Margo's footsteps

This article covers the novel. For the film adaptation, see Margos traces (film) .

John Green (2012)

Margo's footsteps (English original title Paper Towns ) is the third novel by the American writer John Green . The youth novel was published in 2008 by Dutton ( Penguin Verlag ) and was published in 2010 in the German translation by Sophie Zeitz by Carl Hanser Verlag .

action

The story is told by Quentin Jacobsen, known as Q, who at the beginning of the book describes a childhood experience with his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman: The two of them discover a corpse in Jefferson Park, the playground of their settlement. That same evening, Margo stands at the window of his room and introduces him to the research she had done on the dead Robert Joyner.

Nine years later, 18-year-old Margo stands at Q's window again and takes him on a nightly adventure. They play pranks on several friends, of whom Margo is disappointed, and, for example, put dead fish in their rooms. Then they look at their typical American suburb from a high-rise. Margo calls the settlement Paper City (a city where there is nothing).

The next day, Margo does not show up at school. Since she has disappeared several times and always left "traces" behind, Q tries to solve the riddle around Margo. He sinks more and more into the clues left by Margo, reads her books and drives with his friends Ben and Radar to the ghost town of Osprey, where he finally spends the night alone while the others celebrate their graduation at the school ball. For a long time he failed to understand Margo, but eventually he discovered a comment on the Omnictionary page , a wiki that made him realize where Margo is.

In a race against time, he takes Ben, Radar and Margo's best friend Lacey Pemberton into a 19-hour drive to New York , where Margo is said to be hiding. Quentin finds her in the fictional place Agloe . After a short romantic encounter, however, the couple separated again and limited themselves to email contact for the time being, as they had different plans for the future.

criticism

Like Green's previous publications, the book was received very positively in the USA. Paper Towns landed at number 5 on the New York Times bestseller list.

The novel was also well received in German-speaking countries. For example, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote :

“This is exactly what makes Green's novel so charming, the clash between obsession and self-protection, Quentin's willingness to do anything for Margo, which is accompanied by rising anger at the escaped: Anyone who goes like Margo [...] has to reckon with it that the bereaved put questions to him, on whose answers everything depends - the image that remains, as well as the balance of the search. "

In her review on Deutschlandradio Kultur , Sylvia Schwab praised Margo's footsteps as “a crazy, fast-paced and at the same time melancholy book about growing up”. Green's novel tells of the "transformation of a sensitive young person" who faces his "unacknowledged fears and longings", learns tolerance and "joie de vivre and amazement at how little we even know about our best friends". Subcutaneously, on a second level of action, “everyday life at an American high school with its cliques and rituals, latent aggressions and mechanisms of oppression” is presented.

Awards

• Edgar Allan Poe Award 2009 in the category "Young Adult"
• Corine 2010 in the category "Children's and Young People's Books"
• Owl of the month February 2010
• German Youth Literature Award 2011

Movie

→ Main article : Margo's footsteps (film)

The film rights were sold to the two studios Mandate Pictures and Mr. Mudd, which already produced the successful film Juno . The main role of Quentin got Nat Wolff and the role of Margo took on Cara Delevingne . Jake Schreier directed the film. The film was released in German cinemas on July 30, 2015.

Omnictionary

Quentin's friend Radar deals intensively in the novel with the fictional Wiki Omnictionary . This gives Radar access to a lot of information that is helpful when searching for Margo. The site was recreated by fans. On this page the topics mainly revolve around "Margos traces" and the author.

expenditure

• John Green: Paper Towns. Dutton Juvenile (USA), October 2008, ISBN 978-0-525-47818-8 (first edition)
• John Green: Paper Towns. Speak (USA), September 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-241493-4 (paperback)

German editions

• John Green: Margo's footsteps. German by Sophie Zeitz. Hanser Verlag, Munich, February 2010, ISBN 978-3-446-23477-2 (German first edition)
• John Green: Margo's footsteps. German by Sophie Zeitz. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, November 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-62499-2 (paperback edition)

Web links

• Homepage of John Green ( memento of July 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on Margo's footsteps in the WayBackMachine
• The fictional wiki of the protagonists ( memento from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ John Green: Margos traces Munich 2010, p. 7f
2. ^ John Green: Margos traces Munich 2010, p. 65
3. ^ John Green: Margos traces Munich 2010, p. 181f
4. ↑ New York Times Bestseller November 2, 2008. Accessed May 30, 2010
5. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung March 17, 2010
6. ↑ A Colorful Balloon - John Green: "Margo's Footsteps" . On: Deutschlandradio Kultur , March 5, 2010. Accessed June 19, 2014.
7. ↑ Nominations 2011 - Prize of the Youth Jury . On: djlb . Retrieved April 26, 2014.
8. ↑ Paper Towns MOVIE !! 11 !!! ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2014 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. Nerdfighters 
9. ^ Paper Towns (2015) . On: IMDb . Retrieved June 18, 2014.
10. ↑ [1] . On: fashionista . Retrieved September 17, 2014.
11. ↑ Omnictionary on Wikia.com