Perrudja

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Perrudja is a 1929 novel by the Hamburg writer Hans Henny Jahnn (1894–1959). The work has a singular meaning in German-language literature, on the one hand because of its visually powerful and linguistically creative text, on the other hand because of its unusually disparate plot. At the same time, however, it is also controversial because of the unconventional representation of the sexual. The novel is assigned to expressionism .

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“At its northern edges, which are steep and treeless, it formed the southern limit of Perrudja's mountain rights. The granite channel ended in a basin, similar to a steep-walled funnel. "

The plot of the novel takes place in an archaic and timeless Norway . Jahnn tells the life story of a man named Perrudja, whose origins remain unclear. As a child he grew up lonely in the mountains. Surprisingly, Mr. Grigg, a mysterious stranger, provides the boy with large sums of money that are said to come from a large inheritance. With the unexpected wealth, Perrudja plans to change the world for the better. He builds a massive temple-like fortress and founds a youth organization with whose help he wants to achieve justice and peace on earth.

Perrudja's sex life is indefinite. He feels sensually drawn to his mare Shabdez, but also to the working-class son Alexander. After all, he woos Signe, whom he met in childhood, and kills her fiancé in order to conquer her. Signe takes offense at his cowardice and indecision. The marriage is not consummated on their wedding night when Signe learns that Perrudja lied to her about the murder of his rival. Signe turns away from him and begins a relationship with her servant.

Perrudja then enters into a close blood brotherhood with Signe's brother Hein, which triggers a new and strong sense of mission in him. Together with Mr. Grigg, he plans to use his billions in financial means and with the help of the most modern weapons to wage a final war in order to achieve the rescue of humanity corrupted by civilization through a second flood. But Perrudja is not a strong hero, he moves back into the loneliness of the mountains, while the preparations for war take on ever larger dimensions without his intervention.

History of origin

Already in exile in Norway during the First World War , Jahnn conceived the novel, which was inspired by his Nordic experiences. He later changed the original title Perrudjan , as it was too reminiscent of his own name. In 1927 he had completed a first manuscript version. However , he was so impressed by reading Ulysses by James Joyce that over the next two years he began to revise his conventionally written novel. He now used shifts in perspective, internal monologues and inserted symbols, poems, music and other Joyce artistic devices. The Hamburg publishing house Enoch , with whom Jahnn had a contract for publication, demanded extensive deletions and changes in 1929, which Jahnn refused. After the contract was terminated, Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag took on the printing of a limited two-volume edition of 1020 copies. Sales were sluggish despite positive reviews; Reasons were the high selling price of this bibliophile edition, but also the size and difficulty of the novel.

reception

The first publication was praised by his fellow writer Alfred Döblin and the editor of the literary world Willy Haas . In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Klaus Mann commented extensively, praised the entire work and highlighted individual episodes: "This childhood memory is one of the highlights of the book, it is great poetry, of an unparalleled sadness and intimacy ..." and concluded: "The book is clever to the point of intoxication, his criticism is as severe as a court day. ”In 1958, the new edition received only a few decisive rejections in addition to favorable reviews. In the years 1958–1959 alone 40 reviews appeared in national newspapers as well as literary magazines and books, but this did not lead to a flood of readers, as many were deterred by the unconventional representation of the sexual, but also by the experimental form of language. When Jahnn's complete edition appeared in 1970, Jahnn's friend Werner Helwig wrote about Perrudja II that these fragments intended to continue the “symphonic novel” are “among the most complete and beautiful pieces in the estate”. “One might have wished that this strangest of all prose works in the German language could have fully matured.” Today the novel is seen as a masterpiece of expressionist literature.

About the novel

Structure and style

Jahnn interspersed the novel - similar to Alfred Döblin in Berlin Alexanderplatz (also published in 1929) - with an unusually large number of disparate elements that sometimes at first glance have no connection with the actual plot. There are, for example, inserted stories, poems, fairy tales, musical interludes (sheet music), word games, medicine, cooking recipes, vegetables or other word catalogs. There are also inner monologues with “complex temporal and perspective shifts” (Thomas Freeman). This writing style, which James Joyce also used in his Ulysses work , has been analyzed many times in literary studies and was ultimately decisive for the positive reception that recognized the high artistic rank of the novel in literature. In this disparate ("wild", as Paul Fechter puts it) novel, the narrator seems to turn himself off to some extent. The symbolic built-in stories play a special role; some can also be read completely without reference to the work; In 1954, for example, the rororo paperback Thirteen Unbelievable Stories was published , which contained only excerpts from Jahnn's works Perrudja und Fluß ohne Ufer .

