 First edition (German) | |
| Author | Christoph Ransmayr |
|---|---|
| Translator | Simon Pare |
| Language | German |
| Publisher | S. Fischer Verlag |
Publication date | 2016 |
| Publication place | Austria |
Published in English | 2022 |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 978-3-10-082951-1 |
Cox or, The Course of Time (German : Cox oder Der Lauf der Zeit) is a 2016 novel by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr.
The novel is set in the 18th century and revolves the English master clockmaker Alister Cox, who is invited by the Qianlong Emperor to come and work in the Forbidden City, where he is given a succession of seemingly impossible requests.
The Cox character is inspired by the real inventor James Cox. The real Cox never visited China, although the Qianlong Emperor did own one of his works.
Gisa Funck of Deutschlandfunk wrote: "In Cox oder Der Lauf der Zeit, Ransmayr describes the clash between two highly different cultures. A strength of this in several respects masterful novel lies in how he tells us about the strangeness of the Chinese empire, without suppressing the local perspective." [1]
The French translation was longlisted for the 2017 Prix Femina in the foreign novel category. [2]
Martin Suter is a Swiss author. He became known for his weekly column Business Class in the Weltwoche newspaper (1992–2004), now appearing in the Tages-Anzeiger, and another column appearing in "NZZ Folio". The columns have been published as nine books.
Cox's timepiece is a clock developed in the 1760s by James Cox. It was developed in collaboration with John Joseph Merlin. Cox claimed that his design was a true perpetual motion machine, but as the device is powered from changes in atmospheric pressure via a mercury barometer, this is not the case. The clock still exists, but was deactivated at the time of its relocation to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The phantom time conspiracy theory is a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory first asserted by Heribert Illig in 1991. It hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history to legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence. According to this scenario, the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is a fabrication, with a "phantom time" of 297 years added to the Early Middle Ages.
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Christoph Ransmayr is an Austrian writer.
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Friedrich Christian Delius, also known by his pen name F.C. Delius, was a German novelist. He wrote books about historic events, such as the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and RAF terrorism. Four of his novels were translated into English, including The Pears of Ribbeck and Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman. His awards include the Georg Büchner Prize of 2011.
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The Flying Mountain is 2006 novel by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr. It tells the story of two brothers who travel from Ireland to Transhimalaya to climb a yet unclimbed mountain. The text uses line breaks and is close to blank verse.
Uwe Eric Laufenberg is a German actor, stage director for play and opera, and theatre manager who has directed at international opera houses and festivals, such as Elektra at the Vienna State Opera and Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival.
"Die beste Zeit im Jahr ist mein" is a hymn by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. He wrote it not as a hymn but as part of a longer poem which appeared first in 1538. In the current Protestant German hymnal Evangelisches Gesangbuch, it is EG 319.
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Odysseus, Verbrecher. Schauspiel einer Heimkehr is a play by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr, first performed in 2010. It is based on an episode toward the end of Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus returns to his kingdom and slaughters his wife's suitors, who are called reformers in the play. Odysseus, Verbrecher was commissioned for the Ruhr.2010 campaign as one of six new plays based on the Odyssey.
Ransmayr beschreibt in Cox oder Der Lauf der Zeit den Zusammenprall zweier höchst unterschiedlicher Kulturen. Und eine Stärke dieses in mehrfacher Hinsicht meisterhaften Romans besteht darin, dass er von der Fremdartigkeit des chinesischen Kaiserreichs erzählt, ohne die Einheimischen-Perspektive zu unterschlagen.
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