{"id":8896,"date":"2022-09-09T14:34:06","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T12:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/?p=8896"},"modified":"2022-09-29T20:45:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T18:45:48","slug":"winnetou-karl-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/2022\/09\/winnetou-karl-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnetou \u2022 Karl May"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

After Karl May’s Winnetou<\/em> has recently been on everyone’s lips, it seemed like a good occasion for me to finally pick up the first volume and see for myself what this story has to offer. Until now, I had only read May\u2019s travel tales, but the three Winnetou<\/em> volumes had been sitting unread on my little shelf of to-be-read books for years. A few years ago, I had pulled them from the public bookcase\u2014just in case, since it\u2019s always good to have certain books at home. I wouldn\u2019t have bought this edition myself, as I find the ones from the Bamberg Verlag much more beautiful. In this post, I want to introduce the book and also take a brief look at the current debate surrounding Karl May.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The content of the book can be summed up quite quickly (of course, as always, without spoilers). The first-person narrator has just arrived in the United States and initially settles down in St. Louis as a private tutor. The locals soon recognize his skill and exceptional talent, and he is hired to join a surveying expedition for the construction of a railroad into the Wild West. As a greenhorn\u2014today we might say newbie or noob\u2014he naturally has to earn his spurs first. He gets plenty of opportunities to do so, and readers are treated to the full Wild West program, with everything that entails: Native Americans, prairies, buffalo hunts, thrilling battles, wild horse chases, torture stakes, sneaking and spying on Indians, sneaking and spying on cowboys, smoking the peace pipe, brawls, rough fellows by the campfire, cool remarks, cigar smoking, wild fights\u2014in short, practically everything one could expect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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What strikes me about Karl May is his use of primitive narrative devices, which are arranged so skillfully that it becomes an art form in itself to write stories like this. Winnetou<\/em> is told in the first person from the perspective of Old Shatterhand, who has just arrived from Germany and now wants to get to know the Wild West. The protagonist is an utterly exaggerated heroic figure\u2014a kind of superhero who may be a greenhorn and experiences many things for the first time, yet is so remarkably capable that readers know he will always emerge victorious from every conflict. The book consists of a sequence of situations in which Old Shatterhand repeatedly finds himself in peril and escapes each time with extraordinary ingenuity, strength, and skill. After a while, the reader recognizes the pattern and anticipates the next danger with excitement, eager to see what trick Old Shatterhand will use to outshine everyone once again. Karl May consciously plays with the reader\u2019s vanity, and so the choice of a first-person perspective and the background of a young German protagonist is perfectly chosen\u2014it must have been easy for his contemporary audience to identify with him. The beautiful setting, often only briefly described and accented with a few words, leaves much room for the reader\u2019s imagination and creates a vivid mental image of the events.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I have often encountered this superhero-reader-flattery narrative technique\u2014it still appears frequently in modern books, for example in The Name of the Wind<\/a> by Patrick Rothfuss. And the fact that Karl May was so successful with this formula in Germany also gives some insight into the German soul. His characters come from Germany, travel the world, and are, in all respects, superior to everyone else. And isn\u2019t it still the same today? Looking at current political and social debates, the moral superiority people here display seems just as pronounced as in Karl May\u2019s novels. That\u2019s why I\u2019m convinced that this very narrative style would be just as successful today\u2014and if people stopped debating adaptations they\u2019ve never seen and instead actually read Karl May\u2019s old books, they would probably love and devour them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Reading Winnetou<\/em> is truly a pleasure (for once, even a nerd can feel like a superhero). The stories, with their many successive showdowns, are simply exciting. It\u2019s fun to immerse oneself in the world of the Wild West and experience those thrilling adventures where behind every corner lurks a wild animal, a rough pale face, or a Native American on the warpath. It just works\u2014one has to admit that. Though for me, only to a certain extent: after one book, I\u2019ve had enough, as the formula starts repeating itself and becomes dull.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Karl May\u2019s books were incredibly successful\u2014sold and read millions of times. Not only in Germany but worldwide, with his tales translated into more than 33 languages. Remarkably, when Karl May wrote his travel stories or Winnetou<\/em>, he had never actually visited the locations he described. He conducted extensive research and gathered his knowledge from books. That\u2019s quite an accomplishment and something I deeply admire. It\u2019s what makes a talented author, and Jules Verne also mastered this beautifully in Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon<\/a>, when he wrote about the Amazon River he had never seen in real life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Now, what about racism\u2014is the current debate justified? In this Winnetou<\/em> volume, I couldn\u2019t find any racist statements or attitudes. On the contrary, Karl May