Wind of the world

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Wind der Welt ( French original title: À l'aventure ) is a book by Blaise Cendrars from 1958. The German-language edition is accompanied by an afterword by Henry Miller .

Content (selection)

Wind der Welt consists of 14 short stories , the content of which is divided into the following topics: Youth , In the Foreign Legion , Strife and Love and My Hunts . The first short story, entitled The Birds, is outside of these classifications.

"The birds"

The narrator reports on a boat trip to Brazil with the steamer Gelria An Brazil, the narrator is impressed by the great diversity of species and the dangerous life in the rainforest . When he takes birds with him for the return trip, he realizes that most of them did not survive the Atlantic crossing.

"The ocean is a lie"

It tells of a stay in the childhood of the narrator in Naples . He had just crossed the Mediterranean from Alexandria on the steamer Italia . During the crossing, the child dreamed that he would arrive in New York . Disappointed, it is examined by a doctor on arrival in Naples.

"Paradise Lost"

The narrator continues to tell of his carefree childhood in Naples. He lives there in a rich area and hunts snails with the neighborhood children. The story ends with the words "But even further than India and China / our childhood love is green paradise ...".

"Notre-Dame of Morro-Azul"

Doctor Oswaldo Padroso is a gracious but strange host. The narrator spends a night in his run-down hacienda in Brazil.

«The Okù»

After the narrator did not use his firearm for a long time, he shoots an Okù in Brazil .

"The fig eater"

The narrator recalls a childhood hunting adventure in Naples.

criticism

"Cendrars was not driven to his experiences by a longing for adventurers, but rather by the desire for extraordinary impressions, which are expressed linguistically in a wealth of colorful, sometimes impressionistic images."

- Der Spiegel February 1, 1961

Reception (selection)

  • In Martin Suter's novel Allmen and the Dahlias , the protagonist says: "But then he [...] reached into his bookcase at random, sat down a little longer in the reading chair and got stuck in the wind of the world by Blaise Cendrars."

Expenses (selection)

  • À l'aventure. Pages choisies. Denoël, Paris 1958
  • Wind of the world. Translated from the French by Lotte Frauendienst . With a foreword by Henry Miller . K. Rauch, Düsseldorf 1960. DNB 450762300
  • Wind of the world. Translated from the French by Lotte Frauendienst. With an afterword by Henry Miller. dtv, Munich 1963. DNB 450762319
  • ditto: Verlag der Arche, Zurich 1977. DNB 831216735
  • Wind of the world. Adventure of a lifetime. With a foreword by Henry Miller. Published by Charles Linsmayer . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 978-3-518-40262-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. New in Germany: Blaise Cendrars: "Wind der Welt". Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  2. ^ Google Books