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An excerpt from:
Book 6: Stella's Promotion
(novel)
The novel as an adventure. The scene of this novel stretches from Borneo to
Berlin. Proceeding from the hypothetical assumption that genetic and linguistic
development are related in individuals as they are in mankind in general, this
offers, on the one hand, undreamt-of healing possibilities (for AIDS, for
example) but also for manipulating the masses through "contaminated"
texts. The novel tells the story of the zoologist Stella Stomski, the seaman
Samuel Spieker and daughter Mona Stomski, whose name is an allusion to the
linguist Noam Chomsky.
An excerpt: Some native warriors
move through the Bornean jungle to kill white settlers.
A leaf falls. It spins from leaf
to leaf. It lands softly on black water. It twirls on the black water.
Along the black water men grope their way through the dark forest. Their naked
skins touch the glittering drops on the leaves. Branches are bent back, strain
themselves and whip back into the extended hand of the succeeding head-hunter. If one of them
pulls a hanging liana, several of them are showered. The men have waited out the
previous thunderstorm under a ledge. The sky, only visible when the path leads
directly along the river, remains black and heavy with clouds. As soon as the
patter of the heavy rain drops diminishes, the life sounds of the jungle are
audible again. In the night it is scarcely quieter, but after the rain
noticeably cooler. The men move like leukozytes through the capillaries of
the rain forest. At the end of their way they will come to an open wound, they
will destroy the intruders and withdraw again deeply into the protecting womb of
the forest. They know its life rhythm, they know the strengths and weaknesses of
the forest. They are sick when it is sick, they are well when it is well, they
are going to die when it dies.
Translation from German by the
author (© 2001 Klaus-Dieter Regenbrecht)
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