From the end of loneliness

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From the end of loneliness is the fourth novel by the German author Benedict Wells .

Emergence

From the end of loneliness was published on February 24, 2016 by Diogenes Verlag . According to the author Benedict Wells , he worked on the novel for a total of seven years, whereby the original manuscript was initially more than 800 pages long and had to be shortened to the 360 ​​pages of the final version afterwards. In an article by ZDF heute journal , Wells further stated: “In the course of writing I realized that it is simply the most important book for me because those are my subjects. And that's why I wanted to take as much time as possible. [...] I had to become the writer who can write this book. "

action

The novel From the End of Loneliness is about the siblings Jules, Liz and Marty Moreau, who lost their parents in a fatal car accident when they were children. All three are sent to the same boarding school, but their paths are drifting further and further apart. While Liz throws herself into drug and sex adventures and Marty crawls more and more into his computer world, Jules, the first-person narrator of the novel, finds refuge in his dream worlds. The previously courageous and daring boy becomes a thoughtful and melancholy outsider. Jules finds a companion and fellow sufferer only in his mysterious classmate Alva. He shares his love for literature and music with her, but the two also share an early experience of deep pain.

The story of the end of loneliness tells how the three siblings each try their own way to cope with the death of their parents, and how, despite their fundamentally different characters, they always come together again. The end of loneliness is not only a tragic family story that unfolds over several decades, but also a great love story that poses the question of who is a true soul mate.

Novel structure

The novel is narrated through several literary flashbacks that arise from various memories of Jules, the youngest of the three siblings. Jules, now in his early forties and father of twins, had a motorcycle accident and is in hospital. The past comes up in him again, the experiences and events of which he gradually visualizes in his inner eye - even those that he has suppressed so far. The novel divides the events of the past three decades into chronologically consecutive chapters, between which, however, short passages from the narrated present are inserted.

reception

The fourth novel by Benedict Wells was received largely positively in the German press landscape. Denis Scheck calls Vom Ende der Einsamkeit in his ARD program hot off the press the “best John Irving novel that is not by John Irving” and praises the “believable characters with psychologically fascinating love biographies”. Martin Wolf writes in a similar way in Der Spiegel literature: “In his early thirties, Wells writes like an old master.” Christine Westermann from WDR 2 finds the novel “an idea kitsch”, but overall as a “quiet pleasure”, and describes the plot "[full] feeling, but not overloaded, also happy, but never loud." Katja Weise comes to the conclusion in her review for the NDR that Benedict Wells is despite the "concentrated tragedy" of the novel nevertheless he succeeds in "creating an almost comfortable atmosphere and in making sure that the reader with his handkerchief in hand is pretty happy after reading this family novel."

From the end of loneliness reached number 3 on the Spiegel bestseller lists shortly after its publication . By mid-July 2016, the number of copies had exceeded 100,000 and the novel was in the top ten for 30 consecutive weeks.

Awards

The novel was awarded a European Union Literature Prize in 2016. The jury's reasoning stated: “Wells has created a novel whose strength lies in the characters who, despite all their sadness, exude a [...] warmth. [...] This success is based on Wells' extraordinary imagination, a gift rarely encountered these days. "

From the end of loneliness also received the book prize of the Ravensburger Verlag Foundation in 2016. The jury's reasoning stated: “Narrated in a touching way, linguistically great, Benedict Wells describes how the traumatization gradually turns into coping with life and into a strong cohesion and a common bond The life model of the siblings with their children ends. A clever work about loss and preservation, about slow self-discovery, about the power of the past, comforting regardless of its sadness, sometimes even funny. "

In 2016, the novel was chosen by more than 350 bookstores as the favorite book of the independent book trade and in 2018 it was awarded the Euregio Student Literature Prize.

expenditure

  • From the end of loneliness . Novel. Diogenes Verlag , Zurich 2016 ISBN 978-3-257-06958-7
    • From the end of loneliness . Audiobook, voice Robert Stadlober . 6 CD, Diogenes, Zurich 2016 ISBN 978-3-257-80372-3
    • Translator Juliette Aubert: La fin de la solitude. Slatkine, Geneva 2017 (French)
    • Translator Gerda Baardmann: Het einde van de eenzaamheid. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 2018 (nl.)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sabine Zaplin: Süddeutsche.de, March 13, 2016
  2. ↑ Interview with Benedict Wells on the Diogenes Verlag blog
  3. ↑ Claudio Armbruster: Benedict Wells From the end of loneliness , February 28, 2016 ZDF heute journal ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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.zdf.de
  4. ↑ Denis Scheck comments on the top ten fiction. Hot off the press, April 3, 2016
  5. ↑ Martin Wolf: Old Master . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 2016 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Christine Westermann : End of loneliness. WDR 2, books, March 20, 2016
  7. ↑ Katja Weise: End of loneliness. NDR.de, February 23, 2016
  8. ↑ From the end of loneliness . Placement of the Spiegel bestseller list according to the book report survey
  9. ↑ Among the top ten for 20 weeks: “From the end of loneliness” by Benedict Wells now sold 100,000 times on buchmarkt.de, July 21, 2016, accessed on July 21, 2016
  10. ^ Announcement of the winners of the European Union Prize for Literature on April 5, 2016
  11. ↑ press release. ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. Diogenes Publishing House @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / diogenes.ch
  12. ^ Book price for Benedict Wells. October 26, 2016, accessed December 8, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Favorite book of the independent book trade. November 9, 2016, accessed December 8, 2016 .