Zündel's departure

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Zündel's departure is the first novel by the Swiss writer Markus Werner . The book was published by Residenz Verlag in 1984 and quickly became a bestseller.


action

The fictional narrator, Pastor Viktor Busch, uses diary-like notes, personal memories and conversations to reconstruct the last few weeks before his friend Konrad Zündel's disappearance. After losing a tooth, the teacher, Zündel, breaks off a vacation trip and returns to his wife Magda, who would have preferred to spend the summer alone and, after a (small) argument, goes to see her sister. For Zündel this is the reason (which a lie by the caretaker about visiting men in his absence reinforces) to go to Genoa, where he was conceived, to indulge in alcoholism and thoughts about God and the world, love and suicide.

When he returns at the beginning of school, he is no longer himself; the delusional, lonely time in Genoa affected the unstable mind of the intellectual, unworldly and depressive teacher too much. After a mad appearance at his school, he is taken to a psychiatric clinic; it is not clear what state of mind he is in. He breaks out of there and holed up with a gun in a friend's holiday home for a while. From there he disappears after one last visit by the narrator. His father, who left his mother before the birth, later receives a package with his notes that Zündel had sent off in Genoa and forwards it to Busch.

The book takes up many topics from the protagonist's experiences and thoughts: love and loyalty, the relationship between man and woman in times of emancipation, suicide and death, fatherhood, religion and self-assertion.

Language and style

A narrative and stylistically appealing contrast lies in the combination of the two narrative levels: the objective framework of the documentation of Zündel's story by Viktor Busch contrasts with the philosophical pathos of the intellectual Zündel. The Swiss origin of the author and the characters runs through the entire novel in the form of Helvetisms (“das Tram”, “es tönt” ...).

reception

The novel Far über das Land by Peter Stamm is preceded by a quote from Zündel's departure .

expenditure

  • Markus Werner: Zündel's departure. Novel . Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19072-0 .

literature

  • Phillipp Haack: Life as a "balance disorder", experiences of being a stranger in Markus Werner's novels (= SchriftBilder, Volume 7). Igel, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86815-596-9 (Dissertation University of Flensburg 2015, 337 pages).