Beamfire (Roman) – Wikipedia
Campfire is a multi-perspective novel by Julia Franck from 2003, which tells the life of GDR refugees in the Marienfelde emergency cleaver in the West Berlin of the 1970s. In it, Franck illuminates life in the uncertainty of the transit, the question of political captivation as well as the complaint of the private. In addition, the folklorization and demonization of the other in the area of tension in East-West, the loss of identity due to a lack of space, motherhood and emancipation, as well as the demands on prosperity, happiness and understanding prevailing on both sides of the wall.
The novel is divided into 16 chapters, which consist of alternating descriptions of four first-person narrators, whose life paths they all lead them to the Marienfelde emergency shot. Franck enables this multi -perspective architecture to express the respective pastes, perceptions, encounters and motivations of their figures, and to present the different characters not only from the perspective of themselves, but above all in the perception of others. The reader not only gains a deeper insight into the psychology of the characters, as would be possible if a figure was solely possible; These insights often suggest contrasting interpretations of the identities of the figures, so that the “truth” is increasingly more difficult to name and the reader is denied a clear orientation.
At the center of the novel is the move by the young chemist Nelly Senff with her two children Katja and Aleksej from the GDR to West Berlin and her experiences in the Marienfelde refugee camp. An older Polish woman, Krystyna Jablonowska, who is relocated to West Germany with her father and brother to have the cancer brother treated with western methods, is the second first of all. In addition, it is told from the perspective of an employee of the CIA: John Bird leads the interrogation with the refugees, in the meeting with Nelly, his political attitude comes to light as well as his marriage problems. The fourth perspective is that of the actor Hans Pischke, who has been bought by the Federal Republic of Germany after a repeated stay in the GDR and has lived in the camp for several years.
The novel was translated into Arabic, Danish, English, French, Italian, Croatian, Dutch, Polish, Russian and Spanish. [first]
Nelly Senff Settled to West Berlin with her two children, supposedly to marry her West Berlin acquaintance “Gerd”. However, this is a paid escape helper; As the reader later experiences, Nelly has to pay him 10,000 marks for escape aid. After her arrival in the warehouse, she is among other things by the black Vietnam veteran John Bird interrogated, who lives as a member of the US secret service with his wife Eunice in Berlin. John Bird hopes for promotion within the CIA and is convinced of his struggle for freedom in the service of the United States. His wife Eunice, on the other hand, is increasingly lonely in the foreign city and turns to the consumption of marijuana. An attraction develops between John and Nelly that is not only due to the discussion of their various political attitudes. Nelly expires the interrogation methods of the western secret service as the Stasi, whereupon both, even after a one-night stand, are increasingly alienated. Nelly also sees herself in the West Berlin camp as a victim, as a defendant and prisoner robbed as her privacy.
In contrast to most other warehouses, Nelly traveled from the GDR for personal reasons, because her partner Wassilij Batalow, with whom she has two children together, has disappeared a few years earlier; He supposedly committed suicide. In the interrogations with the American secret service, Nelly is proud and silent, she claims the right to private as a sign of freedom in the West.
The American secret service is noticeable about the relationship between Wassilij and Nelly; Wassilij may have been a spy in US services, which was exposed and therefore removed by the GDR authorities. Nelly behaves proud and dismissive towards the American condolences, criticizes her right to privacy, and draws her interrogations towards parallels to the ongoing surveys in the GDR, to which she was exposed to after submitting her application for exit.
Nelly’s children Aleksej and Katja are excluded and teased at school due to their differentness and lack of possession, their son is even beaten up in such a way that he has to spend several days in the hospital. The main perpetrator is his classmate Olivier, the son of the Rothe family, who is involved in refugee care. The Rothe family is a symbol of self-righteous, condescending and hypocritical treatment of the GDR refugees by the West German population.
Krystyna Jablonowska has emigrated to West Berlin with her aging father and her cancer brother Jerzy from Poland in order to be able to gain better medical treatment. For this, the single woman gave up her career as a cellist. Krystyna has an old fur coat that gives an indication of her former well -being life in Poland. Krystyna loses her identity in the recording camp and also in West Berlin society. Despite her knowledge of German, her employer pretends to be able to understand them several times in a fast food restaurant. After the death of her brother, whose care became Krystyna’s only motivation, she leaves Marienfelde and her father. It is the only one among the four narrators who manages to leave the camp in the course of the novel. With this action, however, she also completely disappears from the narrative – an indication of the identity -building power of this cramped coexistence in the warehouse. All characters only exist as warehouses and in their perception by others, but not as individuals. Nelly Senff, who gets to know Krystyna and her father, when she leaves her children in her care for a few hours, is the only figure that takes several roles in the course of the novel and whose identities do not only exist in the projection of others.
