Karl May
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Karl May. |
Karl Friedrich May (
Hohenstein-Ernstthal,
February 25,
1842 -
Radebeul,
March 30,
1912) was the best selling
German writer of all time, noted chiefly for
wild west books set in the
American West and similar books set in the
Middle East; in addition, he also wrote some lesser-known stories set in his native
Germany,
Russia,
China and
South America, some poetry, an autobiography, and a play. May also dabbled as a musical
composer, writing two very famous romantic German songs, "Forget Me Not" and a version of "Ave Maria".
May was born into a poor family and - according to his
autobiography - suffered from
blindness shortly after birth, probably due to
malnutrition. He regained his eyesight only after an operation and treatment at age four. He was trained to become a teacher in
Waldenburg and
Plauen (
Saxony). His short career as a teacher ended abruptly with a first conviction in
1863; in the following years he repeatedly got into trouble with the law for small thefts and conman frauds, and was jailed several times. This might have been a case of
pseudologia (compulsive lying).
During the years in prison May began writing, but he remained commercially unsuccessful for a long time. In
1875 he published his first story. Not before
1892, with
Winnetou I, did he achieve commercial success with his writing, eventually becoming something of a pop icon. Many of his books are written as first-person accounts by the narrator-protagonist, and he sometimes claimed that he actually experienced the events he described.
He used many different
pen names, including Capitain Ramon Diaz de la Escosura, M. Gisela, Hobble-Frank, Karl Hohenthal, D. Jam, Prinz Muhamel Lautréamont, Ernst von Linden, P. van der Löwen, Emma Pollmer (the actual name of his first wife; according to May, she was never aware of the purpose or content of his writing), Franz Langer. Today his works are all published under his own name.
He visited
North America only in
1908, well after writing the books set there, never getting west of
Buffalo, New York. This lack of direct experience of the Western
milieu he successfully compensated for by an ingenious combination of creativity, imagination, and factual sources including maps, travel accounts and guide books, as well as anthropological and linguistic studies.
Non-
dogmatic Christian feelings and values play an important role, and his "good guys" are often described as being of German descent. In addition, following the
Romantic ideal of the "
noble savage", and inspired by the writings of
James Fenimore Cooper, his
Red Indians are generally portrayed as innocent victims of white aggression, and many of them are presented as heroic characters of almost superhuman abilities. Especially in his later works, there is a strong air of
mysticism, often personified as the mysterious old woman
Marah Durimeh.
In the books set in America, May invented the characters of
Winnetou, the wise
chief of the
Apache Tribe, and
Old Shatterhand, the author's
alter ego and Winnetou's white
blood brother. A very successful Oriental series of books is set in the
Ottoman Empire. Here the narrator-protagonist calls himself
Kara Ben Nemsi, i.e., Karl, son of Germany, and travels with his local guide and servant
Hadschi Halef Omar through the
Sahara desert and the
Near East, all the while experiencing many exciting adventures. Both sets of books are linked not only by the common narrator, the author himself as either Old Shatterhand or Kara Ben Nemsi, but also by numerous other references and shared minor characters.
May's works were immensely successful, particularly in continental Europe, and have been translated into more than thirty different languages including Hebrew,
Latin,
Volapük, and
Esperanto. More than 200 million copies of May's books have been sold worldwide. Nonetheless, he is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, though this is slowly beginning to change. Several of his novels were made into
films, usually with the mountains of the former
Yugoslavia doubling for the wild west. These films predated the mid-1960s Italian
Spaghetti Westerns by some years.
May had some prominent admirers, including
Albert Einstein,
Hermann Hesse,
Heinrich Mann,
Karl Liebknecht and
Bertha von Suttner. German author
Carl Zuckmayer even named his daughter after the character "Winnetou" (although Winnetou is male). For a long time, literary criticism typically regarded May's books as trivial. The
Karl May Society (
Karl-May-Gesellschaft) was founded in
1969 to study his life and works.
