Wolfsnächte (novel)

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Wolfsnächte (Originally Hold the Dark ) is a novel by William Giraldi that was published on February 26, 2015 and was published by Hoffmann and Campe on February 27, 2016 in a German translation by Nicolai von Schweder-Schreiner . It is in Wolf Nights is the first published in German translation book by Giraldi.

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Location of the novel: Alaska in winter

The 60-year-old Russell Core has made a name for himself as a nature writer and has researched the life of wolves for years . Russel is disappointed in his life because he has always invested in a future that he seems to forget. One day, Medora Slone, a woman living in Alaska, asks him to solve the death of her son Bailey, who is said to have been attacked and killed by wolves. In the letter he learns that Medora would at least like to bury her child's bones. Since Russell Core knows wolves like no one else, he doubts that it was really wolves that killed the six-year-old boy. Russell realizes that this case is what he has been waiting for. He complies with Medora's request and sets off for Alaska without knowing exactly what he is actually doing.

When Russel visits his apparently grieving mother in wintry Keelut, a small town on the Alaskan tundra , he immediately senses that everything is not what it seems to be here. When Medora disappears overnight without a trace, he suspects that it could have been she herself who killed her son. He cannot get rid of the suspicion that there is a ominous secret about Keelut and its forests. The pull of the inexplicable is so strong, however, that he still puts his life in danger and sets off through the wintry nowhere together with Detective Mariam to find Medora before her husband Vernon, who has just been injured from a war, does has returned home and is now trying with all brutality to prevent the investigative work, which is also incomprehensible for Russel and his companions.

Author and translation

William Giraldi (* 1974) teaches at Boston University and is senior literary editor for AGNI magazine. Giraldi also writes regular reviews for The New York Times Book Review . Giraldi made his debut as a novelist with Busy Monsters in 2011 , was a finalist in the National Magazine Awards in the Essays and Reviews category for his article The Physics of Speed, and was awarded the Pushcart Prize for his essay Freaky Beasts .

The German translation of the novel Wolfsnächte comes from Nicolai von Schweder-Schreiner .

interpretation

The protagonist of the novel, Russel Core, is a nature writer who specializes in describing wolves and is therefore a good and basically objective observer. In the Anglo-American language area, nature writing is a separate text genre. Standing at the center of the story, Russel takes on the role of narrator in the novel. Through this and the tableau of figures, William Giraldi succeeds in writing a thriller in the country noir tradition of Daniel Woodrell . Giraldi wrote "clear and powerful," says Knut Cordsen on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, quoting as an example: "With shovels and pickaxes they dug a grave into the side of the snow dams. The earth could not be broken without the appropriate equipment. They worked in the light of the Headlights, and the snow swirled through the rays like insects in front of a lamp in summer. The darkness beyond was more than night, it was the deliberate negation of day. "

A wolf in Alaska

Sylvia Staude from the Frankfurter Rundschau recognizes in it a lean and linguistically uncompromising style of writing, which only invokes the callous nature of Alaska as a backdrop, in front of which man himself once more shows himself to be the worst predator. Staude describes Wolfsnächte as a blood-in-snow tale. The novel is like Fargo , only without the soothing humor of the film.

For Britta Langhoff, Wolfsnächte is only at first glance a thriller that tells of an inexplicable murder and a mysterious curse. At second glance, the book is more: "It is a saga about the interplay between nature and civilization, which tells of sand and snow, of animals and people, located in an area where light only lasts a few hours and the darkness of winter In this novel it is not so much the plot that creates tension. It is more the reverse. The tension that it takes to create a balance between the opposites carries the plot. "

Regarding the use of the wolf as a motif and the conscious juxtaposition of humans and animals in his novel, Giraldi explains: "Wolves are our most mythologized animals. We have made monsters out of them, but they are very dignified, very talented predators. Our ancestors learned a lot observing the packs, and we recognized ourselves in those packs. This could have been one of the reasons we found it necessary to exterminate them: we are guided by the same impulse. " On the other hand, according to Giraldi, all of us who grew up in this world struggled with our inheritance and tried to suppress the natural urges in us that were left over from our animal past .

reception

Marcus Müntefering of Spiegel Online says: "With Wolfsnächte , William Giraldi has succeeded in creating a highly literary thriller (translated excellently by Nicolai von Schweder-Schreiner), a country noir that has been put on ice and unfolds against the backdrop of a ruthless, mythical landscape that becomes the actual protagonist of the story, almost as if she were a living being herself. "

Due to the deep wintry environment and the described brutality with which people encounter each other, the material is compared again and again not only with Fargo , but also with The Revenant - The Returner and because of the location of the story in a remote area and the embedding of dark family secrets with works by Cormac McCarthy and Donald Ray Pollack . Knut Cordsen from Deutschlandradio Kultur says that Jack London , the author of Wolfsblut and Der Seewolf , would also have liked the novel and gave reasons: "Giraldi writes clearly and powerfully [...] In fact, in his narrow novel, he manages to create a demonic gloom evoke. It's not just the icy polar night that makes you shiver here. "

Adaptations

In September 2015 it was announced that Jeremy Saulnier had directed a cinematic adaptation of the novel. Saulnier, who has already made an extremely brutal film in parts with Blue Ruin , tried his hand at this genre again. Saulnier's previous producer and actor Macon Blair wrote the script for the film. In the US, Wolfsnächte was added to Netflix 's offer on June 1, 2018 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfsnächte ( Memento from April 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: hoffmann-und-campe.de. Retrieved April 29, 2016.
  2. ^ William Giraldi In: harvard.com, September 8, 2011.
  3. ↑ a b c Knut Cordsen: Demonic Düsternis in Alaska In: Deutschlandradio Kultur, March 24, 2016.
  4. ↑ William Giraldi In: concordfestivalofauthors.com. Retrieved April 29, 2016.
  5. ^ Sylvia Staude: William Giraldi: 'Wolfsnächte'. From the heart of the icy cold In: Frankfurter Rundschau, April 12, 2016.
  6. ↑ Britta Langhoff: Wolfsnächte by William Giraldi In: literaturzeitschrift.de, February 27, 2016.
  7. ↑ William Giraldi in conversation with Loren Kleinman, Hold the Dark: An Interview With William Giraldi In: The Huffington Post, September 8, 2015.
  8. ↑ a b Marcus Müntefering: Alaska adventure 'Wolfsnächte': If only the testosterone keeps you warm In: Spiegel Online, March 1, 2016.
  9. ↑ Jeff Sneider: 'Green Room' Director Jeremy Saulnier Reteams With A24 for Revenge Movie 'Hold the Dark' In: thewrap.com, September 24, 2015.
  10. ↑ A Running List Of All The Netflix Original Movies Coming In 2018 In: fhm.com, February 8, 2018.