Children's Literature

[ book tip by Literatur Schweiz ] 800 years after Wolfram von Eschenbach and Chrétien de Troyes wrote the story for the first time, «Parzival» continues to describe human maturation in a most exemplary way. An ignorant fool leaves home in order to find himself in the world outside. Adolf Muschg takes up this old tale and retells it in his 1000 page opus magnum «The Red Knight». While the original tale features the hero as a role model who grows into a social order, Muschg psychologises the protagonist based on modern criteria. Thereby, Parzival becomes the poster child of a new turning point which is characterised by a vain utopian hope and which allows for parallels between the middle ages and the 1990s.
Muschg retells, reflects, interlards, cuts out and thereby gives his hero a personality behind which the author becomes apparent. Oscillating between novella and essay, the novel forms a unique cachet of brilliant style and linguistic vividness. This new Parzival appears more ironic and colourful, lighter but also more ambivalent than his model. Most importantly, the idea of salvation is solved in a contemporary manner. The Holy Grail, here, is a black hole, and humankind should not expect anything else to come from it than what one places inside.

(Beat Mazenauer, transl. by Anja Hälg)

[ Favourite quote ] «Auch wenn die Welt nicht zu retten ist - natürlichist sie nicht zu retten! - muss es doch Einen und Etwas geben, in dem sie herrlich erscheint ohne Mass und Grund, eingrandioser Zweck für sich allein. Etwas wie die Fräuleins in den arabischen Liebesgedichten dort drüben, diese Lailen und Suleiken, und wie sie heissen -»

[ book info ] Muschg, Adolf: Der rote Ritter. Eine Geschichte von Parzivâl. (original language: Deutsch) The Red Knight. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M., 1993 . ISBN: 3-518-40513-6.