The place of preservation of the false: mistakes, accidents and homonyms in the novel Sand by Wolfgang Herrndorf

Abstract

This paper aims to examine Wolfgang Herrndorf's novel Sand (2011), taking into consideration its concatenation of errors, accidents and the logic of the absurd. The first part of this investigation regards the different connotations of the desert motif and their associated traditions. Secondly, it will be shown how these thematic expressions of the anti-logic can be applied to the level of reception, regarding formal categories, such as narrative position, time structure and plot patterns. Finally, with the example of the homonym Mine and its homophone Miene the paper will demonstrate how the novel plays with (semantic) misunderstandings and misinterpretations, becoming a "repository of the false."

Contemporary literature; Wolfgang Herrndorf; metaphor of the desert; homonyms