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Unterleuten is a social novel by Juli Zeh from 2016, which is almost exclusively set in the fictional village of Unterleuten in Brandenburg and is mostly set in July / August 2010. When an investing company wants to build a wind farm , the social fabric of the village with 200 inhabitants gets into a vortex: Depending on their own interests, long-time residents and newcomers are sometimes allies, sometimes opponents, switch sides, fight for their interests with all the means available to them. A grasshopper from Ingolstadt is also part of the scenario. Old accounts are presented, relationships are changed. The novel demonstrates that there is no truth, only perspectives.

The novel is divided into six parts, which in turn are divided into eight to thirteen chapters, which bear the name of the character from whose perspective the story is told. This change of perspective shows the readers that all the characters make assumptions about their counterparts, which in retrospect turn out to be wrong. Jörg Magenau saw “the real charm of the novel” in the change of perspective. The text relies “entirely on plot and psychological figure drawing”, is “linguistically rather simple and conventionally knitted”, which, however, is not inappropriate for a village novel.

content

prehistory

Rudolf Gombrowski comes from a long-established family with land in Unterleuten. His opponent since his youth is Kron. As a teenager, he took part in the riots against Gombrowski's family, which drove them to give up the resistance to the collectivization of their landed property. After the political change, Gombrowski favored the transfer of the agricultural production cooperative into a GmbH with him as the sole managing director who would have power of attorney and 70 percent of the company shares. When Kron obstructed this plan, Gombrowski lured him into the forest, over which a heavy thunderstorm was already raging. There his henchman was supposed to intimidate Schaller Kron. During a scuffle between Kron and Schaller, Erik Kessler, who had come with Kron, was struck by a heavy branch. After Schaller gained the upper hand in the fight, he smashed Krons leg with an iron bar that he had brought with him, so that he has been limping ever since. Schaller later suffered memory loss in a motorcycle accident.

Starting point of the main story

The Vento Direct company intends to build a wind farm in the Brandenburg village of Unterleuten. There are two possible areas for this. One, a piece of forest, belongs to Kron. Of the second, the Leaning Cap , a large piece belongs to Rudolf Gombrowski, the arch enemy of Krons, and another to the speculator Konrad Meiler from Ingolstadt. Linda Franzen and her partner Frederik bought the small piece of land in between together with an old villa when they moved to Unterleuten shortly before the main story began.

Development of interest groups

Linda Franzen intends to turn a recently bought villa into a horse farm in order to bring her beloved stallion bergamot to Unterleuten. On the one hand, she needs a building permit , which the nature conservation authority has objected to; Gerhard Fliess was in charge here. On the other hand, she needs an adjacent property for the paddocks , which belongs to Konrad Meiler. According to her partner Frederik Wachs, she wants to "emerge from the windmill dispute as the new Gombrowski of Unterleuten."

Rudolf Gombrowski, initially the most powerful figure, is very interested in the construction of the wind farm on the Leaning Cap because he could use it to renovate his agricultural business. He tries to buy the missing piece from Linda Franzen. For a long time, this leaves him in the belief that she will be ready if he can get her the building permit she needs. Gerhard Fließ, on the other hand, assures her that she will not sell to Gombrowski and persuades him to withdraw the bird protection authority's objection to the building permit. Gombrowski then calls Mayor Arne Seidel to ensure that the permit is granted. When Linda Franzen has what she wanted, she transfers the plot of land on the leaning cap to Konrad Meiler and in return receives the required horse pasture and 50,000 euros. Compared to Gombrowski, she justified her change of heart by saying that she was threatened because of her pact with him. The readers already know that this is not the reason for their action.

Konrad Meiler sees the wind farm plans as an opportunity to get closer to his youngest son and, through him, to his wife Mizzie, who had already moved out of the shared villa. He announces that he wants to give the wind farm to him. He made it possible for Linda Franzen to buy the missing land by handing over the plot of land required for her horse pasture. But because of Mayor Arne Seidel's change of heart, Meiler's plan did not work out in the end.

