Sonntag, September 04, 2011

Maltesische Literatur II

Gestern Abend habe ich Beastly ausgelesen und es hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Die Geschichte von der Schönen und das Biest ist sehr gut und sehr glaubwürdig in die Gegenwart versetzt worden. Ich sollte wieder mehr Märchen lesen und Alex Flinn hat noch ein paar ähnliche Bücher geschrieben. Abends habe ich mir dann kurz ein paar Ausschnitte aus dem Film "Beastly" angesehen, war aber extrem enttäuscht. Der Film hatte mit dem Buch überhaupt nichts mehr zu tun, und mit dem ursprünglichen Märchen noch viel weniger.

Deshalb beginne ich heute Abend wieder mit maltsischer Literatur. Das ist mein Neues:

Francis EBEJER
The Maltese Baron
... and I Lucian

Product Description: The Maltese Baron and I Lucian shares several similarities with Requiem for a Malta Fascist (1980) in terms of theme and style. On the political level, both novels treat fascism and the Second World War. The war dominated Ebejer like a psychological fact that was an extraordinary experience of intractable material which affected human associations. On the personal level, both novels deal with the themes of friendship and love in a network of relationships. In The Maltese Baron and I Lucian, the first person narrator (Lucian) is an old man who examines his life in a document that is churned into a novel. Ebejer here re-introduces some of his favourite issues, like the grasp that the past may have on character, a rejection of love because of obstinacy, the psychological mystery of the old man, and the clash between young and old.

Two childhood friends, Lucian, the son of a middle-class businessman, and Mark Antonin, the Baron's son, grow up two completely different characters yet manage to remain soul-mates. Lucian is clever but conceited and lonely as he nurtures delusions of nobility, whereas Mark Antonin is generous and popular, but very unrestrained in spirit. The latter, who inherits his father's title, mingles with a circle of Fascists, meets and falls in love with the beautiful Italian girl, Katerina who rather fancies Lucian. The war complicates matters for the three of them and the men try their utmost to hide Katerina. Katerina loves Lucian but never marries him. She marries Mark Antonin instead but then leaves Malta and dies abroad many years later. Mark Antonin returns with her daughter, Bianca. He treats her as if she were his own, but he claims she is Lucian's.

In this story Ebejer depicts Malta's progress from a colonial condition to an independent mentality. It seems he wrote to overcome himself: colonised politically by the British and culturally by the Italians his challenge was to find an authentic voice. His choice was to use narrative to illustrate man's liberated presence in the world.

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