The Last Miracle
The Last Miracle is the third part of the “Miracle Trilogy” by the German author Karl Gustav Vollmoeller . The novel was published in New York City in 1949 and in London in 1950 . In Germany , he was not moved until now.
Emergence
After his internment in February 1943, Karl Vollmoeller moved from Hollywood to New York City . Here he began in 1944 with the source study for his novel. In 1947 he wrote the plot in German under the name Das Mirakel von Heiligenbluth , before Louise Salm translated it into English in 1948 in a significantly shortened version . Shortly before his death in September 1948, Vollmoeller read proofreading, and in April 1949, six months after his death, the Duell, Sloan & Pearce publisher published the novel. A year later, in March 1950, a licensed edition for England and the Commonwealth was published by Cassells in London.
content
The first part of the novel deals with the origins and youth of the nun Megildis, the substitute for the figure of the knight Adrian and as an accompanying motif for the dark youth of Marcel, the figure of the minstrel from the 1st miracle, who ultimately becomes the evil spirit of the connection and separates the lovers by evil machinations. Marcel is the minstrel from the pantomime, in a changed, novel-like form that approximates reality.
The second part is about the escape from the monastery and the hiding of the lovers in Paris on the eve of the French Revolution . In drastic words, Vollmoeller expresses his disgust for war and the intractable, politically agitated crowd. Paris becomes the turning point in the relationship. Marcel, the minstrel, brings the lovers apart through clever intrigues. He sells the former nun with the golden voice as an opera singer to the opera houses of Europe and as a lover to a cruel Russian count. Adrian entered the Catholic Church as a clergyman, quickly made a career and rose to become a cardinal in Rome .
In the third part, the opera singer, who in the end lives completely dependent on Marcel, the minstrel, returns to the monastery. After Megildis was expecting a child from Marcel, he sold her as a whore to the imperial army. Re-accepted by the Virgin Mary into the monastery despite her sins and trespasses, the opera singer and whore becomes a pious, miracle-working nun again. The Virgin Mary takes her dead baby, brings it back to life and keeps it - like Jesus - in her arms. The nun dies shortly afterwards and the monastery tries to canonize her.
Reviews
“In the old age novel there is an immense number of ideas that show the author's very own world with its countless contradictions, a world of ideas that contains gnostic-dualistic elements, power-political and socially critical. Beyond all the often contradicting considerations, however, there is one thought that has no opposite pole: it is the poet's disgust for war. "
“This first, oversized novel, a posthumous publication by the author [...] has put its subject in the time of the French Revolution [...] and is probably looking more towards Hollywood than towards Broadway . The old legend is here, treated in a sometimes opulent realism that disguises the long-lost original piety behind a neo-romantic fog sparked by devilishly sophisticated flashes . This 'historical' novel is more pagan than Christian ”.
The novel “resembles his pantomime, 'Das Wunder' to a considerable extent [...]. 'The Miracle' contained far more of these religious arguments than some critics realized; direct and indirect [...] Max Reinhardt had a diabolical joy in staging the miracle as a purely religious piece, to clarify the profoundly devilish and to emphasize its symbolism [...] And something of the same kind of deception can be found in the novel [...] The author suggests that if this is actually the case, then perhaps all of the characters in the novel - and there are many of them - are also only part of Megildis' dream. This naturally leads the reader to other speculations [...] for example, what dream is the world with such an assumption? ".
Vollmoeller himself said: "This Novel does not pretend to be a 'historical' Novel [...] I wish to be understood as the modest contribution of a poet in depicting reverently some of the glory of the last and only spiritual power standing up in this tottering material world. [...] Being a Christian poet, if not a catholic, I just strove to open to others a little the closed mysterious doors through which I had obtained during a life time of reverent research a few glimpses and behind which I felt all my life there was daily being performed the Miracle of Miracles [...] What is 'The Miracle'? Is it a dream or a reality? As an artist I prefer to believe and I find more truth and poetry in a miracle than in a dream. "
filming
Warner Bros. and their Hollywood studios attempted their own adaptation of the novel in 1959 and released The Madonna with the Two Faces, starring Roger Moore . However, well-known actors such as Richard Burton and Greta Garbo , who were supposed to play the leading roles, canceled in advance.
literature
expenditure
- The Last Miracle . Duel, Sloan & Pearce, New York 1949.
- The Last Miracle . Cassells, London 1950.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ines R. Braver: Karl Gustav Vollmoeller . Dissertation from New York University. 1961.
- ↑ Mason Wade: The Last Miracle . In: The Commonweal . No. 10-17 June 1949.
- ↑ Joseph Henry Jackson: The Miracle . In: San Francisco Chronicle . 1949.
- ↑ Quoted from: Frederik D. Tunnat: Karl Vollmoeller . tredition, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86850-234-3 , pp. 80, 83.