Karl May's Winnetou I

To say that Karl May (1842-1912) was a popular German writer would be an understatement. His books have sold around 200 million copies. And they’re still in print. He is best known for his westerns. Those westerns were the basis for a series of very successful 1960s German movies.

Most famous of all his books were the Winnetou trilogy. It is the first volume in this trilogy, Winnetou I, with which this review is concerned.

There are three interesting things about Karl May’s westerns. The first is that they were written at a time when the Wild West still existed. The second is that at the time he wrote his best-known westerns he had never been anywhere near America. His westerns were based entirely on his reading, both fiction and non-fiction, on the subject. And on his own rich imagination.

The third interesting thing is that May’s westerns are very very sympathetic indeed to the American Indians.

A young German (who is the narrator of the novel) arrives in the United States. We will eventually discover that his name is Karl. It’s quite likely that the author was hoping to persuade his readers that the book recounts his real-life adventures, although at this stage he had never left Germany.

He finds himself manoeuvred into a job as a surveyor on a railroad in the West. He meets an eccentric frontiersman named Sam Hawkens who is employed by the railroad as a scout. Sam sees himself as a mentor to the naïve young hero. Apart from Sam and the two other scouts the surveying team is comprised of lazy good-for-nothing drunks, the worst of them being a man known as Rattler.

The young German acquires the nickname Old Shatterhand. He proves himself to be a mighty hunter, killing a grizzly bear with a knife and bringing down a huge bull bison with an almost miraculous shot.

An encounter with two members of a local Apache tribe, a chief and his son Winnetou, will change his life. He and Winnetou will become lifelong friends but their first meeting is very uneasy. Winnetou’s father orders the surveying team to leave Apache land. Rattler kills an Apache and it is clear that the Apaches will return for revenge.

Sam comes up with an ingenious plan involving another tribe, the Kiowa, currently at war with the Apaches. Sam’s hope is that his plan will avoid bloodshed. Things don’t turn out as he had hoped.

Sam gets captured more than once. Old Shatterhand gets captured more than once. They get caught up in the middle of the hostilities between the Apaches and the Kiowa. They encounter a band of white bandits, with serious consequences both good and bad. This event does eventually lead to a firm friendship between the young German and Winnetou. Winnetou’s lively attractive kid sister will play an important part in the story also.

This novel is quite heavy going. On the whole I think the idea that 19th century novels are slow and long-winded is a myth, but this one really is very slow and very long-winded. And the characters talk so much. Dialogue scenes go on for page after page.

The hero, Old Shatterhand, is much too perfect. He’s in his early twenties and he’s never been in the West before but he can shoot better than anybody and he’s a better tracker than Sam even though Sam has been doing it for a quarter of a century and Old Shatterhand has only read about such things in books. The youngster can take on grizzly bears armed only with a knife. At one point, even though he has never fought with a knife, he easily wins a knife fight to the death with the finest warrior of the Kiowa tribe. He has better than everybody else at absolutely everything.

And despite his youth and inexperience he is wiser than everyone else. And nobler and braver. Apart from stretching credibility to ludicrous extremes it gets to be a bit irritating.

Old Shatterhand is a devout Christian and naturally he’s more devout and more virtuous than just about any other Christian in North America.

Winnetou is almost as perfect as Old Shatterhand. Sam starts off promising to be quite interesting but soon becomes no more than a comic relief character. There are several villains, and they’re very villainous indeed.

When reading a translation (in this case by Marlies Bugmann) you can never be sure how much of the stodginess of the prose is due to the author and how much to the translator. Either way it’s pretty stodgy.

On the plus side the story itself is quite good and when the characters finally stop talking there is some decent and moderately exciting action. There are countless hair’s-breadth escapes from danger. There is treachery and there are divided loyalties.

Karl May himself was a colourful larger-than-life character who spent much of his early life in and out of prison. I’m glad I read this book but I can’t see myself reading any more of his work. This one was too much of a slog. This novel has immense historical significance. It exerted a huge influence on European and especially German popular culture. It’s recommended for those reasons, but with the very major caveat that it’s a very tough read.