Traveling with my aunt (novel)
Traveling with my aunt (also: Die Reisen mit mein Aunt ; Original title: Travels with my aunt ) is a novel by Graham Greene , which was published in 1969. The novel was first published in German in 1970.
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Henry Pulling is a man in his fifties, formerly the head of a small bank branch in London , who was given early retirement by his employer and has been growing dahlias ever since. His circle of acquaintances is limited and includes only a few neighbors, all of whom can be passed as examples of British conservatism - just like himself. At his mother's funeral, he meets his only living relative, his aunt Augusta, who is twelve years younger, for the first time than his mother and whom he knows next to nothing about. However, the reverse is not true, because she assaults him on this occasion with the information that the woman he called his mother was not his birth mother at all - his father, however, was really his birth father.
He quickly realizes that Aunt Augusta is a woman with an extremely unconventional lifestyle: She lives in a bizarre apartment with a much younger man from Sierra Leone , called Wordsworth, who immediately puts the urn with the Ashes from Henry's "mother" misused for the purpose of smuggling marijuana. Instead of being shocked by these incidents, however, Henry is increasingly fascinated by his aunt, especially since she has led an eventful life and always has surprising stories to tell, even if she regularly goes beyond the framework of civil convention. She is also very fond of traveling and initially takes Henry on a short trip to Brighton, but then plans a longer trip on the Orient Express to Istanbul.
On this trip, he was initially amazed to discover that his aunt ignored all the currency restrictions that were in force at the time and smuggled all of her liquid assets to Paris, where it was first invested in a large gold bar, which was then worked into a harmless candle in Italy and in this way travels undiscovered to Istanbul. There the two travelers are expected by a police officer and expelled. Obviously, his aunt wanted to use this money to finance an attempted coup by a Turkish general, which was discovered ahead of time. Her motive is almost even more astonishing: Regardless of her casual way of life, there is obviously a great love in the life of Aunt Augusta, an Italian, whom she only calls "Mr. Visconti ”speaks, and who is apparently in financial difficulties.
Back in England, aunt and nephew spontaneously decide to pay a visit to Henry's father's grave, which is in Boulogne-sur-Mer , France . Once there, however, Aunt Augusta almost finds her master at this grave: an English woman with whom Henry's father had an affair at the time of his death, and whose stressed harmlessness leads to outbursts of jealous aggression in Augusta. When Henry reacts with incomprehension, Aunt Augusta leaves him with a cold and travels on to Paris alone, while Henry returns to London.
After three months in which Henry didn't hear from his aunt, the police suddenly stood behind him: Obviously, "Mr. Visconti “a war criminal wanted by Interpol, and Augusta's recent activities in Turkey have brought police into his tracks.
Half a year later, Henry received a letter from his aunt, in which she asked him to close up her apartment and travel to her and bring her only a framed photograph of the whole facility. She gives Buenos Aires as her destination , but he finally finds her - together with Mr. Visconti - in Asunción , Paraguay . An agent of the CIA also tracked down Mr. Visconti there, but he left him alone after Mr. Visconti gave him a (albeit fake) drawing by Leonardo da Vinci , which was hidden in the context of conscious photography. Secured in this way, Henry, Mr. Visconti and Aunt Augusta together set up a business based on alcohol and cigarette smuggling to Argentina. Henry, who finally recognizes his birth mother in Aunt Augusta, decides not to return to England.
filming
The film from 1972, which is only loosely based on the novel, won the Oscar in 1973 in the category “Best Costumes”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Greiwe: Graham Greene and the wealth of life. dtv, Munich, 2004, p. 63