The cinema-goer
The cinema goer (original title; The Moviegoer ) is the debut novel by the American writer Walker Percy , which was published in 1961 and won the National Book Award in1962. The German translation by Peter Handke was only published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 1980.
Before his conversion to Catholicism in 1947, Percy dealt intensively with the philosophers Sören Kierkegaard and Charles Sanders Peirce . Kierkegaard's existential philosophy in particular shapes the novel, with which the author established himself as one of the most important writers in the American South . The cinema-goer is one of the classic works of American literature of the 20th century. Time magazine named this novel among the top 100 English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. The British newspaper The Guardian included the novel in its list of the 1000 must-read novels in 2009.
action
The movie-goer is the story of Binx Bolling, descendant of a distinguished Southern family and young securities dealer in New Orleans in the post-war years. The decline of traditional southern life, his family's problems, and his traumatic experiences in the Korean War have all made Bolling feel alienated from his life and those around him. His life has been daydreaming and he has difficulty entering into long-term relationships. He only finds meaning and truthfulness in movies and books, but no longer in the routine of his own life.
During Mardi Gras , Bolling breaks out of his present life and goes on a search for who he really is. Wandering the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter and traveling the Gulf Coast, his encounters force him to grapple with himself and his relationships with friends, family, loved ones, and professional goals.
subjects
Like all the important characters in Percy's narrative work, Bolling is also a seeker of the answer to the question that Percy kept asking himself: Why does one feel so sad in the twentieth century - why are people so sad in the 20th century? Percy's heroes are outsiders of their society because of their sensitivity or their religious affiliation. Like Percy himself, they feel repulsed by an American culture that is increasingly shaped by shopping centers, country clubs and row houses in the suburbs.
Reviews
In an interview with the Kölner Stadtanzeiger in 2013, the writer Sibylle Lewitscharoff stated that she had been enthusiastic about the novel since the German translation was published in 1980. It is something very rare in the really first-class literature [...] that a novel is about the success of the good - and that it succeeds without kitsch. It is perhaps the greatest difficulty of all in modern times - that a novel does not have to lead through abysses.
“Shining bee yellow, and for 200 pages an almost young man searching for it, but what does he really not know about the absolute, life? Women around him, millions of beautiful women, he says (he tells himself), in every southern house they grow by themselves, in his small office there is also one, Sharon, sitting and being kissed by the sea. Something like passion is already part of his search, but without this unattractive addition of ambition - happiness wants to be found differently in such books. Do you sometimes have the feeling, what am I saying, the certainty that all of a sudden you are reading the most beautiful book in the world? Most beautiful books in the world - these are those books that have not been authenticated by any authority, without which there would be too little happiness in reading. Let me name a few: Alain-Fournier's Großer Meaulnes , Fromentin's Dominique , Sarah Orne Jewett's Land of Pointed Firs , Herman Bang's summer joys and now this book, Walker Percy's cinema-goer - because that's what he likes to do the second most, the searching young man, he leaves to the movies."
Attempt to film
Terrence Malick was working on a script during the 1980s , but ultimately stopped working on it.
literature
- Peter Strasser, A little consolation. Addenda to Bliss. Paderborn 2015. pp. 84–86.
Individual evidence
- ^ "National Book Awards - 1962" . National Book Foundation . Accessed July 20, 2014.
- ↑ 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: The Definitive List , accessed July 20, 2014.
- ^ Peter Conn: Literature in America - An Illustrated History. Cambridge University Press, London 1989, ISBN 0-521-30373-7 , p. 497.
- ↑ Interview with Sibylle Lewitscharoff: Writing is a lonely activity. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger. June 5, 2013, accessed July 21, 2014.
- ↑ Quoted from books that should never end. In: The time. January 26, 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
- ↑ Beyond Jodorowsky's Dune: 10 greatest movies never made. BBC, accessed July 20, 2014 .
Web links
- The New Statesman , Stephen Amidon on the novel The Moviegoer , December 3, 2001. (English)