The Twilight World
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
The great filmmaker, Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to defend a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War Two.
In 1997, Werner Herzog...
In 1997, Werner Herzog...
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The great filmmaker, Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to defend a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War Two.In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and would meet many times, talking for hours and together unraveling the story of Onoda's long war.
At the end of 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. Defend the territory with guerilla tactics at all costs. There is only one rule: you are forbidden to die by your own hand. In the event of capture, give the enemy all the misleading information you can. So began Onoda's long campaign, during which he became fluent in the hidden language of the jungle. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades-until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making.
In The Twilight World, Herzog immortalizes and imagines Onoda's years of absurd yet epic struggle in an inimitable, hypnotic style-part documentary, part poem, and part dream-that will be instantly recognizable to fans of his films. The result is a novel completely unto itself, a sort of modern-day Robinson Crusoe tale: a glowing, dancing meditation on the purpose and meaning we give our lives.
Lese-Probe zu „The Twilight World “
In 1997, I was in Tokyo to direct the opera Chushingura. Shigeaki Saegusa, the composer, had long pressed me to take on the world premiere of this work. Chushingura is the most Japanese of all Japanese stories: there is a religious ceremony impending; the preparations are in hand; in the course of these, a feudal lord is provoked and insulted; he draws his sword. As punishment for his sacrilege, he is made to commit ritual suicide, seppuku. Two years later, forty-seven of his retainers avenge him by ambushing and killing the man who insulted their master. They know that they must themselves die for such an action. That same day, all forty-seven kill themselves.Saegusa is a widely respected composer in Japan. At the time of the production, he had his own TV show, and people knew about the work we were doing. In the evening, some of us would have dinner together at a long table. Saegusa came late one day, and in a state of high excitement. ÒHerzog-san,Ó he said. His Highness, the Emperor had indicated he would receive me to a private audience, if I wasnÕt too busy with the upcoming premiere. I replied: ÒMy goodness, I have no idea what I would talk about with the Emperor; it would be nothing but banalities.Ó I could feel my wife LenaÕs nails digging into my palm, but it was too late. I had declined.
It was a faux pas, so awful, so catastrophic that I wish to this day that the earth had swallowed me up. Around the table, everyone present froze. No one breathed. All eyes were fixed on their plates, no one looked at me, a protracted silence made the room shudder. It felt to me as though the whole of Japan had stopped breathing. Just then, into the silence, a voice inquired: ÒWell, if not the Emperor, whom would you like to meet?Ó I instantly replied: ÒOnoda.Ó
"Onoda? Onoda?"
"Yes," I replied. "Hiroo Onoda."
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And a week later, I met him.
Lubang, a Path in the Jungle
February 20, 1974
The night coils in fever dreams. No sooner awake than with an awful shudder, the landscape reveals itself as a durable daytime version of the same nightmare, crackling and flickering like loosely connected neon tubes. From daybreak the jungle has twitched in the ritual tortures of electricity. Rain. The storm is so distant that its thunder is not yet audible. A dream? Is it a dream? A wide path, on either side dense underbrush, rotting mulch on the ground, the leaves dripping. The jungle remains stiff, patient, humble, until the office of the rain has been celebrated.
Then this, as though I'd been there myself. Sounds of voices in the distance; happy cries coming ever nearer. From the bodiless mist of the jungle a body acquires form. A young Filipino man comes hurrying along the path, down the slight incline. Curious, as he runs, in one hand he holds up over his head the remnants of an umbrella, now nothing but a wire skeleton and shreds of cloth, in the other a bolo knife. Close behind him is a woman with an infant on her arm, followed by seven or eight other villagers. What has provoked the joyous excitement is not evident. They hurry by, then nothing happens. The steady drip, drip from the trees, the quiet path.
A path, just a jungle footpath. And yet, immediately in front of me, on the right-hand side, a stir passes through a few of the moldering leaves. What was that? Another moment of stillness. Then a section of the wall of leaves at eye level in front of me, that too begins to move. Slowly, terribly slowly, a green man takes form. Is it a ghost? The thing I have been watching all along without recognizing it is a Japanese soldier. Hiroo Onoda. Even if I had known exactly where he was standing, I would not have seen him, so consummate is his camouflage. He
Lubang, a Path in the Jungle
February 20, 1974
The night coils in fever dreams. No sooner awake than with an awful shudder, the landscape reveals itself as a durable daytime version of the same nightmare, crackling and flickering like loosely connected neon tubes. From daybreak the jungle has twitched in the ritual tortures of electricity. Rain. The storm is so distant that its thunder is not yet audible. A dream? Is it a dream? A wide path, on either side dense underbrush, rotting mulch on the ground, the leaves dripping. The jungle remains stiff, patient, humble, until the office of the rain has been celebrated.
