From the very beginning

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From the very beginning there are memories of the youth by Christoph Hein , which appeared in 1997 in Berlin.

Daniel, son of the Protestant pastor Victor, talks about his primary school days until the end of 1956 in a small town in the south of the GDR .

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The time has come in 1958. Daniel is refused entry to high school for political reasons . The 15-year-old wants to secretly go to West Berlin to complete the eastern class of a high school there. Before that he would like to say goodbye to his dear aunt Magdalena. On the way he runs into his Catholic classmate Lucie. The girl thinks it is mean that Daniel is denied high school despite good grades and asks whether he is going to an apprenticeship or to West Berlin. Daniel, cautious due to Lucie's betrayal, hides his intended journey to the West .

Aunt Magdalena, a woman whose bridegroom perished in World War I , is not a real aunt at all, just a good friend of the parish priest's family, which has many children. Daniel and two of his siblings had done their daily schoolwork in the aunt's apartment. Aunt Magdalena had always stood by energetically and with humor.

After this narrative introduction, in which Daniel says, among other things, that he later made progress in the West Berlin high school, there is a flashback to the years 1955/1956. Seven episodes tell about school days in the GDR. The last summer holidays are emphasized. The ninth and final episode closes the memories. A visit to West Berlin in November 1956 is discussed.

In the seven episodes mentioned, next to Aunt Magdalena, Daniel's authoritarian grandfather, who has been the author of the past, who refuses to join the party and therefore promptly loses his position as administrator of a state property , is about . Based on the grandfather stories, the first-person narrator illustrates the flight of his Silesian resettled family towards the west towards the end of the Second World War . In addition, 13-year-old Daniels' adolescent vacation experiences stick in the reader's memory. For example, in the episode “Am Russensee”, Daniel describes his very first ejaculation at the voyeuristic sight of sexual intercourse between a little older couple of lovers. Daniel's ejaculate also squirts onto the bicycle saddle of the girl Hilde Buschke, known as the pill.

Some of the episodes are loosely linked. Months later, Daniel learns that Pill has become pregnant. In his fear, the 13-year-old supposedly potential father does not even know what to explain to the parents, who are always concerned, if the young mother-to-be would come and actually want to be admitted at home.

The green eyes of the evangelist Lukas on an altarpiece in Daniel's town are also full of Heinscher poetry. Daniel finds the pair of eyes in the face of the artist Veltroni, who is visiting the town, trusts the tightrope walker and informs the stranger of his intention to flee the republic. This story also escalates into sexual matters. Veltroni - actually Karl - doesn't have much trouble seducing Kathrin Blüthgen. The married woman and mother of a toddler teaches geography in Daniel's class. Daniel, again a voyeur - this time against his will - meticulously describes the big white buttocks of the man-like teacher.

There is a third sexually tinged incident worth reading in the memories. This is not voyeuristic. Mareike, a student and amateur player from Suhl , dressed only in her white panties with a blue lace border, danced to Daniel in camera. Before that, the two of them practiced kissing on the mouth together. The history of the private performance: Daniel's acting talent was discovered by the teacher Miss Kaczmarek. Finally, the school theater was allowed to take part in a drama workshop in Dresden. Groups from Thuringia, Saxony and one from Berlin are in competition. There in Dresden, Mareike and Daniel get closer. Mareike would like to become a dancer and initially thinks that her legs are too fat for this job. Then again she says that skinny legs are not good for dancing. Anyway - Daniel wants to see a nude dance in the room. But the young couple is disturbed by a classmate in the Dresden accommodation.

After the aforementioned visit to West Berlin, Lucie's betrayal is narrated. In front of some technically interested and talented classmates, Daniel raved about the ticker on a neon sign on the Kudamm . The group council chairman, Lucie, had exposed Daniel, a visitor to the front town, in front of the class and the teacher.

shape

The story of the traitor Lucie, indicated above, braces the text. It seems like Daniel wrote down his memories as an adult. Nevertheless, a bright child always speaks to the reader with disarming openness from the core of the text. This adolescent speech is deeply human and true down to the word.

