Taboo (novel)
Tabu is Ferdinand von Schirach's second novel . The book was published in September 2013. Tabu uses the example of the life story of the installation artist Sebastian von Eschburg to address the question of guilt , innocence and excuse.
content
Sebastian von Eschburg grew up in a hunting lodge in southern Germany. His mother is a passionate tournament rider and his father hunts in his free time. Sebastian is a synesthete . He spends his school days in a Swiss boarding school. While on vacation, he watches his father eviscerate a deer. That same evening, the father shoots himself with his hunting rifle. The boy finds the body, takes the cigarette case and leaves the room as if he hadn't seen anything. After the funeral, the mother dissolves the household and Sebastian goes back to his Swiss school. He is now withdrawing into a fantasy world, which is encouraged by his special gift of experiencing the colors.
The new home of the Eschburg family will be a riding stables, where the mother will concentrate fully on competition riding. She introduces the now sixteen-year-old Sebastian to her new friend, whom Sebastian always calls "the doer". The relationship between the creator and Sebastian is tense, he remains suspicious and distant because he still mourns his father.
After graduating from high school, he began an apprenticeship with a photographer. After completing his training, he opened his own studio in Berlin. His unprocessed photographs are terrifyingly naturalistic. He relies on the effect of “truth” and “reality” in the photos. These special features make Eschburg a famous and sought-after photographer. He starts a relationship with Sofia.
Then follows a cut in the narrative. New people are introduced: a nameless police officer who interrogates an equally nameless suspect and the public prosecutor Monika Landau is the focus. Apparently a crime was committed in which a young woman was believed to have been killed. One finds clues and the alleged murder weapon. However, the body is missing. The suspect is Sebastian von Eschburg. During the interrogation, a police officer threatens to torture the suspect in order to save the alleged victim. Sebastian confesses to the alleged murder under threat of waterboarding .
The renowned Berlin lawyer Konrad Biegler takes over the "Eschburg case". During Biegler's and Sofia's search for clues in Eschburg's former homeland, it turns out that Eschburg has a half-sister who is attending the Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun . In the process it turns out that the alleged murder was staged.
Childhood and youth
Sebastian von Eschburg grew up in the village of Eschburg, which is located between Munich and Salzburg. He lives with his father and mother in a house on the lake where he was born. In this house there are many objects from all over the world that have been collected over time by many generations of those from Eschburg. When he was ten, Sebastian was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He only returns to the house on the lake during the long holidays. After the death of his father, he and his mother move to a leased riding stables near Freiburg. When Sebastian was 16 years old, their mother's new friend moved in with them. Sebastian left the boarding school at the age of 18.
Adult
After a short stay at the riding stables, Sebastian rents a tiny furnished room in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After a few years he moved into a two-story factory building in the courtyard of a residential building on Linienstraße in Berlin-Mitte. He set up a photo studio on the lower floor and lives on the upper floor. Four years later he flies to Paris for a business lunch with Sofia. Their love affair begins in Paris. A little later they fly to Madrid together to see the dressed and the naked Maja von Goya . This work inspires Sebastian for his photography Majas Männer . In order to realize this work, they drive to a porn producer who lives in a small square house which is at the top of a hill. On the way back, Sofia and Sebastian come to Eschburg. Overall, the village has changed a lot, everything has been modernized. Out of the house by the lake was a Golf - Resort built. Only the lake has not changed. After Sebastian was arrested on suspicion of murder, a police officer threatened him with torture during an interrogation at police headquarters. Sebastian thereby confesses his alleged act. In the remand prison, Sebastian and his defense lawyer Biegler had several conversations, including one about the question: “What is guilt?” The courtroom plays a central role, in which Sebastian's confession is declared unusable. There, the mystery of the murder case is finally resolved.
people
Sebastian of Eschburg
Sebastian is a scion from an impoverished nobility. He is an only child, his parents only look after him sporadically, and he is a loner even during his boarding school days. He is a synesthete, and this particular talent affects the images he takes as a professional photographer. His girlfriend Sofia seems to be the only one who understands his peculiarities.
The parents
Sebastian's parents go their own way. When the marriage finally threatens to fail, the father becomes an alcoholic and ultimately takes his own life. After his death it turns out that he had a child in Austria with the daughter of an innkeeper, but that he did not live to see it again.
Senja Finks
Senja Finks, from Ukraine, is a neighbor of Sebastian. One day she is allegedly the victim of a violent crime. The perpetrator, who also knocks Sebastian down, was allegedly Senja's pimp. A complaint is not made, whether it was real at all or only existed in Sebastian's imagination, remains open.
