Seafaring is necessary! (Novel)
"Seafaring is not necessary!" Is a 1913 novel by the writer Gorch Fock .
content
The action takes place in Finkenwärder (today's Finkenwerder near Hamburg , which was spelled with "ä" until 1946) at the end of the 19th century. Klaus Mewes (nickname Klaus Störtebeker ), son of a deep-sea fisherman, is drawn out to sea. He tries everything to get his father's cabin boy on. His efforts are successful and he is allowed to accompany his father to fish in the North Sea . Even when the father doesn't come back from a trip, Klaus doesn't stop on land. He continues to sail successfully and ultimately becomes the owner of the most beautiful oyster cutter on the Elbe .
In what is probably his most famous novel , Gorch Fock depicts the life of fishermen on the " Waterkant " in a realistic way . The author succeeds in creating a dense atmosphere of sea, wanderlust, shipping, local color and the working world of fishermen. Low German dialogues are one of his creative tools.
At the center of the novel is the boy Klaus. Fock depicts him in an existential conflict situation. On the one hand, Klaus wants to emulate his father, his great role model, and go out to sea as a fisherman. But on the other side is the mother. Above all, she associates danger, pain and death with the sea and therefore tries to keep Klaus on land.
reception
Gorch Fock's homeland novel was a great literary success. Initially read primarily as an adventure and youth novel, it later fitted into the propaganda concept of the National Socialists . Even if anti-English echoes of German national orientation become clear, from today's perspective it would probably not be correct to assign Gorch Fock's novel to the genre of blood-and-soil literature .
Film adaptations
1921: seafaring is necessary! (Silent film, 5 acts, 1761 m) - director: Rudolf Biebrach , with Rudolf Biebrach, Lucie Höflich , Albert Kunze , Hugo Döblin , Ilka Grüning , Werner Pfullmann , Hans Marr , Hermann Picha , Martha Laurance and Tommy Tomborini
literature
- Gorch Fock : seafaring is necessary! , rororo paperback edition, 1961