takes the side of the Native Americans and condemns the theft of their land by white settlers. I have read that some of his other works do contain racist remarks (for instance, antisemitic ones), but in Winnetou<\/em> I found none. Only two inappropriate comparisons involving dark-skinned people appear, which I would attribute to the era and which don\u2019t convey any racist ideology. The image he paints of the indigenous people is, of course, very clich\u00e9d\u2014everything\u2019s there: the peace pipe, \u201cHowgh, I have spoken,\u201d the torture stake, the tomahawk, even the stereotypical war cry with a hand waving in front of the mouth. From today\u2019s perspective, that kitsch is precisely what creates the atmosphere, and it should be clear that it has only limited connection to reality. But one shouldn\u2019t forget that this is entertainment literature. You wouldn\u2019t buy a cheesy romance set in Paris and then complain when the lovers kiss clich\u00e9-style under the Eiffel Tower at night. If you want a realistic look at the history of Paris, you\u2019ll need to read appropriate literature\u2014and it\u2019s the same with the historical study of North America\u2019s indigenous cultures. Moreover, Karl May\u2019s books could even spark interest in foreign cultures, especially among young readers, and encourage deeper engagement. I found myself googling a few details to see if they were real. As always, it depends on the reader and their context. My view remains: I believe in the intellectual independence of my fellow human beings\u2014they don\u2019t need thought supervision. Even when they come to different conclusions than I do\u2014that\u2019s what a free society and democracy are about.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

From a linguistic standpoint, Karl May\u2019s style is quite simple and didn\u2019t particularly impress me. It reads easily and smoothly, but the sentences lack melody and the unique rhythm I often find and enjoy in good classics. Nor does his work have that charmingly old-fashioned tone that older editions of classics often possess and which I like for its nostalgic touch. So, if you\u2019re looking for beautiful sentences, you won\u2019t find them here\u2014and other authors of great adventure novels have fared much better in that regard.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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I\u2019ve read a few of Karl May\u2019s books and have often wondered why I\u2019m not more tempted to pick up another one. It\u2019s partly due to the simple language, but also because other authors simply offer more. Jules Verne<\/a>, with his inventive ideas and atmospheric storytelling, always had something fascinating. Or Jack London<\/a>, whose novels often raised fundamental questions about life and humanity, even touching on simple metaphysical reflections. B. Traven<\/a> also wrote wonderful adventure stories, masterfully portraying social and human abysses, and doing so with a linguistic sophistication far superior to May\u2019s. Classic adventure literature from May\u2019s era includes many other, lesser-known works that I\u2019ve enjoyed much more\u2014such as Mali, the Snake Charmer<\/a> by Louis Rousselet. What I mean is: Karl May is entertaining and offers solid readability, but he belongs more in the middle of the pack. There\u2019s much more remarkable adventure literature out there for me.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I also found the afterword of this edition, written by Dr. Wilfried N\u00f6lle, quite interesting. It outlines the situation of the descendants of Native Americans in North America at the time. This edition dates from 1963, so things have likely changed since then. He emphasizes once again that Karl May did not intend to write an ethnography of the North American tribes but simply wanted to entertain his readers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Conclusion:<\/strong> Winnetou<\/em> is an entertaining and exciting story that delivers everything one expects from a classic adventure novel. Karl May knows how to create suspense with his simple style. Through his exaggerated protagonist and the constant peril he faces, the book remains engaging throughout. However, the formula repeats itself so often that the reader quickly recognizes the pattern\u2014while this anticipation adds to the fun, it also causes the structure to wear thin over time. With just a few words, May paints vivid scenery and fulfills all the reader\u2019s expectations of the Wild West\u2014with Native Americans, prairies, wild fights, and all the clich\u00e9s. Linguistically, the book is quite plain, and any deeper meaning is hard to find. Still, even after all these years, Karl May\u2019s writing remains fluid, enjoyable, and simply thrilling to read. It\u2019s certainly not a masterpiece of world literature, but it is definitely a worthwhile piece of entertaining fiction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Book Information:<\/strong> Winnetou, Volume 1<\/em> \u2022 Karl May \u2022 Bertelsmann \u2022 443 pages \u2022 Edition from 1963<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Karl May’s Winnetou has recently been on everyone’s lips, it seemed like a good occasion for me to finally pick up the first volume and see for myself what this story has to offer. Until now, I had only read May\u2019s travel tales, but the three Winnetou volumes had been sitting unread on my … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Winnetou \u2022 Karl May”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Winnetou \u2022 Karl May - lesestunden","description":"Nachdem Karl May mit seinem Winnetou momentan in aller Munde ist, war das f\u00fcr mich Anlass zu den ersten Band von Winnetou zu greifen und einmal selbst zu lesen,"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,10,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure-novel","category-classics","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/winnetou_1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}