Gerhard Fliess' wife Jule is fixated on their daughter Sophie, a six-month-old baby. Your neighbor, Schaller, Gombrowski's "man for the rough", burns car tires on his yard and pollutes the air without the police taking any effective action. Against this background, the Fließ-Weiland family initially positioned themselves against Gombrowski's wind farm plan. Then Kron's granddaughter disappears for a few hours and Gombrowski is suspected of having kidnapped her. Jule defends him against the allegations. Shortly afterwards, she reports to her husband that she briefly left her sight on Sophie in her cot in the garden and found her sitting on her blanket on the other side of the house. Jule now wants to remain neutral on the wind farm issue and influences her husband accordingly. This ensures that nature conservation no longer raises any objection to Gombrowski's wind farm and that Linda Franzen receives her building permit.

The mayor Arne Seidel, once brought into office by Gombrowski, is his puppet almost until the end of the novel. It was only very late that he saw through his relationship with him, turned away from Gombrowski and ensured that Kron was awarded the contract for the wind farm.

Figures (selection)

figure relationship stay children
Frederik Wachs

Linda Franzen

living together Unterleuten, drawn
Rudolf Gombrowski

Elena Gombrowski

married Under people Püppi (38 years)
Kron

Mrs. Kron

Cut Under people

left her husband thirty years ago

Kathrin Kron-Hübschke
Kathrin Kron-Hübschke

Wolfi Hübschke

married Under people Crown (5 years)
Bodo Schaller

Susanna Schaller

Cut Under people

left her husband after his accident

Miriam (18 years)
Arne Seidel

Barbara Seidel

widowed

 

 

dead

Konrad Meiler

Mizzie Meiler

married do not live in sub-people Friedrich, Johannes, Philipp (all adults)
Erik Kessler

Hilde Kessler

 

widowed

died 1991

 

Betty Kessler (21 Years)
Gerhard Fliess

Jule Fließ-Weiland

married Unterleuten, drawn Sophie (6 months)

Local grouping

Long-established residents
Gombrowski's failure in the novel Unterleuten (2016) by Juli Zeh
Rudolf Gombrowski. Gombrowski was born in Unterleuten in a landowning family. He is the head of the Ökologica GmbH farm , the largest employer in the village. At the time of the GDR he was chairman of the LPG Gute Hope . At the beginning of the novel he appears very wealthy and powerful: Arne Seidel became mayor at his instigation, many people in the village are dependent on him or owe him favors. He is married to Elena Gombrowski, née Niehaus, and has a daughter, called Püppi, who lives in Freiburg. Hilde Kessler is his best friend and lives in the neighboring house.
Newcomers
Linda Franzen: Linda's sense of life is the stallion bergamot. Her partner Frederik Wachs can only play second fiddle in the life of this “horse woman”. The attractive equine trainer pursues her plan with ambition and a lot of calculation to convert the old villa, which was bought shortly before the start of the main story, together with the adjoining pasture land into a horse farm, so that she can bring her horse to Unterleuten. She takes her “mental fitness program” from the books by Manfred Gortz .
Gerhard Fließ: Fließ was a lecturer in sociology in Berlin, married his former student Jule and with her a six-month-old daughter, Sophie. He now works in the bird protection agency and, if possible, prevents or cuts construction projects in the area.
Foreign
Miriam Schaller: Miriam is the daughter of Bodo and Susanna Schaller. She has lived with her mother in Berlin since Bodo Schaller's accident, visiting her father. She is in her Abitur year and already has a driver's license and a car that her father has prepared for her.

Other groupings

Some of the characters are strongly defined by the past. A prime example of this is Rudolf Gombrowski, who built his life on an order from his dying father. His thinking is determined by his experiences during the Cold War , his ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the conversion of private agricultural property into LPGs in GDR times and his successes in transforming the LPG into a GmbH after the political change . There is a strong bond with the country, with the place Unterleuten. Important social relationships are also shaped by it: The hostility towards Kron can be traced back to his behavior during the collectivization phase of agriculture:

“To this day, Gombrowski remembers the sound of the windows bursting and Kron's crazy look. He could hear the slogans being shouted, Junkerland in peasant hands, while Kron hit the windows of his parents' house until there was no more splinter in the frame. "

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

Another group of figures is rooted in the 21st century. One of them is Frederik Wachs, who works on the development of computer games in his brother's company . He spends a lot of time at his workplace in Berlin and lives a lot in a virtual world.

