Uves Telkampa romāns „Tornis” – stāsts par kādu nogrimušu valsti

Abstract

Uwe Tellkamp’s novel is “a tale from a lost country” (Tellkamp), which depicts a myriad of problems in different strata of the society (intellectuals, army, artists, teachers, and scientists) in Germany a short while before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Applying the terms introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, “chronotope” and “micro-chronotope”, the author has tried to describe the complex time-space of Tellkamp’s novel “The Tower”, which reveals some of the last years before the total collapse of the German Democratic Republic. The novel presents a broad gallery of characters – there are more than a hundred characters who help to mirror different layers of the society, the feelings in them, the relations among people, and “the survival strategies”. Tellkamp’s novel allows apprehending diverse associative connection with the German literature of different time periods. The novel is a multi-layered, intertextual, and instigating literary work that abounds in many associations, allusions, and symbols; a part of them is examined in this article.