Confusion

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Confusion is a novel by the German author Christoph Hein , which was published by Suhrkamp Verlag in August 2018 .

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The novel describes the life story of the fictional person Friedeward Ringeling, born in 1933 in Eichsfeld, Thuringia . His childhood was particularly shaped by his very strict father, who for moral reasons also used corporal punishment as a form of upbringing . Because of this homely atmosphere , the Friedeward siblings leave their parents' home as quickly as possible. His older brother, who was particularly often the victim of paternal flogging, claims to emigrate to America ; As it turns out later, however, he hired himself as a miner at Wismut - one of the most dangerous and difficult jobs at the time. He is also killed in a mine accident; only after the news of his death does the family hear from him again. His sister is getting married as soon as possible and has a family of her own. Friedeward will also leave his parents' house immediately after graduating from high school to study. During his school days, he made friends with the son of the cantor Wolfgang Zernick, with whom he shares his interest in the fine arts . A vacation together on the Baltic Sea is the coming out of their homosexuality , whereby Wolfgang can deal with it more openly and self-confidently than Friedeward. When Friedeward's father found out about this, he punished his son with physical pain and forbade him to have any contact with Wolfgang. As a student, Friedeward first chose to study philosophy in Jena , but after a short time switched to Leipzig to begin studying German . In Leipzig, Wolfgang - the contact between Wolfgang and Friedeward was never broken despite his father's ban - began training as a church musician . However, Wolfgang will continue his education a little later in West Berlin , which complicates the relationship between the two. Wolfgang also pretends to have little time for meetings at the weekend due to his training and is orienting himself overall in his future orientation towards West Germany and then also takes a job in Hamburg after his training . The construction of the Wall in 1961 then sealed the end of the relationship. Only after reunification was there another meeting in Cologne , where Wolfgang had meanwhile moved. Although for Friedewald the contact with Wolfgang remained the only real love affair in his life, in Cologne the two of them exchanged ideas about what they had experienced in recent years. The change from study location and subject had gone well for Friedewald. During his studies in Leipzig, he met Ernst Bloch and Hans Mayer, important lecturers of the time at the University of Leipzig . These are described in the novel with their student nicknames “Hegel on earth” and “Goethe himself”. Friedewald becomes a kind of favorite student, especially with Mayer. After completing his studies, he himself becomes a recognized Germanist at Leipzig University. During his student days, in order to meet social conventions and the expectations of his father, he married Jacqueline , a student who was also homosexual and who was his friend . After completing her studies, Jacqueline took a job at a Dresden theater. In his position as a lecturer at the University of Leipzig, Friedewald was also able to take part in congresses in so-called capitalist countries . When the opportunity arose here at a conference to meet his sponsor and his Germanist colleague Hans Mayer, who was now regarded as an enemy of the state due to his flight from the republic in the GDR , he was only granted travel authorization by the State Security if he prepared a report on this event. He is also indirectly threatened with the publication of his homosexuality, so that he finally agrees and, after his return, does not deliver a report, only the congress program. After the reunification and the associated review of all university employees, he will be summoned to clarify this matter. Friedewald does not want to address his homosexuality as a reason for the "cooperation" with the State Security and takes his own life before the appointment. Before taking this step, he tried to contact Wolfgang again, but received no response.

background

Christoph Hein, who is also known as the chronicler of society because of his sober writing style, had previously dealt with social outsiders in his literary work . He was also inspired to write the novel by reports from homosexuals from his circle of friends, who told him about their difficulties.

main characters

The following people play a crucial role in the novel:

Friedeward Ringeling

Germanist , university professor , whose life story in the GDR is told with special consideration of his homosexuality .

Pius Ringeling

Friedeward's father, a teacher by profession with very conservative points of view, which also includes the systematic flogging of his children.

Wolfgang Zernick

Classmate, best friend of Friedeward and like him homosexual. Wolfgang is a church musician and moved while still a student in the FRG over.

Jacqueline Duehren

She met Friedwald while studying in Leipzig. Jacqueline is studying theater studies , is also gay and friends with a university professor. On April 1, 1960, both married, in order to hide his homosexuality from society , especially for Friedewald .

reception

Commercial win

The novel was just after his appearance on the mirror - bestseller list placing, reaching number 11 and had a total of eight weeks out of these 50 positions overall ranking. Thus, the book could not reach the length of the two previous publications by the author, in which it was also about biographies of GDR life, on the bestseller list, but overall it corresponded to the average rankings of Hein's publications.

Contemporary criticism

In the published reviews of the novel, there was no agreement on whether the author's well-known sober, chronological style does justice to the topic. Fridtjof Küchemann of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is amazed at his dismay. especially in the portrayal of the corporal punishment of the father. For Paul Jandl in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , too, it is a great, quiet story that shows the suffering of patriarchal educational methods. Jörg Magenau on Deutschlandfunk sees in the hero of the novel, in a love and life story about autonomy , an unforgettable figure in German literature , who is unobtrusive, present and nevertheless portrayed with sympathy. In the mirror reads Christian Buss a novel which the influence of ideologies describes the life and Judith von Sternburg missing in the Frankfurter Rundschau , a psychological analysis of the confrontation of the fictional characters about their sexuality because homosexuality itself as a problem by the outside world is rendered . Jens Jessen in der Zeit feels that the author's sober writing style is too chaste and phlegmatic to allow empathy with the people. Stefan Hölscher is surprised on queer.de that the novel, despite its subject matter, did not generate any response from the LGBT media. He finds the book exciting as an intelligent connection between personal love and German-German social history, but also misses the liveliness in the description of the emotional world, due to the lack of unusual perspectives and language combinations or strong metaphors .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrea Gerk: The stuff from which violence arises. Deutschlandfunk Kultur , September 4, 2018, accessed on September 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Best seller hardcover confusion. Book report , accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Fridtjof Küchemann: Don't forget the whip. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 19, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Paul Jandl : The high flights of meanness. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 15, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Jörg Magenau : About love in secret. Deutschlandfunk Kultur , August 14, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Christian Buß : Loved, beaten, gagged. Der Spiegel , August 14, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Judith von Sternburgh: Almost a child of fortune. Frankfurter Rundschau , August 12, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Jens Jessen : The nakedness of the boy's skin. Die Zeit , October 3, 2018, accessed on September 15, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Stefan Hölscher: The secret love of Friedeward and Wolfgang. queer.de, April 22, 2019, accessed on September 15, 2019 .