Daniel turns out to be an unbiased observer of both the Eastern and Western worlds. The reader becomes aware of this, for example, when Daniel registers the dullness of the West Berliners against horror reports on billboards. Not even the news of the acute danger of war disturbs the hardened café-goers on the Kudamm.

After the first of the nine episodes, the narrator jumps back in time by about two years. During the episodes, the view sometimes goes back to the lost homeland of Silesia. The reader who is keen on good entertainment gets his money's worth - also because Hein has achieved a feat: the thoroughly political text gets by without the mallet. The last episode is an exception. It's called "Glace surprise" and reads in places as a frontal attack on evil communism .

reception

Reception upon arrival

Volker Hage (“Illuminated writing on the Kudamm” in “ Der Spiegel ” of August 25, 1997) names parallels in Christoph Hein's biography and his hero Daniel. In his review (“ Frankfurter Allgemeine ” from October 14, 1997), Peter von Matt is no longer helpless in the face of Hein's simple narrative style. Banality becomes art. Eva Leipprand goes into the " Stuttgarter Zeitung " on Daniel's path in connection with the terms "fatherland" and "heroic death" refuted by two world wars. On the problematic search for his right path in life, Daniel realized that neither the word of his teachers nor that of his father were valid. Rather, Aunt Magdalena's experience of the deserved slap in the face would be valid. At a young age, the aunt had received that slap in the face from the mother of her groom, who had been missing in the war, after the young girl had parroted the groom's slogan about sacrificing death for the fatherland. Horst Wagner finds the epithets “quiet” and “thoughtful” for the book in the “ Berliner Zeitung ”. In addition to puberty and politics, one of the three pillars of the text is the protagonist's relationship to religion. Daniel had to attend church services and sing along every Sunday morning. The brief discussion in egotrip.de from October 2000 mentions, among other things, an aspect not mentioned above. Daniel wants to leave the province and his own family with all their "mustiness". Christine Cosentino from Rutgers University looks at the structure and the autobiographical text elements. Hein had "found an all-German readership" with the material.

literature

Text output

Used edition
  • Christoph Hein: Right from the start. 199 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998 (5th edition), ISBN 3-351-02890-3

Audio book


Remarks

  1. ↑ The word Protestant does not appear in the memories. However, the denomination follows from the church institutions that are named - for example the young community and from a comment by the first-person narrator. Daniel quotes Aunt Magdalena. After that, the Catholics are "wrong". (Edition used, p. 191, 5th Zvu)
  2. ↑ The first-person narrator Daniel withholds his family name.
  3. ↑ The last episode talks about the events in Hungary at the beginning of November . (Edition used, p. 182 ff.)
  4. ↑ A ride in a horse-drawn vehicle leads to Spora (edition used, p. 119, 20. Zvo). The neighboring town is Meuselwitz and the associated district town (used edition, p. 188, 8. Zvo) Altenburg .
  5. ↑ At the request of the local group leader , the families fled from Silesia on a trek to Saxony-Anhalt , Thuringia and Brandenburg (edition used, p. 137)
  6. ↑ Daniel has five siblings (Edition Used, p. 176).
  7. ↑ West Berlin was sometimes called Frontstadt by both sides during the Cold War .
  8. ↑ "Glace surprise" is ice cream, thinly coated with chocolate.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 180, 3rd Zvu
  2. ↑ Volker Hage: "Illuminated writing on the Kudamm" . spiegel.de. August 25, 1997. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  3. ↑ Peter von Matt: Away with the pocket guillotine . Frankfurter Allgemeine. October 14, 1997. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  4. ^ Eva Leipprand: Reception . Stuttgart newspaper. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  5. ↑ Horst Wagner: The adolescent experiences of the pastor's son . Berlin newspaper. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  6. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: reception egotrip.de )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.egotrip.de
  7. ↑ Christine Cosentino: glossed: review . dickinson.edu. Retrieved November 22, 2019.