Der veruntreute Himmel by Franz Werfel

Der veruntreute Himmel Reviews

• 
  Gerhard

  Die Köchin möchte sich den Himmel "erkaufen". Mit der Unterstützung Ihres Neffen zur Ausbildung als Priester über 30 Jahre wurde sie leider betrogen. Ihre Verwandtschaft hat es auch auf ihr Erbe abgesehen. Die Lösung wäre für Teta eine Pilgerreise nach Rom. Ein junger Kaplan hilft ihr an ihrer Seite. Bei der Papstaudienz erleidet sie einen Schlaganfall. Soll die geistesbehinderte andere Schwester wirklich von Teta Geld nach ihrem Tod erhalten? Betrügt sie auch der Kaplan?
  Die Geschichte habe ich sehr gern gelesen, insbesondere kenne ich auch aus meiner Kindheit die Bemühungen der ledigen Verwandten, die meinten, sich den Himmel erkaufen zu können/müssen.
• 
  Barbara

  This is a remarkable book - the first of Franz Werfel's that I have read, and certainly not the last. Written in 1939 in exile, it tells the story of a simple Austrian cook who takes extreme measures to secure her place in heaven. The central questions are about the extent to which we are complicit in the guilt of other people, and the "deficit" of doing things without love. The book also criticises the pomp of the Catholic church and the hypocrisy of some of its adherents, and its lack of leadership against fascism. It is a masterpiece, a Jewish author writing so knowledgeably and intimately about the Catholic church; a sophisticated man writing so movingly and with such insight into the mind and heart of a woman whose ardent faith is more pure than that of all the highly educated priests she meets on her journey.
• 
  VJ

  Teta wants to make certain that she has a place in heaven. To that end, she funds her nephew's education and entry into the priesthood, making him her final advocate on this plain.
  
  The narrator and writer of Teta's tale lives with the family for whom Teta works as a cook. His story, bits of the family's story are also told, but it is Teta's story that makes up the major portion of the work.
  
  The best laid plans most often go awry and Teta's plan went awry in a big way, but she still managed to find a priestly advocate for herself, so the tale ends well. Not wanting to give away any of the story, though, I can tell no more than this!
• 
  Xenja

  Siamo davvero in pochi a conoscere questo romanzo di Werfel, che insieme alla Scrittura femminile azzurro pallido è la cosa migliore che ha scritto, e chissà perché è da tempo fuori stampa. Se lo vedete su una bancarella di libri usati, non lasciatevelo sfuggire. È la storia di Teta, anziana domestica dal carattere forte, che serve una ricca famiglia nella splendida e solitaria tenuta di Grafenegg, in Austria. Un personaggio straordinario, a tutto tondo; e poi ancora una riflessione sulle classi sociali e su come la fede condizioni la vita dei signori e dei servi. Delicato e struggente, si assapora goccia a goccia con delizia fino all'ultima pagina.
  
• 
  Jim Jones

  A beautiful book about faith and a poor servant's attempts to ensure her soul will get to heaven. While her attempts to manipulate events fail spectacularly, she receives grace at the end of her life with an unlikely meeting with Pope Pius XI in his own final days. While the book shows how God's mercy works, it is also a critique of the Church on the eve of WWII and its failure to offer leadership in the fight against Fascism.
• 
  Truehobbit

  A popular German classic, I still had little to no idea what I would find in this book.
  
  It tells the story of Teta, an old Moravian (today part of the Czech Republic) cook in service with a genteel Viennese family (at the time of our - and the author's - meeting her).
  At first, however it is not entirely clear what the book is going to be about. Although the author explicitly says he is about to narrate Teta's story, he then sets out to talk at some length about his own and Teta's employers' stories. In the next step, we hear Teta's story up to the time the book begins and at this point her story seems near the end already - we are, by now, about one third into the book. It is only after the Viennese household breaks up that we hear the end of Teta's story in detail and she really comes to life.
  
  The narrative technique is pretty odd, too. We start out with a first person narrator who is an author and he is writing in exile from the Nazis - just like Werfel himself, making this a nicely confusing setting of mock-autobiography. He is staying with his friends, the genteel family, as he does most of the time, feeling part of the family. While on his own at their summer house, he meets and becomes interested in the character of the close and aloof cook. He tells us about his life, his friends' lives, and the things he learns about Teta. The narrative style in these pages is somewhat ostentatiously highbrow, if not to say stilted.
  After a climactic party, tragedy strikes, leading to the dissolution of the household, including arrest of the father by the Nazis and escape into exile of our narrator. This is all told like a memoir until we reach the present of the author sitting in Paris, focusing his mind away from those horrors onto Teta - picturing Teta to himself, following her steps in his mind - and now the narrative changes from 'telling' to 'showing' as it were - for the next, the main part of the book, we see Teta's life (still interspersed with the occasional observation and analysis from the narrator) unfold 'live' - until the moment it ends, when we again switch back to the author sitting in Paris and reminding us (who have begun to wonder how he could possibly know all these things) that he is in contact with the chaplain Teta confided in - so as to re-establish the initial narrative technique in which he only reports what he learns from others, it would seem. Still, the main part of the story is traditionally narrative, and pretty captivating this part of the book is, too.
  
  (Spoilers)
  So, what is the 'embezzled heaven' of the title? Teta, in her simple religiousness, wants to make sure of a place in heaven by investing a lot of money into having a nephew educated to be a priest. She is not, however, burdened with a lot of emotion for other people, so she doesn't really care about that nephew as a person. He turns out to be a cheat, and her world collapses when she finds out - she has failed to secure her place in heaven. A good part of the story is how she finds out and how she reacts. Eventually, she joins a group for a pilgrimage to Rome, where she meets a chaplain who is everything the nephew is not. She confides in him and leaves him what is left of her fortune, thus finally securing someone to keep her soul after death, to her mind.
  Teta's faith in eternal life, which for her is as completely real as this life, and the mercantile and unsentimental approach she takes to securing it are the actual topics of the story.
  
  (/Spoilers)
  
  There is a lot of narratorial comment, and often it seems quite judgemental to me. The books seems intent on an objectively observing, cool and aloof attitude to its heroine. Her fate affects the reader, but does not overwhelm us emotionally, leaving us free to think about the meanings and implications of Teta's ideas and experiences for our own view of the world. And although the narrator and the chaplain offer their own interpretations, you do leave the book with some thoughts and questions on your mind.
• 
  S

  sehr traurig am ende. auch fder film ist gut. aber das buch ist weitaus berührender.
• 
  Anne

  Need more info.