading role in a film about Lotte Hass , which is one of the reasons for this diving holiday.

Theo Hast

Theo Hast is in his early 40s, writer and financially dependent life partner of Jola Pahlen. It has been 10 years since his last successful release, so he is prone to cynicism and alcoholism.

reception

Commercial win

The novel went straight after its release in August 2012 in the mirror - seller list ranked 30 and could also be placed in the following 21 weeks Selbiger. This made it the author's most commercially successful novel up to that point and one of the most successful fiction books by the publishing house Schöffling. The paperback edition published by Btb Verlag in 2014 was also able to place itself on the corresponding bestseller list for 18 weeks and was placed in the top 10 five times during this period.

Contemporary criticism

In Spiegel magazine, Nora Gantenbrink reports on a successful psycho and underwater book in good language and a fine tone . Also Hubert Winkels in time speaks of a knowledgeable narrator, whose powerful realistic portrayals lead to a kind of technical language poetry, where one can not develop a lasting interest for the people because of the dry clay and the complexity of motivations. Vladimir Balzer from Deutschlandfunk sees the most powerful passages in the book in the pictorial description of diving off an Atlantic island. He finds language and action too planned and calculated to create enough tension. Even Judith von Sternburg from the Frankfurter Rundschau does not think it is sufficiently cryptic for a psychological thriller , but as a square story a solid book. Both Jörg Magenau in the taz and Daniel Benedict from the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung lack the author's interest in her characters, who only remain functionaries in the outline of a plot idea.

Others

A film biography about Lotte Hass was actually shot in 2011 and had the title “ The girl on the seabed ” , which is also mentioned several times in the novel . As mentioned in the novel, a well-known pop singer played the main role in it with Yvonne Catterfeld . The corresponding figure bears the name Yvette Stadler in “No Deco”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spiegel bestseller list July Zeh: Zero Time , book report , accessed on May 24, 2018
  2. ↑ Irre unter Wasser , Spiegel , August 8, 2012, accessed May 25, 2018
  3. ↑ A Girl on the Seabed , Die Zeit , August 2, 2012, accessed May 25, 2018
  4. ^ History of the triangle under water , Deutschlandfunk , August 13, 2012, accessed on May 25, 2018
  5. ↑ Why Emil Had to Die , Frankfurter Rundschau , August 1, 2018, accessed on May 27, 2018
  6. ↑ Psychological thriller without psyche , Die Tageszeitung , August 12, 2012, accessed on May 27, 2018
  7. ↑ July Zeh pays homage to her great role model Patricia Highsmith in the diving thriller "Zero Time" , Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung , August 31, 2012, accessed on May 27, 2018