Hans Pischke is a former actor who has been living in the recipient for four years. It becomes clear on it how much the cramped space and the lack of privacy provoke the loss of identity. Hans, who has spent several years in GDR prisons before his arrival in West Berlin, no longer seems to exist outside the bearing. He rejects various job offers that led him out of the camp that he does not maintain contacts with people outside the camp. Between him and Nelly, who initially considers him strange, since he constantly observes and pursues it, a friendly affection is developing. Hans Pischke is also the most obvious example of the formation of identity through the perception of others: Although he was a regime critic in the GDR, a warehouser sprinkles the rumor that he is a stasispitzel, whereupon he is brutally beaten up. The identity as a spy is liable to him. Towards the end of the book, Hans learns that his fourteen -year -old daughter Doreen, to whom he had previously had no contact, will move into the camp for family reunification from the GDR. A closer relationship no longer develops between the two during the novel, Hans even tries to take his life on the night before her arrival, but his attempted suicide fails.
The title of the novel at first brings positive feelings of romance, freedom, cozy get -together. However, it refers to a fire that breaks out in the canteen of the emergency shelter at the end of the novel during the Christmas party.
After moving to West Germany in 1978, Julia Franck lived with her mother and her three sisters for nine months in the West Berlin emergency clerk Marienfelde, in which the novel also plays [2] .
The author herself points out that she has fictitiously invented characters and action, but which is autobiographically described in the novel, but is autobiographical. [3] In the presentation, personal memories are, for example, “the tightness in the emergency shot warehouse, the lack of separation of privacy and public” [4] received. In -minded topics such as “the uncertainty and the breaking points in the life of people” [4] and questions about “identity, the associated belonging” [4] Be central to the novel.
The criticism praised the successful transformation of autobiographical material in literary material. So Ulrich Rüdenauer judged in the Frankfurter Rundschau: “That her new novel Campfire But not an autobiographical report, but a literary search for traces in a no man’s land should be noted immediately: the author distributes the experienced – the close, the fear, the vacuum, the lack of communication – to different figures ” [5] . Hans-Peter Kunisch (SZ) already saw the “presentation of authenticity” refuted by “the complex narrative perspective”-one gains the impression that the author tells the native substance away from herself ” [6] . Andreas Nentwich found in the NZZ that Julia Franck “had long since grown beyond the experience of” looking “in the experiences of her characters'” ” [7] . And Cornelia Geissler wrote in the Berliner Zeitung: “Julia Franck […] processed his own experience in the book. Processed in the sense of: used. There is no generally valid history of history here, nor a emotional show how Klein-Julia felt in the intermediate world between East and West ” [8] .
Julia Franck himself formulated in her acceptance speech to award Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize of the Evangelical Academy Tutzing, which she was particularly Campfire received, to the core of the novel:
“If I have in my book particularly honored here Campfire tried to write a piece from the inner German-German history, then less with the concern to play the good German democracy against the bad dictatorship of the GDR. Rather, the warehouse, as there was between Germany Ost and West, is a symbol for our whole Germany today. Just the description of the bureaucracy with which an administrative giant like Germany lives that measures our heartbeat was the attempt to approach us. Perhaps it is a book in the middle of our German waiting room: prosperity, work, freedom and happiness – they are all intimate – and during it we are on the threshold from one state to the other, frighten us a little, love us a little, hope And expect – wait for happiness. ” [9]
In addition to the obvious political issues and the hardship of the refugees between democracy, politicism, political recovery, individuality and the struggle for the right to private life, which is particularly addressed by Nelly’s proud attitude and their persistent complaint, this right is discussed Campfire Two topics that are prominent in Julia Franck’s work: motherhood and female emancipation. With her writer and journalistic articles, the author comments on current feminism debates, but she always illuminates these topic in the historical context of her stories. In doing so, she criticizes the rigid expectations of society of women with children.