“Even in Unterleuten it was difficult for him to concentrate on the personnel of Unterleuten. Whenever he was in Berlin, the village was transformed into a Dostoevsky novel in which each character was accompanied by the question: Who was that again? "

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

For him, the events in Unterleuten are nothing but material suppliers: when they give him the idea of ​​conceiving a nature reserve as an extension for a computer game , he is on fire for the idea.

Linda Franzen can be classified in this group in a different way. On the one hand, a significantly different status of real estate can be determined compared to the first group. Although Linda pursues her project for a long time to build a horse farm in Unterleuten, this project does not feed from the bond with Unterleuten, but from her infatuation with her horse. At the end of the novel, the reader learns that, according to Frederik Wachs, she returned to Oldenburg to see her stallion. Real estate changes Linda's attitude towards life and becomes a means of self-realization for her: She comes to believe that human fate depends on real estate, that a house will transform “the frightening labyrinth of possibilities of the future into manageable terrain”, and she feels proud of it, “ to build a bulwark against the zeitgeist in her run-down villa “Linda also differs from Gombrowski in how she handles power. Both of them are "fighters" in Linda's view. Both use people for their own ends; In Linda's head there is a switch for turning people off, which automatically flips if something does not fit into the concept. She doesn't like emotions, "at least not those of other people".

Linda sees herself as a “mover” with the task of “moving herself and others”, and the power structure in the village as a machine, which she can learn to operate.

At the end of the novel, Arne Seidel addresses a paradigm shift:

“Unterleuten has been ruled by old men long enough. The time of the old men is over. "

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

Kathrin Kron-Hübschke becomes mayor.

Central themes

truth

Frequent changes of perspective show the readers that all the characters make assumptions about their counterparts, which in retrospect often turn out to be “errors and delusions”.

"Everyone constantly believed they knew everything, while in truth no one was in the picture."

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

There is no more objective truth than an authority that can vouch for it.

"The truth was not what had really happened, but what people were telling each other."

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

In this way, “the image is constantly relativized and supplemented.” The novel shows that there are only perspectives, not truth.

"There is no truth [...], only perspectives."

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

The epilogue contains the image of the kaleidoscope , which shows a new image after each rotation. Truth is not absolute

"The truth was not what had really happened, but what people were telling each other."

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

Truth is reduced to probability .

“Gerhard had carefully broken down all statements into their components and reassembled the information. What came out represented the truth. Then at least if one was enlightened enough to regard truth as the case with the highest probability. "

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

Selfishness and lack of empathy

The novel raises the question of whether there is still morality beyond self-interest in the present.

“The 20th century had finally come to an end in Kron, this epoch of collective madness. With a small step he arrived in the present, in the 21st century, the age of unconditional egocentricity. If the belief in the good failed, it had to be replaced by the belief in the own. "

- Juli Zeh : Unterleuten

Character failure is based on a lack of empathy . Every person, according to Lucy Finkbeiner about her findings from Unterleuten, lives in his own universe, and there he is right from morning to evening.

family

The family plays a big role in motivating the characters. Usually it is the offspring who are given as the reason for their own actions: For Kron, the existence of his granddaughter Krönchen justifies everything he does for her, and Jule Fließ-Weiland cites the well-being of her little daughter as the reason for her exit Protest against the wind turbines; Konrad Meiler intends to build the wind farm for his son. Linda Franzen has no children, but orientates everything she does to her plan to bring her stallion to Unterleuten. This takes on the role of a child substitute. Gombrowski, on the other hand, feels obliged to his father, to whom he promised shortly before his death that the land would be returned to the family. At the end of his own life, Gombrowski sees the country as its “true dictator”, the engine of his actions.

identity

Some characters are trying to redefine themselves, to “invent” themselves - Gerhard Fließ moves to the country and uses his profession as an environmentalist as a weapon against building projects, Schaller has lost his memory after an accident, but finds himself in old structures, and Manfred Gortz propagates the identity-forming power of one's own will. But nobody can completely escape their origins, their previous life.