In Jahnns Perrudja , the lotus flower floating on the water symbolizes life and creativity:
"... the lotus flower swims, blue, pale, seven-fold"
The tigress appears again and again as a symbol of destruction:
“The memories of Signe became sparse. The tigress crept through his dreams less often. "

Symbols

Of the many symbols that appear in the novel, the lotus and tiger are the most important. Both are symbols of the creative and the destructive. Often people are transformed into animals, with Signe appearing at the same time as a beautiful woman and a cruel huntress. In Signe, the symbol of the tiger - sometimes life-affirming and sometimes destructive - bridges the two opposing areas. The multiple appearing lotus flower points, like some other elements, to the Gilgamesh epic , with which the Perrudja novel is often associated. Hans Wolffheim, for example, advocates the thesis that Signe represents a modern reincarnation of the Ishtar .

Analysis and Interpretations

In his works Jahnn wants to lead people back to the original "harmony of creation". In Perrudja , the renewal is to be achieved through a global war that is to lead to an order liberated from civilization. For Jahnn, harmony can also arise through chosen lovers and artists. Essential elements in Perrudja, as in some of his other works, are the love for animals (especially horses), nature and people (same-sex or heterosexual), friendship, blood brotherhood and beauty. On the other hand, there are fears of death, grave and decomposition. A literary encyclopedia sees the work as “the becoming of the longing for a pagan rebirth of a myth from the instinct of the flesh”, according to which, for Jahnn, this longing becomes “painful and pleasurable in all manifestations of the sexual and creature”. These unconventional aspects put some readers off in the first few years of publication. Hans J. Fröhlich says in his essay Novels from yesterday - read today that it is almost impossible as a reader to identify with one of the main characters, the book reads "as if it had been carved on stone tablets by a Babylonian epic poet". Jahnn's biographer Thomas Freeman draws a different conclusion. He states that the whole work can be interpreted as the waking dream fantasy of a lonely person, "who puts himself in the role of a world ruler."

Perrudja II

The novel remained unfinished; only fragments of the second part that were published posthumously have survived. Until 1933 Jahnn had worked intensively on the sequel, but then started working on the novel Fluß ohne Ufer . In the foreword to the new Perrudja edition from 1958, he wrote that the development of modern natural sciences no longer allowed his original concept to be continued. From the fragments it cannot be seen how he had imagined the end of the novel.

Quote

“Perrudja ate his evening meal. Bite after bite. Carefully with an almost fat gesture. The hand slipped into his mouth. His teeth crushed the coarse bread. The regular sound of the cracking baked goods left him no satisfaction. He ate. Perhaps it would not have happened if a physical strength, of which he understood nothing, had not dictated that there was a need for it. Precisely that impulse to preserve, this thundering affirmation of life of blood and entrails, which he brought up to empty silence. At least when the possibility was open that they might break into the realms of his dreams, his heart. It could have been established that Perrudja had never consciously felt hunger. "

- Hans Henny Jahnn

Publications (selection)

Literature (text editions)

  • 2017: Perrudja . With an afterword by Josef Winkler . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-455-40540-8
  • 1998: Perrudja . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch, 2913), ISBN 3-518-39413-4 .
  • 1995: Perrudja . Corti, Paris, ISBN 2-7143-0555-5 . (French edition)
  • 1994: Perrudja. Anniversary edition, vol. 3 . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg, ISBN 3-455-10318-9 ; contained in: Ulrich Bitz (Ed.): Hans Henny Jahnn. Anniversary edition. In eight volumes . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg 1994 (= Campe-Paperback), ISBN 3-455-10315-4 .
  • 1985: Perrudja. Attached work: Perrudja, second book. Fragments from the estate . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg, ISBN 3-455-03630-9 ; contained in: Gerd Rupprecht (Ed.): Jahnn, Hans Henny. Works in individual volumes (Hamburg edition) . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg.
  • 1974: Perrudja. Perrudja 2 . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg (= works and diaries, vol. 1).
  • 1968: Perrudja II. Fragment from the estate . Heinrich-Heine-Verl., Frankfurt am Main.
  • 1968: Perrudja . Heinrich-Heine-Verl., Frankfurt am Main.
  • 1966: Perrudja . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main a. a. (= Fischer library. Vol. 724).
  • 1958: Perrudja . European publishing house, Frankfurt am Main.
  • 1929: Perrudja . Kiepenheuer, Berlin (= two-volume edition).

