Between heaven and earth (story, 1856)
Between heaven and earth is a story by the German writer Otto Ludwig from 1856.
action
At the heart of the novel is a family conflict. Apollonius Nettenmair and Christiane secretly love each other, but they are too shy to clearly signal this to the other. Appolonius' older, fun-loving and unscrupulous brother Fritz notices this and promises to act as a recruiter for the girl, but exploits the situation for himself through misinformation - mutual disinterest or aversion of the lovers - and instrumentalizes the authoritarian father, the rival to send to Cologne for further training and finally achieves his goal of marrying Christiane.
They already have three children when the old, almost blind father calls his youngest back to support the slate roofing business. Fritz still succeeds in maintaining his structure of lies, but comes under increasing pressure when Christiane learns the truth through letters from Apollonis' coincidentally found letters to her brother from Cologne, but because of her family situation she does not yet dare to inform her brother-in-law.
The truth is revealed in several stages. Fritz suffers more and more from a loss of reality, he does not see himself as a perpetrator, but as a victim of conspiracies by his wife and brother, neglects his work, is complicit in the death of his little daughter, becomes addicted to alcohol and owes himself and the company. Eventually he manipulates Apollonius' ropes. But not the brother, but another roofer who stole the equipment and thus prevented Apollonius' ascent to the tower, falls. Father Nettenmair learns the truth, but wants to keep it a secret from the public. He confronts the son and tells him to fall from the tower in order to save the family's honor, disguised as a work accident. However, the news of Apollonius' safe return does not result in the execution of the father's judgment. Instead, the father banishes the son and forces him to emigrate to America. Fritz apparently agrees, leaves, but returns to throw himself off the church tower with his brother, whom he does not allow Christiane. However, he can avoid the onslaught and save himself. The public interprets the act as a suicide of a failed existence. The hardworking Apollonius, on the other hand, who has meanwhile renovated the company and paid off the debts, is transfigured into a hero towards the end of the novel: After he extinguished the fire of the church tower in a daring action in a thunderstorm night after a lightning strike and thus the fire spread to the He is hailed as the savior of the city.
After Fritz's death, Apollonius and Christiane could marry, especially since the public expects this and the father wants to put things in order before rumors of an immoral relationship arise. In his excessive conscientiousness, however, Apollonius cannot carry out the order. For the first time in his life he is defying a father's command and finally taking over the management of the family business, but on the other hand he is a prisoner of his exaggerated conscience and, although his mind tells him the opposite, he is complicit in the death of his brother. He has partly taken over his sick perspective. He lives peacefully with Christiane as brothers and sisters, expands the business with a slate quarry and looks after the two sons. The older one becomes his successor, for the younger one he arranges a marriage to the heiress of the Cologne company.
Timeframe of the action
A historical classification is difficult because there are no allusions to political events. The novel is probably set in the first half of the 19th century. in a small Thuringian or Saxon town not named by name (church tower repair in Brambach near the town as an indication) and in Cologne during Apollonius' work with his cousin.
reception
The language critic Eduard Engel rated Between Heaven and Earth as a masterpiece: "With its extraordinary, almost agonizing tension, the artistic reflection of reality, the deep drawing of the soul, this novel is unique in our narrative poetry." Franz Mehring , Otto Ludwig the ideal one modern poet, judged with regard to this narrative: "But since he always meant it honestly with his art, despite all the limitations and especially in it, he succeeded in creating a work that is part of the permanent possession of German literature." Alfred Döblin , another admirer of Otto Ludwig, found that Between Heaven and Earth was "unchanged the most outstanding narrative achievement" that he knew from German literature, and in this context he drew attention to Ludwig's use of the Inner Monologue . According to Armin Gebhardt, Between Heaven and Earth stands out , alongside the novellas Die Heiteretei and From the rain in the eaves , from Ludwig's narrative work.
Many readers - e. B. Paul Heyse (1856) and Julian Schmidt (1857) - criticized the supposedly inconsistent end of the novel with the idealized ascetic relationship between Apollonius and Christiane, who after their long period of suffering up to Fritzens death could actually live the love that he had schemed to prevent, the author defends in his detailed interpretation: “My intention was to depict the typical fate of a person who has too much conscience, this is shown next to his drawing by the contrast of his brother, who is supposed to symbolize the typical fate of a person who has too little conscience. Then the contrast, how the too conscientiously applied makes the other worse and worse, the latter makes the other more and more anxious. It is the typical fate of the all-too-conscientious, the born moral hypochondriac [...], because he has the shame of the noises that others drink. "
Film adaptation
In 1942 Harald Braun filmed the family conflict of Ludwig's story in the film of the same name Between Heaven and Earth , but moved the time and place of the action, incorporated further actions (wartime) and people and ended with a happy ending.
Individual evidence
- ↑ German text archive , Ludwig, Otto: Between heaven and earth. Frankfurt (Main), 1856
- ↑ Eduard Engel: History of German literature: from the beginnings to the present. Leipzig ²1907. Volume 2, p. 951.
- ^ Franz Mehring: Otto Ludwig , Die Neue Zeit. February 7, 1913. In: Franz Mehring: Collected writings. Essays on German literature from Hebbel to Schweichel , Berlin 1961, p. 60.
- ↑ Cf. Armin Gebhardt: Otto Ludwig. The poetic realist . Tectum, Marburg 2002, p. 9.
- ^ Otto Ludwig's collected writings. Volume 6. Studies, ed. by Adolf Stern. Leipzig 1891, p. 223.