The idealization of rural life is also discussed, as is the fact that moving to the country is often only a sham solution to a displaced conflict. The newcomers do not want to settle into the reality of the village, but rather graft their own dream dreams into it. This attitude culminates in Gerhard Fließ: "The move to the country was not a problem, but the solution. [...] The name of the place where the bird sanctuary was located was program: Salvation of the soul."

shape

The text is dedicated to For Ada and the motto 'Everything is will.' Manfred Gortz prefixed. The novel is divided into six parts, which the headings Beloved Babies , The animal next door , False Friends , At night the animals , Communicating Vessels and carrion carry. These parts are each divided into eight to thirteen chapters, each named after the character from whose perspective the story is being told.

Time structure

The time told can essentially be narrowed down to the summer of 2010, the accident at the Love Parade is mentioned. But only through resolving flashbacks , which lead to the time after German reunification, do readers find out what led to Erik Kessler's death and Krons' leg injury on the evening of November 3, 1991.

In the epilogue , the journalist Lucy Finkbeiner, who comes to Unterleuten only after the decisive events, gives a brief summary of the further life of important characters and the village as a whole from the time interval of a few months. Only here does the “authorial, omniscient narrator”, who is present throughout the novel, receive her name.

Spatial structure

The characters in the fictional village of Unterleuten live in close proximity. The spatial relationships are essential for the relationships between certain figures.

Confusion between fiction and reality

Juli Zeh has expanded her project "to a multimedia total work of art": There is not only a homepage from Unterleuten, but also one from the local bird protection association, the wind energy company Vento Direct and from Gasthaus Märkischer Landmann with a menu. The boundaries between fiction and reality are becoming even more blurred: The guide Your success from Linda's idol Manfred Gortz, often quoted in the novel, actually exists. It was published by Goldmann Verlag , which belongs to the same publishing group as the publisher in which Unterleuten came out. The examples in this guide are all from Unterleuten , written by Juli Zeh under the pseudonym Manfred Gortz. This turns out to be the "secret center of the novel plot". According to Juli Zeh, this figure is “immediately recognizable as a satire” and she was amazed to find that only a few readers saw through the confusion.

Position in literary history

Several other novels were published in close proximity to Unterleuten , which critics assigned to the genre village novel . These include, for example, Der Fuchs by Nis-Momme Stockmann , Auf Amerika by Bernd Schroeder or Altes Land by Dörte Hansen . The novel Before the Festival by Saša Stanišić also reflects contemporary social contexts in the topos of a village in the Uckermark region. Juli Zeh's subordinates can be classified in this line. Jörg Magenau stated: "It could be that society novels are only possible as village novels."

The name Ada used in the dedication corresponds to that of the main female character in Juli Zeh's novel Spieltrieb .

Part IV of the novel, in which the little crown disappears, is called " At night these are animals" . This is also the title of an essay by the author. In it, Juli Zeh describes a hike on Lanzarote through a “bizarre landscape of black stone sculptures” to the rim of the Timanfaya crater : “At night, I wouldn't be surprised, they are animals. With paws and teeth that hit the ankles of reckless hikers. "The text addresses the fact that the forces of nature can be unleashed at any time and we humans still carry on," day after day, with what we think of our lives. "

The "exciting novel" that Kathrin Kron-Hübschke reads after work can be about Juli Zeh's reeds . In return, Juli Zeh's newer novel Empty Hearts again relates to Unterleuten : the minor character G. Flossen there is Gerhard Fließ, who at the time of the novel was written in 2025 after serving his prison sentence as a result of the events described in Unterleuten has undergone radicalization to become an eco-terrorist .

reception

Contemporary criticism

The novel was extensively reviewed by German-language critics in the print media, radio and television and was largely received positively. It was possible to present “present phenomena and moral questions in a fast-paced text (and despite its size not too long)”, said Christoph Schröder in the Tagesspiegel . “Captivatingly written, lively and exciting,” said Natascha Geier on the TV show ttt - title, theses, spirits and spoke of a great novel.

