Contempt (novel)
Contempt (in the Danish original: Journal 64 ) is a thriller by the Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen . The original edition of the fourth part of the Carl-Mørck-Dezernat-Q-series appeared in 2011 in Denmark .
action
Blurb
The blurb reads: A series of missing persons from 1987 linked by one person and their dire fate: Nete Hermansen. A young woman with no chance of a self-determined life, cruelly abused by people, is forcibly sterilized by a fanatical doctor and banished to Sprogø, the island for outcast women. She cruelly takes revenge .
content
The fourth volume of the crime series is also about the investigative work of the Copenhagen Special Department Q under Commissioner Carl Mørck and his assistants.
Adler-Olsen connects three narrative strands: the story of humiliation, the story of vengeance, the story of obsession. All three are separated from each other by decades, but come together in a tragic fate.
The story of Nete Rosen begins in November 1985 at an honorary dinner on the occasion of the presentation of the Great Nordic Prize for Medicine. She comes from a very simple social background, characterized by poverty and violence, but now has the opportunity to enjoy the “better life” through her husband. This works until she is recognized by one of the doctors who brutally confronts her with her past.
Carl Mørck becomes involved in the case of a prostitute who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1987. A computer search expands the circle of people who have disappeared. In total there were five people who disappeared from public life at the same time in 1987. During their investigation, the Carl Mørck team came across the figure of the right-wing gynecologist Curt Wad. He plans to move into the Danish parliament with his new party.
In a retrospective, the life of Nete Hermansen is told as the central character of the story. She was born in the 1930s and spent her childhood on a farm doing hard farming. Since there were few opportunities for schooling for the simple rural population at that time, Nete could only read and write rudimentary. After her mother died early, the father was overwhelmed with the upbringing of his daughter. As a teenager, she got on the wrong track and had two abortions after being raped by her cousin. Because of Nede's way of life, the father's custody is withdrawn and she begins a long period of suffering in several foster families. She experiences humiliation, marginalization, and abuse throughout her life. Until she finally ends up on the island of Sprogø , an abandoned island in the Great Belt , in an institution for socially sanitary women.
The second period begins in 1955 and deals with life and survival in the Kellerchen asylum on Sprogø, where hatred and intrigue reign. The climate between the imprisoned women is marked by violence and the complete lack of human warmth. Each of the interned women tries to gain an advantage over the others. Nete Hermansen was twenty years old at this point and hopes not to end up like her fellow prisoners. Nete Hermansen experienced hell in the institution. She is abused again by a doctor and forcibly sterilized.
In later years their fate turns for the better. She is taken in by a teacher couple and learns to read and write. She marries a wealthy man and leads a better life until 1985 when she meets one of her former tormentors. He threatens her to tell her husband about her past and to get him to divorce. This encounter causes them to take cruel revenge on their tormentors at the time. Her target persons include the gynecologist Curt Wad and the association “Clear Borders”, which propagate euthanasia of “life unworthy of life” . For Carl Mørck it will be his most dangerous criminal case. “Without a doubt, this is the most systematic mess I have ever seen in my life. A gentleman's mentality and treatment of differences in its purest form. ” This is how Mørck's assistant Rose Knudsen comments on the machinations of Curt Wad.
Background: Cellar Establishment on Sprogø
Background of the novel is a dark chapter in Danish history and that until then largely unknown Institution on Sprogø where in between 1923 and 1961 in 10,000 cases, sterilization also, in many cases, forced sterilizations were performed. To date, the women affected have not received any compensation from the Danish state.
Sprogø is an approximately 38 hectare island between Funen and Zealand . It is, so to speak, the western base of Storebæltsbroen , the bridge over the Great Belt. There is only a lighthouse built in 1868 and a few older buildings on this island . The special thing about Sprogø is its low rainfall , which produces a special flora and fauna . The island was closed to the public from 1922 to 1961 because one of the Kellerchen institutes (reformatory) was operated on it. The purpose of the Keller institute was to accommodate criminal and mentally incapacitated women. The founder of these institutions was the senior physician Christian Keller (1858–1934), who sought progressive accommodation for mentally ill and mentally handicapped people. After one of these institutions had already been put into operation at Vejle Fjord, a new one had to be created on Sprogø for reasons of space. The sterilization law of 1929, which originated in the American eugenetics debate , and the second law of racial hygiene that was implemented across Europe played a role in this period . At that time, Denmark played an internationally recognized pioneering role in dealing with mentally ill people. The cellar establishments of Livø and Sprogø were considered to be the most progressive and humane of their time.
