Kaltenburg
by Marcel Beyer
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Description
"Challenging, beautifully written "--Library Journal Hailed by The New Yorker as one of the best young novelists and recipient of Germany's most prestigious literary awards, Marcel Beyer returns with a brilliantly wrought novel that brings to life both an individual and a whole world: the zoologist Ludwig Kaltenburg, loosely based on Nobel Prize-winner Konrad Lorenz, and his institute for research into animal behavior. Hermann Funk first meets Kaltenburg when still a child in Posen in the show more 1930s. Hermann's father, a botanist, and Kaltenburg are close friends, but a rift occurs. In 1945, fleeing the war, the Funks perish in the Dresden bombing, and Hermann finds his way to Kaltenburg's newly established institute. He becomes Kaltenburg's protégé, embracing the Institute's unconventional methods. Yet parts of Kaltenburg's past life remain unclear. Was he a member of the Nazi Party? Does he believe his discoveries about aggression in animals also apply to humans? Why has he erased the years in Posen from his official biography? Through layers of memory and experience Hermann struggles to reconcile affection and doubt, to make sense of his childhood, even as he meets a woman with family secrets of her own show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Künstlich, ausgedacht, abgequält
I got all the way to the next-to-last chapter and decided I just didn't care.
Bitvis mycket bra (särskilt scenerna från bombningen av Dresden), men tyvärr ojämn med långa likgiltiga textsjok.
Aug 16, 2008Swedish
Ratings
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Published Reviews
ThingScore 75
Like Daniel Kehlmann's Measuring the World and works by Carl Djerassi, this challenging, beautifully written metafiction--to some extent based on the life of Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz--examines the workings of science and the nature of academic competition. Award-winning German novelist Beyer (The Karnau Tapes) ranges over the decades from Nazism to communism to a reunited Germany to show more reveal our ability both to remember and to recast unpleasant memories in a more favorable light, and to show what people must hide in order to survive. show less
added by Christa_Josh
Lists
IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2014 longlist
150 works; 3 members
Author Information
23+ Works 364 Members
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
suhrkamp taschenbuch (4103)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Kaltenburg
- Original title
- Kaltenburg
- Original publication date
- 2008
- People/Characters
- Ludwig Kaltenburg; Hermann Funk; Klara Hagemann; Knut Sieverding; Martin Spengler; Katharina Fischer
- Important places
- Dresden, Saxony, Germany
- First words
- Ludwig Kaltenburg wartet bis zu seinem Tod im Februar 1989 auf die Rückkehr der Dohlen.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 833.92 — Literature & rhetoric German & related literatures German fiction 1900- 1990-
- LCC
- PT2662 .E94 — Language and Literature German, Dutch and Scandinavian literatures German literature Individual authors or works 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 103
- Popularity
- 313,768
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (2.97)
- Languages
- 9 — Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 2