Jörg Magenau saw “the real charm of the novel” in the change of perspective. The text relies “entirely on plot and psychological figure drawing”, is “linguistically rather simple and conventionally knitted”, which, however, is not inappropriate for a village novel. Katharina Granzin, reviewer of the taz , stated that her "basic expectation of literature as a great medium for creating meaning or at least for circumnavigating problems" had been disappointed by subordinates . Ronald Meyer-Arlt said in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung that the novel was "very entertaining [...], very elegant, [...] but it seldom sparkles", and suspects that the "intertextual pretzel" serves to "add to the novel's weaknesses." conceal. "

The state energy and climate protection agency Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has published a fact check to illustrate the wind energy project.

Commercial win

The novel, published in March 2016, became the most successful fiction book by a German-speaking author in the year of publication. The hardcover -Issue was just after appearance on the mirror - bestseller place, reached in the weekly list eight times the 2nd place and 78 weeks was conducted among the 50 best-selling books. The novel is the most expensive (24.99 euros) and most extensive (640 pages) book among the 25 top titles of 2016.

filming

The novel was filmed by Matti Geschonneck in 2018 for ZDF under the title Unterleuten - The torn village , Magnus Vattrodt wrote the scripts. The shooting took place from July to October 2018 in Brandenburg, including in Brieselang-Bredow and Willmersdorf near Werneuchen . Thomas Thieme took over the role of Gombrowski , Linda Franzen was played by Miriam Stein .

Radio play adaptation

In a cooperation between NDR and rbb , a six-part radio play adaptation was created, which was broadcast for the first time on October 3, 2018. Directed by Judith Lorentz , the actors were Hilmar Eichhorn (Rudolf Gombrowski), Jaecki Schwarz (Kron), Udo Wachtveitl (Konrad Meiler), Tanja Wedhorn (Linda Franzen), Moritz Grove (Frederik Wachs), Bettina Kurth (Jule Weiland), Wolfram Koch (Gerhard Fließ), Axel Prahl (Bodo Schaller), Lisa Hrdina (Miriam Schaller), Ulrike Krumbiegel (Elena Gombrowski), Swetlana Schönfeld (Hilde Kessler), Jördis Triebel (Betty Kessler), Winnie Böwe (Kathrin Kron-Hübschke) and Other. This interpretation of the work won the German Audiobook Prize 2019 for 'The Best Audiobook'.

Theater adaptations

The stage version by Jenke Nordalm (director) and Beate Seidel (dramaturgy) premiered on November 18, 2017 at the Nationaltheater Weimar . The staging is about “the village in its polyphony”, which “at the beginning can be experienced as an accepting, even mutually tolerant community”, “which, however, terminates its halfway functioning social contract in the course of the action.” In the center of the “However, the theater story is about Krönchen, Kron's granddaughter, who in the end emerges from the story as the winner, at least materially. She is the narrator and 'puller' of the evening, because she represents the generation that can leave subordinates behind. So there is hope for a new beginning - far away from Unterleuten. ”The performance rights of the stage version by Jenke Nordalm and Beate Seidel are owned by Rowohlt Theaterverlag .

Further stage versions were or are being performed at theaters in Potsdam , Bonn , Aachen and Berlin .

literature

expenditure

Interviews

Secondary literature

Reviews (selection)