Then this, as though I'd been there myself. Sounds of voices in the distance; happy cries coming ever nearer. From the bodiless mist of the jungle a body acquires form. A young Filipino man comes hurrying along the path, down the slight incline. Curious, as he runs, in one hand he holds up over his head the remnants of an umbrella, now nothing but a wire skeleton and shreds of cloth, in the other a bolo knife. Close behind him is a woman with an infant on her arm, followed by seven or eight other villagers. What has provoked the joyous excitement is not evident. They hurry by, then nothing happens. The steady drip, drip from the trees, the quiet path.
A path, just a jungle footpath. And yet, immediately in front of me, on the right-hand side, a stir passes through a few of the moldering leaves. What was that? Another moment of stillness. Then a section of the wall of leaves at eye level in front of me, that too begins to move. Slowly, terribly slowly, a green man takes form. Is it a ghost? The thing I have been watching all along without recognizing it is a Japanese soldier. Hiroo Onoda. Even if I had known exactly where he was standing, I would not have seen him, so consummate is his camouflage. He
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Autoren-Porträt von Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature and documentary films, including Aguirre, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, My Best Fiend, Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose and directed as many operas. He lives in Munich and Los Angeles.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Werner Herzog
- 2022, 144 Seiten, Masse: 12,7 x 20,7 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Übersetzer: Michael Hofmann
- Verlag: Penguin Random House
- ISBN-10: 0593490266
- ISBN-13: 9780593490266
- Erscheinungsdatum: 11.08.2022
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
One of The New Yorker s Best Books of 2022[A] potent, vaporous fever dream; a meditation on truth, lie, illusion and time that floats like an aromatic haze through Herzog s vivid reconstruction of Onoda s war . . . Hofmann s resonant translation conveys the portentous shimmer of Herzog s voice. New York Times Book Review
[A] wondrous first novel . . . The New Yorker
[A] spare and lyric tale . . . In his feverish search for ecstatic truths, Herzog has given readers a portal into human folly, self-discipline and domination surely his life s work. Washington Post
As profound and thought-provoking as the best of his films, Herzog s The Twilight World delivers as a superb yet painful parable on the fleeting nature of purpose. San Francisco Chronicle
From the true story of a WWII soldier who kept up the fight until 1974, legendary filmmaker Herzog distills a brooding, poetic novella . . . Herzog, ever in pursuit of deeper truths, sees in Onoda's predicament an all-too-ordinary tendency to subordinate facts to master narratives. Booklist
There s an element of the romantic as well in Herzog s jungle survival tales, where the universe boils down to individuals wrestling with nature and being shaped by it in turn. . . . This is why Herzog loves the jungle, for its capacity to show us at our most abject and our most inspiring. The New Republic
Filmmaker Herzog draws on the true story of a Japanese officer who patrolled the Filipino jungle for nearly three decades after WWII, unaware the war had ended, in his fascinating debut novel . . . Onoda shares with the director s filmic protagonists a fierce will and singular perspective. This will whet the reader s appetite for a film version. Publishers Weekly
[A] stunning tale of obsession unto madness by a master of that narrow but fruitful genre . . . Recall director Herzog s film Aguirre, The Wrath of God,
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(1972) and you ll have a key to this story, whose details he calls factually correct mostly. In Tokyo to stage a production of Chushingura in 1997, Herzog declines an opportunity to speak with the emperor and instead asks to see Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese commando who hid on a Philippine island from 1944 until 1974. Herzog tells Onoda s tale from the beginning . . . Herzog fans will hope for a film to come. Meanwhile, this evocation of loyalty to a lost cause serves beautifully. Kirkus (starred review)
Herzog is internationally acclaimed as a maker of films peopled by obsessive characters struggling in wild, uncontrollable settings. . . . [His] first novel is no different. . . . Through spare language and minimal detail that recall Herzog s screenwriting technique, together with great leaps through time, the novel spans the full 29 years of Onoda s remarkable story while keeping the focus on him. . . . A brief but powerful and noteworthy addition to the résumé of a master storyteller; fans of Herzog s films will see the filmmaker s cinematic fingerprints all over this absurdist, if absorbing, story. Library Journal
Fans of Herzog s films filled with obsessive characters, quixotic journeys, and the natural world as antagonist will by captivated by his first novel . . . Part Aguirre, The Wrath of God, part Apocalypse Now, and part fever dream, Herzog s The Twilight World casts a spell that asks us to consider who we are and what we re fighting for. Elle
Herzog is internationally acclaimed as a maker of films peopled by obsessive characters struggling in wild, uncontrollable settings. . . . [His] first novel is no different. . . . Through spare language and minimal detail that recall Herzog s screenwriting technique, together with great leaps through time, the novel spans the full 29 years of Onoda s remarkable story while keeping the focus on him. . . . A brief but powerful and noteworthy addition to the résumé of a master storyteller; fans of Herzog s films will see the filmmaker s cinematic fingerprints all over this absurdist, if absorbing, story. Library Journal
Fans of Herzog s films filled with obsessive characters, quixotic journeys, and the natural world as antagonist will by captivated by his first novel . . . Part Aguirre, The Wrath of God, part Apocalypse Now, and part fever dream, Herzog s The Twilight World casts a spell that asks us to consider who we are and what we re fighting for. Elle
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