The daughter [0]
By Peter Bichsel [1]
Translated by xia23
In the evening they waited for Monika. She worked in the city, the train connections are bad. They, he and his wife, sat at the table and waited for Monika. Since she worked in the city, they did not eat until at 7:30. Previously they had eaten one hour earlier. Now they waited for one hour every day at a table which was set, at their seats, the father at the top seat of the table, the mother on the chair near the kitchen door, they waited in front of Monica’s empty seat. Later they also waited in front of the steaming coffee, the butter, the bread and the marmalade.
She was taller than her mother, she was also blonde and had the fine skin like her taunt Maria’s. “She was always a nice kid,” the mother said, while they were waiting.
In her room she had a record player, and she often brought records back from the city, and she knew who sang on the records. She had also a mirror and various bottles and jars, a Moroccan leather stool, a pack of cigarettes.
The father also picked up his pay envelope from a woman clerk. Then he saw many stamps on a rack, and was amazed by the sound of the adding machine, the blonde hair of the young lady, she said “you’re welcome”, when he thanked her.
Monika stayed in the city at noon, she ate a little something, as she said, in a tea room. She was then a young lady smoking in the tea room with a smile.
They often asked her, what she has done in the city, in the office. She did not know what to say.
At least they then tried to imagine exactly, how she casually flips and shows her commuter ticket in her red case in the train, how she walks along the platform, how she talks animatedly with her girlfriends on her way to the office, how she smiles in response to a gentleman’s greeting.
And then they imagined many times at this hour, how she comes home, with a purse and a fashion magazine under her arm, her perfume; they imagined how she sits in her seat, how they would then eat together.
Soon she will take a room in the city, they know that, and that they would then eat at 6:30, and that the father would read his newspaper again after work, that there would be no more room for the record player, no more hour of waiting. On the cupboard there was a Swedish glass vase, a vase from the city, a gift suggestion from the fashion magazine.
“She is like your sister”, the woman said, “she has everything from your sister. Do you remember how beautifully your sister could sing?”
“Other girls smoke too”, said the mother.
“Yes”, he said, “I’ve also said that too.”
“Her girlfriend has recently married”, the mother said.
She will also get married soon, he thought, she will live in the city.
Recently he asked Monika: “Say something in French.” – “yes”, the mother had repeated, “say something in French”. She did not know what to say.
She can also be a stenographer, he just thought. “That would be too difficult for us”, they said to each other.
Then the mother put her coffee on the table. “I have heard the train”, she said.
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[0]. Die Tochter. Peter Bichsel, p. 39. Der Weg zum Lesen. 3rd Ed. Harcourt Brace College Publishers, New York
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Tochter_(Peter_Bichsel)
The Daughter (Peter Bichsel)
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The Daughter is a short story by the Swiss writer Peter Bichsel . It appeared in 1964 in the volume Actually Mrs. Blum would like to get to know the milkman , a collection of 21 short and short stories by the author.
Contents
The short story describes a married couple who wait every evening to have dinner with their daughter, who works in the office in the city. In taciturn dialogues and snippets of thoughts from the parents, Bichsel shows that they admire their daughter and at the same time fear losing her. The double distance between parents and their child is developed in small details.
The attitude of the father, a simple worker, becomes clear when he speaks respectfully of the “office lady” in his company who pays him his wages. The mother admires the appearance of the daughter, who is taller than her, “also blonder and had the skin, the fine skin of Aunt Maria.” Both admire the daughter's abilities, her knowledge of foreign languages ??and shorthand. The parents try in vain to imagine their daughter's life in the office and in the city.
The gap is widened by changes in the lives of the younger generation. The parents try to accept that their daughter is growing up. They admire her knowledge of music and try in vain to imagine what it's like in the bars where their daughter spends her lunch break.
Topics
The core theme of the short story is communication problems, exacerbated by the gap between generations and social differences. There is only a superficial exchange of opinions between the parents, and attempts to talk to the daughter about her life fail. The parents' uneventful lives appear entangled in fixed but empty rituals. Since the daughter brings a little color into the parents' lives, the daughter's expected move out appears to be a threat that the parents have nothing to counter.
“Soon she would get a room in the city, they knew that, and that they would eat again at half past seven, that her father would read his newspaper again after work, that then there would be no room with a record player anymore, none Hour of waiting more…”
Applications
Bichsel's short story has the prototypical characteristics of the short story and can therefore be found in numerous reading books as an introductory text for this genre. The text also contains numerous so-called blank spaces. Such open questions about the content provide an opportunity for creative development of the story and for one's own writing. Wolf Wondratschek presented such a literary treatment with his short story “Lunch Break”. While Bichsel's text examines the daughter's life solely from the parents' perspective, Wondratschek shows the daughter's lunch break in a café, dreaming of "catastrophes" that could make her late: men who approached her and with whom she fell in love .