The lawyer
The defense attorney Konrad Biegler is currently on cure to recover from a burnout when he is asked for help by Sebastian, who is accused of murder, based on a newspaper article in which Biegler claims, “Truth and Reality are completely different things, just as law and morality are different ”. With the help of detailed research and extensive professional experience, he can prove that the whole case was a mere staging and proves Eschburg's innocence, thus proving himself to be a real “lawyer”.
shape
Corresponding to the importance of colors in the life of the synaesthetist Eschburg, the chapters of the book that are synonymous with his life phases are marked by the colors green, red, blue and white. White means, as indicated by a reference to the theory of colors by the physicist Helmholtz , a synthesis of individual phases of the protagonist's life.
Interpretations
Different taboos play a role in the life of the main character Sebastian von Eschburg, such as the suicide of the father, who is kept secret in the family, or a possible sibling incest.
At first glance a pure detective novel , it is more of a psychological, socially critical novel in which ideas about the crime itself and the social causes and the legitimacy of the investigative methods are discussed.
Another topic is the importance of art for society in general and the protagonist in particular. For Eschburg, art is a place of refuge where he can process his experiences and impressions of the world and thus help him escape from reality. His photographs make people and their world bearable for him because he can look at them from a certain distance. Art offers him the opportunity to tame the flood of colors in his head with monotonous color schemes in his pictures. For Eschburg, art is the only way to survive in the world. Since he finds it difficult to deal with people and social norms, art becomes a means of communication with outsiders for him.
As von Schirach suggests, the artist is always in search of truth by attempting to use art to express the difference between truth and reality.
criticism
The German-language literary criticism reacted largely negatively to von Schirach's book. Verena Mayer from the Süddeutsche Zeitung considers the book to be a “theses with bloodless figures” and mourns the author's two previous books - Crime and Guilt . The reviewer of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Hans Hintermeier, criticizes the pale and template-like figures and the “banal” dialogues. He considers the "philosophical reflections of the protagonists [for] a flat bunch". A slating the criticism of Ulrich Greiner in time . The author loves philosophical drivel and “meaningful psychologism”. The topics the novel touches on - what does truth mean in art and what does it mean in life? - the language of the author is not up to date, and on the whole the book is “a big bluff”.
Schirach's novel, on the other hand, is assessed positively by Matthias Matussek im Spiegel : “How wonderful, such a book that consists of lots of clear sentences, which are slim and clever, that resonate and, in their beauty pull, take the reader on a journey into pre-civilizational horror. ... This novel, which works with an infinite number of levels, is not only artfully assembled, but it dissolves itself into art. "
foreign countries
Tabu was received positively abroad . In Great Britain, where the book is called The Girl Who Wasn't There , the Sunday Times wrote : "Ferdinand von Schirach is one of the most celebrated crime writers in Europe", it is a "sophisticated novel about a man whose emotional unaffectedness as well hypothermic how destructive it is ”. The Guardian said the novel was "written in a wonderfully low-key style," consistent with "the protagonist's pristine nature and his very abstract view of the world." The Observer believes that Schirach writes in an “ice cold, effortlessly elegant language”, that the novel is “as captivating and eccentric as its protagonist.” The Daily Telegraph considers Schirach “one of the most distinctive voices in European literature”. In England, The Girl Who Wasn't There was # 1 on the TIMES bestseller list (The Times Saturday Review).
Schirach's taboo was even brought to the theater stage in Japan in 2015. The world premiere took place in the New National Theater in Tokyo in the presence of Schirachs.
output
- Ferdinand von Schirach: Taboo. Piper Verlag , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-05569-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Quoted from Perlentaucher.de , accessed on October 17, 2016
- ↑ Ulrich Greiner: A murder that wasn't. In: Die Zeit No. 37, 2013, September 8, 2013.
- ↑ Matthias Matussek: Color Theory In: Der Spiegel No. 37, 2013
- ↑ Ferdinand von Schirach also successful in Great Britain. In: Book Market . January 13, 2014, accessed January 25, 2014 .
- ↑ Christian House: The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach, review: 'an effective mystery'. In: Daily Telegraph . January 29, 2015, accessed January 31, 2015 .
- ↑ TIMES of August 1, 2015, Saturday Review p. 19.
- ↑ Ferdinand von Schirach is celebrated in Japan . Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 10, 2015, accessed on August 3, 2020 .