MAX VON DER GRUN: WORKING CLASS LITERATURE AND EVERYDAY LIFE OF WORKERS. AN INVESTIGATION OF THE NOVELS 'IRRLICHT UND FEUER,' 'ZWEI BRIEFE AN POSPISCHIEL,' AND 'STELLENWEISE GLATTEIS.' (GERMAN TEXT)

In most studies the function assigned to working class literature, or rather literature of the working world, has been that of a political propaedeutic, and thus an appropriate approach to the work of Max von der Grun was not found. Researchers felt that his novels lacked perspective and frequently came to the conclusion that they were merely superficial descriptions of working class milieus. In order to unlock the communicative intention of von der Grun's novels, it is, therefore, necessary to change the interpretative paradigm. Only then can the restricted perspective characteristic of the secondary literature be overcome and the fruitless question, what contribution his novels render to societal change, be circumvented. In this context the theory of everyday life offers an interpretative framework for the analysis of von der Grun's work, because with the category of everyday life the daily life experiences portrayed in these novels can be related to the specifically socially-constructed perception of reality, as well as to the everyday experiences of workers in the Federal Republic of Germany.;These novels are narrative life histories of "average" workers in the Federal Republic in the sixties and early seventies, concentrated around the "catastrophies" in everyday life. The lives of von der Grun's protagonists are molded primarily by the situation of their being paid laborers and by the everyday experiences in the concrete daily work process. Max von der Grun focusses on characteristic experiences in the segmented life-fields of factory, family, and free time. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.;In his novels "Irrlicht und Feuer," "Zwei Briefe an Pospischiel," and "Stellenweise Glatteis," Max von der Grun unfolds segments of specific historic life-worlds, as they present themselves from the view point of his worker-narrators. Von der Grun does not illuminate the objective structures of his protagonists' everyday worlds, rather he reveals the architectonics of their spheres of experience and life from within, in the reflection of the subjective experiences of his "heroes." The point of reference of his literary composition is always the experiencing and actively engaged narrator, his experiences inside and outside of the working world.