Texts
- Peter Bichsel , The Daughter, from: “Mrs. Blum actually wants to get to know the milkman”, (21 stories), first published in 1964, current edition Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1993, ISBN 3-518-22125-6
- Wolf Wondratschek , Lunch Break, from: The day used to start with a gunshot wound, Munich (Hanser) 1969, pp. 52–53
Web links
- Text of the short story and suggestion for a class project at Ernst Klett Verlag (pdf; 148 kB)
- Teachable to Bichsel's short story
[1]. Peter Bichsel is described as a Switzerland writer, whose stories of superficial simplicity conceal some subtlety. p. 109, Bertelsmann Universal Lexikon, Wissen Media Verlag GmbH, Gütersloh/München, 2002
In Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bichsel
Peter Bichsel (born 24 March 1935) is a popular Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Gruppe Olten.
Bichsel was born 1935 in Lucerne, Switzerland, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after he was born, the Bichsels moved to Olten, also in Switzerland. After finishing school, he became an elementary school teacher, a job which he held until 1968. From 1974 to 1981 he was the personal advisor and speech writer of Willy Ritschard,[1] a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Between 1972 and 1989 he made his mark as a "writer in residence" and a guest lecturer at American universities. Bichsel has lived on the outskirts of Solothurn for several decades.
He started publishing short lyric works in newspapers. In 1960, he got his first success in prose as a private printer. In the winter of 1963-1964 he took part in writing course in prose taught by Walter Höllerer.
One of his first and most well-known works is And Really Frau Blum Would Very Much Like to Meet the Milkman. Just as successful, Children's Stories, intended for adults, is written in the form of droll tales for children. Both books were translated from the German by English poet Michael Hamburger. A theme of Bichsel's works for younger readers is the stubborn desire of children to take words literally and wreak havoc on the world of communicated ideas. In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bichsel's journalistic work pushed his literary work mainly into the background. Only Der Busant (1985) and Warten in Baden-Baden appeared again with the Bichsel style that was so familiar to German readers. Peter Bichsel gave up being a professional teacher early in his lifetime, yet he has continued to teach his readers that the drudgery and banality of life is of our own making. Conversely, we have every opportunity to prevent our lives from being boring. This theme has helped make Peter Bichsel a symbol of German literary work today.
In 1981, he was a member of the jury at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.[2]
Peter Bichsel's estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.
Awards[edit]
Peter Bichsel´s autograph
- 1965 Prize of "Group 47"
- 1970 Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis
- 1981/82 Stadtschreiber von Bergen
- 1996 Mainzer Stadtschreiber
- 1999 Gottfried-Keller-Preis
- 2000 Prix Européen de l’Essai Charles Veillon
- 2000 Kassel Literary Prize
- 2004 Honorary Doctor of Theology, University of Basel
- 2005 Work grant by Pro Helvetia
- 2011 Solothurner Literaturpreis
- 2012 Grosser Schillerpreis
Short story collections[edit]
- Versuche über Gino (1960)
- Eigentlich möchte Frau Blum den Milchmann kennenlernen (1964)
- And really Frau Blum would very much like to meet the milkman. Translated by Michael Hamburger. London, Calder & Boyars (1968)
- Die Jahreszeiten (1967)
- Kindergeschichten (1969)
- Des Schweizers Schweiz (1969)
- Inhaltsangabe der Langeweile (Hörspiel, 1971)
- Geschichten zur falschen Zeit (Kolumnen, 1979)
- Der Leser (1982)
- Schulmeistereien (1985)
- Der Busant (récits, 1985)
- Irgendwo anderswo (1986)
- Möchten Sie Mozart gewesen sein ? (1990)
- Im Gegenteil (1990)
- Zur Stadt Paris(1993)
- To the city of Paris. Text German/English. Translated by Michael Kuttner. Kolkata, Tarjama (2007)
- Gegen unseren Briefträger konnte man nichts machen. (1995)
- Die Totaldemokraten (1998)
- Cherubin Hammer und Cherubin Hammer (1999)
- Alles von mir gelernt (2000)
- Eisenbahnfahren (2002)
- Doktor Schleyers isabellenfarbige Winterschule (2003)
- Das süsse Gift der Buchstaben(2004)
- Wo wir wohnen (2004)
- Cherubin Hammer und Cherubin Hammer (2005)
- Kolumnen, Kolumnen (2005)
Further reading[edit]
- Peter Bichsel. in: World authors, 1975-1980. Ed. Vineta Colby. New York: Wilson, 1985. ISBN 978-0-8242-0715-1
- Rolf Jucker (ed.), Peter Bichsel. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-7083-1380-0
References[edit]
- ^ "Redenschreiber von Willi Ritschard - Business And Science". Business And Science (in German). Retrieved December 15, 2016.
- ^ "Berlinale 1981: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved August 22, 2010.
External links[edit]
- Literary estate of Peter Bichsel in the archive database HelveticArchives of the Swiss National Library.
- Publications by and about Peter Bichsel in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
- Peter Bichsel at the Encyclopædia Britannica.
[3] . In amazon, there is a book called “Analysis and interpretation for the shortstory “the daughter” by Peter Bichsel with a lesson plan for the 10th grade”:
(Analyse und Interpretation der Kurzgeschichte "Die Tochter von Peter Bichsel mit Unterrichtsentwurf für eine 10. Klassenstufe)
There are 36 pages for $40.9.
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