Secondary literature

  • Thomas Freeman: Mythical-dialectical structures in Hans Henny Jahnn's Perrudja . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Ed.): Hans Henny Jahnn . 3rd, rev. u. exp. Aufl., Edition Text + kritik , München 1980 (= text + kritik , H. 2/3), ISBN 3-921402-78-6 .
  • Hans Mayer : attempt on Hans Henny Jahnn . 2nd edition, Rimbaud, Aachen 1984, ISBN 3-89086-998-X .
  • Joachim Wohlleben : Experiment about “Perrudja”. Literary historical observations on Hans Henny Jahnn's contribution to the modern novel . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1985 (= Studies on the History of German Literature, Vol. 36), ISBN 3-484-32036-2 .
  • Thomas Freeman: Hans Henny Jahnn. A biography . 1st ed., Hoffmann u. Campe, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-455-08608-X .

Dissertations

Numerous dissertations have been published on Perrudja , for example:

  • Rüdiger Wagner : Hans Henny Jahnn's novel "Perrudja". Language and style . Munich 1965.
  • Kurt Hock: Investigations into Hans Henny Jahnn's novel “Perrudja” with special consideration of the animal figure . Munich 1976.
  • Knut Brynhildsvoll: Hans Henny Jahnn and Henrik Ibsen. A study on Hans Henny Jahnn's novel “Perrudja” . Bouvier, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-416-01657-2 . (see dissertation; University of Oslo, 1979)
  • Michael Mahlstedt: Figures of Redemption in Hans Henny Jahnns Perrudja . Lüdke, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-920588-68-1 . (also Diss., University of Hamburg, 1983)
  • Kathrin Heintz: "and what remains on the sieve of memory is the made-up lie". Hans Henny Jahnns Perrudja as the unreliable narrator of his own biography . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2016. ISBN 978-3-86821-672-1 .

Web links

References and comments

  1. Perrudja , 1958 edition, p. 147
  2. For example, he named the main character Signe after a girl whom he wrote a declaration of love there. Jürgen Serke: There was only love in a novel . In: " Stern " No. 45/1974
  3. a b Thomas Freeman: Hans Henny Jahnn. A biography . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-455-08608-X , p. 249.
  4. Klaus Mann : The third generation novel . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 28, 1930
  5. Werner Helwig : Baroque epic from the Nordic forests . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung from 14./15. February 1959
  6. Walter Muschg: Monument of nature mysticism . In: Frankfurter Hefte . No. 14, 1959
  7. ^ Günter Blöcker: A new kind of person . In: FAZ from November 15, 1958
  8. ^ Jochen Meyer: Directory of the writings by and about Hans Henny Jahnn . Luchterhand, Neuwied 1967
  9. A strange saint . In: Frankfurter Hefte . No. 10, October 1970
  10. see: secondary literature and dissertations
  11. ^ Afterword of the 1985 edition, p. 917
  12. Perrudja , 1958 edition, p. 87
  13. Perrudja , 1958 edition, p. 420 f.
  14. ^ Thomas Freeman: Mythical-dialectical structures in Hans Henny Jahnns Perrudja . In: " text + criticism ". No. 2/3, Munich 1980, p. 39.
  15. ^ Hans Wolffheim: Hans Henny Jahnn. The tragedian of creation . Frankfurt am Main 1966, p. 26.
  16. ^ New manual of contemporary German literature since 1945 . Nymphenburger, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-485-03550-5 , p. 323.
  17. Wilpert. Lexicon of world literature . Works. Vol. L-Z, Munich 1997, p. 1022.
  18. Hans J. Fröhlich: Novels from yesterday - read today. As if scratched on stone tablets . In: FAZ, March 28, 1980
  19. p. 259 of his Jahnn biography, which contains a chapter on the novel Perrudja .
  20. The first sentences of the beginning of the novel in the chapter "The Horse", p. 15 of the 1958 edition
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 19, 2008 .