Bad ending
Bad End is the first part of the Eddie Dickens trilogy by Philip Ardagh , which in the meantime has seen three more sequels in addition to terrifying performances (2nd part) and Bad News (3rd part) and therefore more of a series in six parts than is a trilogy.
action
Due to a very rare illness that Eddie Dickens' parents got when he was eleven years old, he is supposed to spend the time until they are cured with his insane (great) uncle Jack and his even more insane wife Maud. Jack thinks dried fish is a valid currency and Maud always carries a stuffed weasel with him. Due to the illness, Eddie's parents are "yellow and wavy around the edges" and smell of old hot water bottles.
Jack picks him up in a carriage with Maud and the three make their way to their estate "Bad End". On the way they pick up the (actually quite crazy) theater director Pumblesnook, Eddie accidentally comes to the orphanage “Sankt-Fearful-Home for grateful orphans”, whose motto is: “Work hard. Get very dirty. Be very unhappy ”and go through terrible hours. Ultimately, however, he manages to escape and free all orphans. Meanwhile, the parents' house burns down and they are healed and go in search of their son.
Remarks
- The author continued writing the novel for his nephew, who was in boarding school. There the continuations were read to the entire class.
- The book, which comes up with very funny and bizarre humor, contains a whole series of speeches by the author, with which he steps out of the plot and addresses the reader directly. He repeatedly points out that the story takes place in an earlier century when other social mores were valid, some people were not yet alive (Einstein, Charles Dickens ), certain inventions not yet (the airplane), others only recently invented goods (stamps, revolvers).
- Not only because of the name of the title character, the story is a parody of the novels by Charles Dickens, which mostly denounced social grievances and often had young people as the main character, including the orphan boys Oliver Twist , David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby , who like Eddie from adults and being pushed back, only that this is grotesquely exaggerated.
- The translation was done by Harry Rowohlt , who preserved the humor of the original. He often complained in footnotes that something couldn't be translated.
- The translator Harry Rowohlt read all six volumes, which are available as audio books on 3 CDs each (or 4 CDs for the 6th volume).
- Although it is a children's or teenage literature, Eddie Dickens' adventures are also popular with adult readers.
Awards
Schlimmes Ende was awarded the “ LUCHS ” 2002 and the German Youth Literature Prize 2003 in the children's book category.
The Eddie Dickens Books
- Bad Ending (2002)
- Terrifying Performances (2003)
- Bad News (2004)
- Unpleasant Surprises (2005)
- Abominable Habits (2006)
- Final Act (2007)
Web links
Former website at randomhouse.de ( Memento from January 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Remarks
- ↑ Philip Ardagh, Bad End, cbj, 2009, ISBN 9783570215074 , a note from the author
- ↑ Source: https://books.google.de/books?id=xRNQ8eGbp3EC&hl=de&source=gbs_navlinks_s - accessed on July 16, 2017 at 8:11 pm