Two women (Mulisch)

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Two women (Dutch Twee Vrouwen ) is a novel by the Dutch author Harry Mulisch . The original was published in 1975, the German translation five years later.

From Laura's perspective, the novel tells the tragic love story between her, a museum employee in her thirties, and the twenty-year-old Sylvia, whom she met one day in front of a shop window in Amsterdam and with whom she had the first lesbian relationship of her life. Laura was previously married to the theater critic Alfred, who left her because of her sterility and is now the father of two children. After a conversation between the two women about the importance of having children (Laura sees this as the only way to disconnect from her mother) and the end of Laura's relationship with Alfred, Sylvia decides to let him get pregnant and bring the child with him Teasing Laura. Without telling either of her motives, she starts an affair with Alfred and runs off to Great Britain with him. The story ends when Sylvia returns to Laura pregnant, but is killed by Alfred the next day.

Laura tells the story of her and Sylvia while she is on the way to Nice, where her mother recently passed away. This element of the relationship between mother and daughter is placed at the center of the story by Mulisch, and there are also various points of contact with Greek mythology . Not only does the myth of Oedipus resonate , the tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice is also discussed. Mulisch took the shop window scene as the first meeting of the protagonists from his own biography.

Two women was made into a film in 1977. The main roles were played by Bibi Andersson (Laura), Sandrine Dumas (Sylvia) and Anthony Perkins (Alfred), directed by George Sluizer .

German edition

Harry Mulisch: Two women novel. German by Siegfried Mrotzek Reinbek near Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-499-22659-6

Movie