As in other texts by the author, the fathers are in Campfire absent or do not live their father role. Wassilij Batalow, the father of Katja and Aleksej, has supposedly committed suicide, Hans Pischke has no contact with his daughter until her puberty, and the father of Krystyna insults his daughter instead of recognizing her dedication to the brother and herself .
Conditions between mothers and their children are shown from several perspectives. In addition to the prominent descriptions from Nelly’s point of view, the reader also receives insights from the stories of the other figures, which also creates tensions between the different interpretations with regard to this topic.
When Nelly tells, she emphasizes her dedication and the close connection with her children. This becomes particularly clear in the first chapter when Nelly cares about her children, while they are interrogated by the border guards. Your children also give her a feeling of perspective, routine and normality, especially during your own surveys at the border and in the warehouse and the humiliation associated with you. Nelly’s love for Aleksej and Katja can be unabodied, but she describes her as a physical manifestation of memory – so in her relationship with her own past in the GDR or her love for her father.
The love for her children remains equally strong, even if the lager life makes being more difficult and the children apparently become a burden. The reader only doubts Nelly as a mother when she does it herself. This happens in a conversation with a doctor after Aleksej is hospitalized after attacks by his classmates with strong bruises. In terms of expectations of Western society, Nelly has failed as a mother: Aleksej is underweight, and Nelly is accused of abuse and neglect. Her unwillingness to take on a “lower” job that is not enough for her qualification as a chemist can be admired on the one hand, on the other hand, he is not compatible with her mother role, since the family’s financial hardship arises for the children. Nelly comes into a constant struggle against a western superficiality that focuses on the external appearance and origin. The identity of the refugees is constituted by what they offered in the west. Nelly is rated as a mother based on the things that she and her children do not have. So she is strong in contrast to the mother of Olivier, Ms. Rothe, who appears in riding clothes with her son with her son at Aleksej’s bedside and gives the abused child a cassette that Aleksej cannot even play because he has no recorder. Julia Franck implicitly criticizes both types of mothers, both who cares his child materially, but does not come close to him emotionally, as well as the one who does not prioritize his children sufficiently high.
Nelly blames her situation on the bureaucracy and institutions, and in response she increasingly closes towards her children. This withdrawal from the family and the difficult emotional situation are particularly expressed in the mother-daughter relationship. A central motive in Julia Franck’s work is the daughter’s longing for closeness to the mother, which is denied to her because the mother reacts with silence and cold. The motivation of the mother for her behavior cannot be traced from a daughter perspective. However, Nelly’s character is much more complex than shown in the relationship with her daughter. She sees the reasons for the growing distance from her children as inevitable. Nelly’s supposed failure as a mother illuminates to what extent her idea of being a mother collides with western expectations.
Central to the discussion of the mother role in the novel is also the question of the extent to which women have to organize their own identity around their children. In the course of the novel, Nelly is increasingly looking for contact with other adults. The reader evaluates Nelly due to the still usual assumption that mothers exist above all or even exclusively for their children. Anger and motherly are in context “unethical” – in order to be angry as a mother, Nelly must temporarily “stop” to be a mother. For this purpose, she slips into different roles. Being a mother is also a role, part of her identity, and not her primary employment in her current, impossible situation: Nelly has to be everything at the same time, but also for her children.
Another central topic of Campfire are also the effects of (missing) space on the identity of humans in urban habitats. The concept of “at home” as a space in which people can develop freely is idealized, since only there seems possible there. In the warehouse, on the other hand, the residents are very limited to the development and development of their identities. Only Nelly gets a certain flexibility through its constant self -reflection within the limited possibilities and accepts various identities: From the perspective of the others, she is alternately spy, philosopher, seducer or object of desire, boy (overwhelmed and co -conductive) mother and (for Hans) “Czech fairy tale princess”; Your perception of yourself, e.g. B. as a chemist, sometimes in a sharp contrast to these external attributions. The identity of the other warehouses is determined by others instead of themselves. The characters, especially Krystyna and Hans, blend this new roles attributed to them. Krystyna seems to be the only one of the identities that they all share together (refugees, strangers, immigrants, working arms); It is also the only one who in the end succeeds in leaving the camp. Even the identity of John Bird, who is not a resident of the camp, is only determined by his job, which in turn is in direct context with Marienfelde. And this identity penetrates his thinking and acting and thus also the space of possibilities of relationships with others.