The inmates in Sprogø included women who were allegedly insane, unruly, “ sexually abnormal ” according to the behavioral norms of the time, or prostitutes . The catalog of measures ranged from solitary confinement on the island to forced sterilization. There was no official treatment. The aim of the institution on Sprogø was only to prevent the “ spread of bad genetic material ” and to contain sexually transmitted diseases . The reformatory, also known as the “ prison for dissolute women ”, offered space for fifty women who were housed there for an average of seven years. Between 1923 and 1961, five hundred " fallen " women were presumably interned on Sprogø. According to the operators, the aim was not to punish these women, but to “ protect the healthy population from defective genes ”. The institution's founder, Christian Keller, described the inmates as " slightly debilitating women, whose erotic charisma represented a major threat to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases ". Even before the publication of the novel “Contempt”, former inmates sued for pain and suffering . The case of Karoline Olsen became known, who first publicly commented on the violent attacks she was exposed to on Sprogø in a TV program broadcast in 2010.
“I wrote this story because in Denmark you hear more and more often: Bandidos and Hells Angels - put them all on one island. Or all foreigners. And we've done this before. So it is also criticism of our society. "
Character analysis
Figures (selection)
- Carl Mørck: Deputy Detective Inspector, main character
- Hafez el-Assad: Mørck's assistant
- Rose Knudsen: Mørck's assistant
- Nete Rosen, née Hermansen: victim of abuse and later avenger
- Andreas Rosen: Née's husband
- Curt Wad: criminal gynecologist
Protagonists
The protagonist is the team around Carl Mørck with employees Rose and Assad. In the fourth book the group has settled in well and has a high recognition value. Information about employees of the special department Q is disclosed to the reader in portions, only so much that the characters are not completely transparent and they still hold some secrets. Assad's background is not cleared up in this volume either, and the reason for Rose's dissociative allusions remains closed to the reader. The nature of their conversation is very telling. Carl Mørck uses some bon mots , but also gets lost in an unsavory discussion about the “splash-free use of a toilet”.
Antagonists
The gynecologist Curt Wad plays the leading role in the antagonists. After the end of the Second World War he took over both the medical practice and the National Socialist sentiments of his father. Together with other doctors who play as “demigods in white”, he plays “Lord of life and death”. They have formed an inner circle, which bears the name "Secret Struggle" and are committed to an underground campaign against "unworthy life". They are also the founders of the right-wing populist party "Clear Borders" and are vehemently against the "foreign infiltration" of the Kingdom of Denmark.
success
The German book edition was number one on the Spiegel bestseller list for two weeks in 2012 .
filming
The story was filmed under the same name in 2018 under the direction of Christoffer Boe . The leading roles are played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Carl Mørck, Fares Fares as Assad and Johanne Louise Schmidt as Rose Knudsen. Contempt opened in German cinemas on June 20, 2019.
expenditure
- Contempt appeared in 2011 under the title Journal 64 ; German edition for the first time in 2012 on dtv. Part 4 of the Carl Mørck Dezernat Q series, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (August 24, 2012), ISBN 978-3-423-28002-0 .
- Contempt. Audiobook, audio CD, Der Audio Verlag, Dav (September 1, 2012), ISBN 978-3-86231-170-5 .
- Contempt. Kindle Edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (September 17, 2012), ISBN 3-423-28002-6 (source for page numbers).
Predecessors and sequels
The novel “Contempt” is the fourth volume in the Carl Mørck / Dezernat Q series and follows the third book “Redemption”. The fifth volume “Marco Effekten” was published in 2012 (in German: “Expectation”, 2013).
- Mercy (novel 2007, in German 2009)
- Desecration (novel 2008, in German 2010)
- Redemption (novel 2009, in German 2011)
- Contempt (novel 2010, in German 2012)
- Expectation (novel 2012, in German 2013)
- Promise (Roman 2014, in German 2015)
- Selfies (Roman 2016, in German 2017)
- Sacrifice 2117 (novel 2019)
Web links
- Jussi Adler-Olsen. (Danish, English, Jussi Adler-Olsen's homepage).
- Adler-Olsen. dtv(German, German website at dtv).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Jürgen Priester: Contempt. In: Crime Couch . December 2011, accessed on August 21, 2020 (review).
- ^ Contempt published in 2011 under the title Journal 64, German edition for the first time in 2012 by dtv., Part 4 of the Carl Mørck Dezernat Q series, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (August 24, 2012), ISBN 978-3423280020
- ↑ a b c d e f Volker Albers: Jussi Adler-Olsen: The serial offender. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . August 24, 2012, accessed August 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Jussi Adler-Olsen: Contempt. In: Kriminetz. Accessed August 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Volker Isfort: Literature: Kriminelle Herrenmenschen-Mentalität. In: evening newspaper . August 21, 2012, accessed August 21, 2020 .
- ↑ In 2010 she was 80 years old
- ↑ by Natalie Braagaard on TV2
- ^ Marieke Heimburger: Dossier "Cellar Establishments" on Sprogø. (PDF) In: Former website of Jussi Adler-Olsen. 2012, archived from the original on August 3, 2019 ; Retrieved June 12, 2013 .
- ↑ Jussi Adler-Olsen: Contempt (Journal 64). In: Best Seller Novels. December 21, 2011, archived from the original on January 24, 2012 ; accessed on June 12, 2013 (Jussi Adler-Olsen on the genesis of his novel).
- ↑ contempt. In: film starts . Accessed August 21, 2020 .