Adolf Hitler loved May's stories about the American West, read them as a youth, and re-read and discussed them as an adult. In justifying his lack of first-hand experience, in passing judgment on others, such as the Jews, Hitler cited, as precedent, May's "authentic" depiction of the West without having been there.
May's house in
Radebeul near
Dresden in
Germany has been turned into a museum devoted to Karl May and his anthropological collection of artifacts of native American Indian origin.
Between 1912 and 1968
German cinema has screened 23 movies made after novels by Karl May. Most of them only loosely connected to the stories of the respective novels. In thirteen of these movies American actor
Lex Barker starred either as
Old Shatterhand or as
Kara Ben Nemsi or as
Doctor Sternau. Three movies have seen British actor
Stewart Granger in the leading role as
Old Surehand and one movie starred American actor
Rod Cameron as
Old Firehand. At the time of writing, Karl May considered the prefix "Old" to the names of several of his heroes as being typically American and illustrating the great experience of the heroes. Eleven movies featured French actor
Pierre Brice as the fictional
Apache-chief "
Winnetou".
The music for the movie "Der Schatz im Silbersee" (
The Treasure of Silver Lake) (1962), composed by German
Martin Böttcher, was a landmark in German film music. It was one ingredient of the great success of the Karl May movies of the 1960s. And the success of these movies only made possible the later so called
Spaghetti Western from Italy (with the famous compositions of
Ennio Morricone). The star of some of the Spaghetti Westerns,
Terence Hill, began his career in the German Karl May movies.
The 1960s Karl May films are typical popular productions of the time, and have not aged as well as Italian westerns of the same period. Most of them were shot in former
Yugoslavia, some in
Spain, none in America. May himself is the subject of a 1974 film by
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg.
* Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (1920),
silent movie* Die Todeskarawane (1920),
silent movie* Die Teufelsanbeter (1921),
silent movie* Durch die Wüste (1936), first sound-movie
* Die Sklavenkarawane (1958), first color-movie
* Der Löwe von Babylon (1959)
* Der Schatz im Silbersee (1962)
* Winnetou 1. Teil (1963)
* Old Shatterhand (1964)
* Der Schut (1964)
* Winnetou 2. Teil (1964)
* Unter Geiern (1964)
* Der Schatz der Azteken (1965)
* Die Pyramide des Sonnengottes (1965)
* Der Ölprinz (1965)
* Durchs wilde Kurdistan (1965)
* Winnetou 3. Teil (1965)
* Old Surehand 1. Teil (1965)
* Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen (1965)
* Das Vermächtnis des Inka (1965)
* Winnetou und das Halbblut Apanatschi (1966)
* Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand (1966)
* Winnetou und Shatterhand im Tal der Toten (1968)
The most famous is the open-air-festival every summer in
Bad Segeberg,
Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany), whose plays for many years were directed by the movie actor Pierre Brice. Also there are open air plays at
Elspe, where movie-actor Pierre Brice for seveal years also was playing his Winnetou-character in a live version and at the mountain-stage in
Radebeul, the village where Karl May lived.
*
Zane Grey*
B. Traven*
Emilio Salgari*
Hans Wollschläger:
Karl May. Grundriß eines gebrochenen Lebens (1965, 1976, 2004) [in German].
*
Pierre Joris:
Winnetou Old - Little data glaciers of turbulence. Good stuff! Makes me think of condensed Cantos-collage structure, HYPERCONDENSED, but with Deleuze and Guattari instead of Major Douglas.
Karl May's Works in English:*
Free translations of Karl May's works*
Nemsi Books (Publisher of new unabridged English translations of Karl May's works)*
Free ebook of Karl May at
Project Gutenberg*
Karl May Gesellschaft - English HomepageOther English Language Websites:*
Australian friends of Karl May*http://indokarlmay.com/economist.htm
*http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/karlmay.htm
*
Karl May LinksGerman Language Websites:*
Karl May Gesellschaft e.V. (Karl May Society - registered)*
Karl May Museum in Radebeul*
Karl May & Co - Magazine-pages with diskussion-board*
Swiss Karl-May-Freunde*
43 free ebooks by Karl May