In the work of Julia Franck, the closest relationships always exist between siblings. So also in Campfire In the case of Aleksej and Katja. The common experiences, from interrogation from the GDR border soldiers to exclusion in the new school, strengthen their camaraderie and their understanding of each other.
Despite their escape from the GDR, the figures remain in Campfire There are a room between the past and the future that you cannot escape. An important symbol for the motif of the thwarted escape is the raven with the broken wing that Aleksej and Katja absorb to maintain it.
In his laudation on Julia Franck on the occasion of the awarding of Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize [9] said Arnold Stadler: “In the book Campfire If man is a candidate of misfortune and life is not a quiz, but a consequence of circumstances. Less talented authors would settle with those responsible, name research in the type of non -fiction book and name. Franck, however, visualizes people, lets them be and stay. With the past and future. […] Julia Franck put this person a monument in which we can read, including ourselves, soon we were drawn as much as if these stories were ours, which we also have our little escape history ”.
According to Edo Reentz, the public mostly deals with bitten suspicion or funny nostalgia with escapes from the GDR. With Campfire If Julia Franck succeeded in writing a novel about an departure “who breathes the spirit of this epic justice”. Tells from four perspectives Campfire Neither only his characters nor excuse them, the reader in vain is waiting for a settlement with the GDR. The tone is laconic and sometimes relentless, always free of clichés Julia Franck tell both little things and particularly difficult scenes. The special thing about the strong autobiographical novel for Edo Reentz is that for the protagonist Nelly Sennf “Security and Prosperity, even freedom”, there are relative greats that she does not fall for in the West. “We haven’t had such a novel yet.” Edo Reentz: In the west a lot of new, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 7, 2003 [ten]
Hans-Peter Kunisch initially explains that Julia Franck himself came to West Berlin as a child over the GDR border and lived in the Marienfelde recording camp, in which a considerable part of Campfire plays. In his opinion, this is an essential part of the novel attraction. Nevertheless, the author, whom her nearby fabric is counting away from herself, succeeds. The language is unadorned and clear, Franck avoid clear statements about the told and remind you of Heinrich Böll or Martin Walser. Kunisch praises that the most difficult scenes are particularly well written. The four different narrative perspectives result in a “historical-political overview”, but only the view of Nelly Senff is consistently convincing. “But behind the contemporary scaffolding of the novel, the image of the brave and vulnerable, attractive and tough, as hopeless and loving mother appears. Hans-Peter Kunisch: uncertain escape movement, Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 30, 2003 [ten]
Ulrich Rüdenauer points out the autobiographical appendix of the novel, but at the same time it turns out that it is much more about a “literary search for traces in a no man’s land”. “The author distributes the experienced – the narrow, the fear, the fear, the vacuum, the lack of communication – into different figures and creates a small, intensive episode drama.” The terrible time in the reception center describes the author with an unadorned, sometimes smooth but all the more urgent language, which reproduces the hopelessness of the protagonists. Julia Franck choose a strange linguistic manner for incredible conditions and always finds the right nuances – without any transfiguring romance or melancholy. According to Ulrich Rüdenauer, the weakness of the novel lies in some somewhat strikingly told passages, such as the interrogation of Nelly at the American secret service, which “looks like it from gray files”. “That with Campfire However, something is told that goes far beyond the currently fashionable ridicule and nostalgicization of the GDR reality. “Ulrich Rüdenauer: Dream Disruption Passage, Frankfurter Rundschau, October 8, 2003 [5]
According to Sabine Peters, Julia Franck devotes himself to Campfire the cold war, which is rarely processed, a topic that is related to its life story. Nevertheless, these experiences floss in the background, primarily four different protagonists. These should be equal, which, according to Peters, does not always succeed: Krystina and Pischke fade alongside Nelly Senff and the American intelligence officer John Bird, who, as an embodiment of power, represents an important opposite pole to the other figures. Peters sees another weakness in the construction of the novel, which sometimes looks somewhat unbelievably structured. “With distance and discretion”, Franck describe the figures that experience disillusion in the Marienfelde recording camp and do not experience the promised freedom in the west. In this representation, Julia Franck will not be lamoyant, with Campfire Do not present a “indictment of the novel”. The novel does not psychologize or even work therapeutically, he shows more than he explains. “There is a distance that has something considerate, tactful as an attitude of not being close to the close; Campfire , – And this is how a room is created that enables readers to approach the sensations of the characters. “Sabine Peters: Cool warehouse mood, Deutschlandfunk Book market, October 29, 2003 [11]
For Thomas Brussig, leaving homeland is a drastic experience and a great narrative, especially if it is a collective experience, such as escapes and exits from the GDR. Nevertheless, little remarkable was written about it. Julia Franck was just successful. The young author tells concentrated and unobtrusive, with clear language and puzzling characters. In Campfire is told from the perspectives of four protagonists, who would be separated from one another – “annoying puzzle rates” will be spared the reader in this way. Franck avoid the “nothing -said and literarily fatal three letters GDR” and are more devoted to the promises of the West and the supposed promise of freedom. According to Brussig, Julia Franck says “almost with the consequence of a Brecht teaching piece” and confidently approaches the topic despite autobiographical appeals. “A stroke of luck: Campfire is a very remarkable novel. “Thomas Brussig: 20th landing, Spiegel, September 29, 2003 [twelfth]
Campfire was filmed for the cinema under the title “West” in 2012–2013. Directed by Christian Schwochow, Jördi’s Triebel, Anja Antonowicz, Alexander Scheer and Jacky Ido play in the leading roles. [13] [14]
Over the years of the development of the script, several authors worked on various versions, including Julia Franck herself. The script on which the film is now based is a free adaptation of the novel fabric from Heide Schwochow.