Web links

Quoted edition

  1. ↑ p. 418.
  2. ↑ p. 288.
  3. ↑ p. 547.
  4. ↑ p. 471.
  5. ↑ pp. 596-597.
  6. ↑ p. 33.
  7. ↑ p. 187.
  8. ↑ p. 97.
  9. ↑ p. 415.
  10. ↑ p. 631.
  11. ↑ p. 460.
  12. ↑ p. 468.
  13. ↑ p. 587.
  14. ↑ p. 262.
  15. ↑ p. 264.
  16. ↑ p. 461.
  17. ↑ p. 598.
  18. ↑ p. 606.
  19. ↑ p. 408.
  20. ↑ p. 533.
  21. ↑ p. 408.
  22. ↑ p. 558.
  23. ↑ p. 614.
  24. ↑ p. 630.
  25. ↑ p. 611.
  26. ↑ p. 498.
  27. ↑ p. 227.
  28. ↑ p. 187.
  29. ↑ p. 545.
  30. ↑ p. 22.
  31. ↑ pp. 626-635.
  32. ↑ p. 353.
  33. ↑ pp. 359-360.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b July Zeh - Unterleuten - Luchterhand. In: unterleuten.de. Retrieved April 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b Dieter Wunderlich: July Zeh: Unterleuten (book tip). In: dieterwunderlich.de. November 3, 2008, accessed April 16, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Richard Kämmerlings: "There are such blatant things in there". In: welt.de . May 3, 2016, accessed May 3, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b Juli Zehs "Unterleuten": Wind turbines on dung heaps - Culture - Tagesspiegel. In: tagesspiegel.de . Retrieved April 17, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b c Jörg Magenau: Juli Zeh: "Unterleuten" - large farmer meets wind farm investor. In: deutschlandradiokultur.de. March 5, 2016, accessed April 17, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Nis-Momme Stockmann: Finally being part of something big. In: zeit.de . April 3, 2016, accessed April 17, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Cornelia Staudacher: Village novel with its own sound. In: deutschlandfunk.de. May 7, 2012, accessed April 17, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Martina Sulner: Dörte Hansen surprises with the village novel Altes Land - HAZ - Hannoversche Allgemeine. In: haz.de. April 17, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Verena Auffermann: Novel by Saša Stanišić: One and a half neo-Nazis . In: The time . No. 11/2014 ( online ).
  10. ↑ July Zeh: At night these are animals. First printing: Stern , No. 42, October 10, 2013.
  11. ↑ July Zeh: At night these are animals. In: Juli Zeh: Animals are at night. Essays. Munich, Random House, 2016, ISBN 978-3-442-71353-0 , pp. 237–243.
  12. ↑ July Zeh: At night these are animals. In: Juli Zeh: Animals are at night. Essays. Munich, Random House, 2016, ISBN 978-3-442-71353-0 , p. 237.
  13. ↑ July Zeh: At night these are animals. In: Juli Zeh: Animals are at night. Essays. Munich, Random House, 2016, ISBN 978-3-442-71353-0 , p. 243.
  14. ↑ How wind power divides a village - Juli Zeh's great social novel “Unterleuten” - ttt - title, theses, spirits. (No longer available online.) In: daserste.de. March 24, 2016, archived from the original on April 17, 2016 ; Retrieved April 17, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daserste.de
  15. ↑ Katharina Granzin: New novel by Juli Zeh: Something stinks in Unterleuten. In: taz.de . April 12, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2016 .
  16. ^ Roland Meyer-Arlt: Juli Zeh reads from her novel "Unterleuten". In: haz.de. May 24, 2016, accessed May 30, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Our fact check for the film "Unterleuten" based on the novel by Juli Zeh. (pdf; 979 kB) State Energy and Climate Protection Agency Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, March 24, 2020, accessed on June 6, 2020 .
  18. ^ Rowling-Fitzek-Rowling. In: Börsenblatt . December 30, 2016, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  19. ^ "Unterleuten" - event series based on a novel by Juli Zeh / Matti Geschonneck directed by ZDF Presseportal. In: presseportal.zdf.de. October 13, 2016, accessed December 6, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Unterleuten - The Torn Village . In: Crew United , accessed March 4, 2020
  21. ↑ page of the rbb about the radio play
  22. ↑ Popshot: Unterleuten (play after July Zeh until May 19, 2019 in the Berlin Schillertheater). Retrieved May 10, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Beate Seidel: About the piece . In: Nationaltheater Weimar (Ed.): Juli Zeh: Unterleuten. Program booklet . Weimar November 18, 2017.
  24. ↑ Oliver Kranz: Unterleuten . Ed .: rbb kulturradio. January 16, 2018 ( kulturradio.de ).