While the novel is shaped by its multi -perspectiveness, the film has a clear main character in Nelly Senff, which follows the dramaturgy, in the Nelly Senff embodied by Jördis. The fire to which the title of the novel refers is no longer available in the film adaptation.
The film had world premiere on August 25, 2013 at the Festival of the Film du Mondes in Montreal, where he received the award of the Film critic and film journalist association Fipresci in the “World Competition” festival section; Jördi’s Triebel was recognized as the “best actress”. [15]
In Germany, the film premiered on October 25, 2013 at the International Hof Film Days. [16]
The first reviewers in particular praised Triebels acting and Schwochow sensitive use of the German-German topic, but also criticized various aspects of the film. While Ronnie Scheib in Variety, the psychological construction of the film character Nelly Senff criticized as too little specific and colorful, which caused “West” to cope with details, [17] criticized Kerstin Decker in the Tagesspiegel that, in her view, too sudden and too harmonious end of the film [18] .
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the Originals from November 1, 2013 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been used automatically and not yet checked. Please check original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note.
- ↑ Antje Schmelcher: Julia Franck: “Scars are often deaf”. In: welt.de. 28. August 2003, accessed on October 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Claudia Voigt: Inside the wall . In: The mirror . No. 9 , 2003 ( online – 25. August 2003 ).
- ↑ a b c “We are here in the camp, not in the west”. In: Campus. Fu berlin, 8. juli 2013, accessed on March 1st, 2021 .
- ↑ a b https://www.fr.de/kultur/literatur/traumzerstoerungspassage-11723174.html
- ↑ http://www.buecher.de/shop/berlin/lagerfeuer/Franck-julia/products_products/detail/prod_id/33371844/
- ↑ http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/julia-fruck/lagerfeuer.html
- ↑ http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/julia-fruck-hat-einen-roman-ueber-menschen-im-notaufnahmelager-marienfelde-geschrieben-lagerkins,10810590,10101150150150
- ↑ a b Archived copy ( Memento of the Originals from April 20, 2016 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been used automatically and not yet checked. Please check original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note.
- ↑ a b http://www.buecher.de/shop/buecher/lagerfeuer/FranCck-julia/products_products/detail/prod_id/11863475/
- ↑ http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/kuehle-lagerstimmung.700.de.html?dram:article_id=81443
- ↑ Thomas Brussig: Literature: unsuccessful landing . In: The mirror . No. 40 , 2003 ( online – 29. September 2003 ).
- ↑ Campfire at Crew United, accessed on March 1, 2021.
- ↑ “West” on zeroone.de ( Memento from June 24, 2014 in Internet Archive )
- ↑ Awards – 2013 Montreal World Film Festival. September 2, 2013, archived from Original am 2. November 2013 ; accessed on March 1st, 2021 .
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the Originals from October 30, 2013 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been used automatically and not yet checked. Please check original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note.
- ↑ http://variety.com/2013/film/Reviews/west-review-montreal-1200680119/
- ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodk: Festival from Hof: Houston, we have a problem with these films. In: welt.de. 28. October 2013, accessed on October 7, 2018 .
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