THE LAST OF THE MAGICIANS 40s

und gerecht-nicht wahr, du bist gerecht? LaB mich noch, laB mich noch- Oh, du bist gerecht, oh, du bist gerecht ! Er richtet sich seine Krawatte undgeht langsam ab. ( 2 ~ 0 )

For Marianne, however, the traditional end in marriage does take place. Now that her child is dead, the butcher Oskar is willing to take her back in his arms and she can no longer resist. ‘Ich kann nicht mehr. Jetzt kann ich nicht mehr-.’ Appropriately heavenly music seals the bond-‘ , . . in der Luft ist ein Klingen und Singen, als spielte ein himnilisches Streichorchester die ‘Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald’ von Johann StrauB.’ (251) The last musical magic is thus directed not by the ‘Zauberkonig’, but by the bitterly ironic Horvith, mocking the society he knows is doomed to fall to the butchers. University of British Cokrmbio, Vancorrvtu

NOTES

’The standard work describing the development of this theatre is Otto Rommel, Die Ah-Wiener

ZHeinz Politzer, Das Schweigen der Sirenen. Stuttgart, 1968, p. 185. 3Raimund actually did commit suicide a few years after writing Der Alpeirkiiirig und der Meiischenfirrd,

‘cf. Gloria Ascher, Die Zaubegofe und Die Frau ohtie Schatten, Bern, 1972. 5lt)don von Horvith, Gesammelfe Werke, ed. Traugott Krischke and Dieter Hildebrandt, Frankfurt,

6Peter Handke, ‘Horvith ist besser als Brecht’, in Theater ini Umbruch: Eine Dokurnerifatiorr (IUS ‘Theater Heute’, ed. Henning Rischbieter, Munich, ry70, pp. 62-3.

7Horvith, Gesammeite Werke , I, 165. Henceforth all page references in the text will be from this volume of this edition.

*In Oberiirterreich, which describes a similar situation and niilieu to Horvdth’s play, the niagic is com- pletely gone. The key scene involves a starkly down-to-earth reckoning in Marks and Pfennigs of the quality of life in the Bundesrepublik in the 1~60’s. The last thing we hear in this play, too, however, is a second-rate version of ‘Wien, Wien, nur du allein’.

Volkskomiidie; ihre Ceschichte w i n barocken Welttheater bis zuni Tode Nestroys, Vienna, r y p .

after mistakenly assuming he had been bitten by a rabid dog.

1970-71, 111, 9.

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S DEUTSCHSTUNDE: A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

BY PETER RUSSELL

IN his ‘Autobiographische Skizze’l Siegfried Lenz names as writers who had an early influence on him Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Camus and Hemingway. The last in particular, as has been emphasized by more than one critic, has had a decisive influence both thematically and stylistically on Lenz, which the latter has acknowledged in a detailed essay on the subject.2

It is notable that none of these authors is German. It is fair to say too that a reader coming to Lenz for the first time via Dentschsttrrzdr (1968) might be forgiven for failing to detect in it traces of the Russian, French and American mentors which Lenz has mentioned. Indeed, the novel may well strike him

406 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

as a typically and unmistakably German novel; more specifically still, as a North German novel.

Is there such a thing as a ‘North German novel’? Whatever the answer, the fact is that parallels can readily be drawn between important aspects of Deutschstunde and as ects of novels by other North German writers. These include, from Nor$-west Germany, Theodor Storm, Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann; from North-east Germany, Johannes Bobrowski and, perhaps surprisingly, Gunter Grass.

I hope in this article to make some of these parallels clear, suggesting that, even if one should not always speak of North German iiguences on Detrtsch- stunde, one does at least find striking reniiniscertces of North German novelists. This also implies that Lenz owes as much to his native origins as to his present environment : it is surely no coincidence that while he now inhabits (and in Der.rtschstuizde writes about) that area of Germany which produced Storm and the Mann brothers, he originated in that area which produced Bobrowski and Grass (Lenz and Bobrowski were born in East Prussia, Grass in neighbouring Danzig). In fact my main thesis will be that there are myriad similarities between Deutschstunde and that other lengthy best-seller of recent years, Grass’s Die Blechtrommel.

But it is probably not Grass, but Theodor Storm, who comes most readily to mind to the German reader of Deutschstunde. One reason for this is, of course, the identity of environment. Both Der Schinzmelreitcr and Deutrchstunde could be called classics of Schleswig-Holstein : both are im- pregnated with the writer’s love of the local landscape, a love of it for, not despite, its bleakness. In both writers the same landscape is recognizable : flat marshes and peat bogs interspersed with windmills and dikes; rich cattle pastures; isolated churches and farms, a stormy sea-coast; a vast sky billowing with clouds. But Lenz has more than just this in common with Storm. For it is striking how in both authors the people and the landscape grow to- gether, reacting one upon the other: the characters, one feels, owe their development and temperament to their environment, their emotional ten- sions are moulded by its pervasive atmosphere. This is exemplified most strikingly in the figure of Nansen in Detrtschstzrnde; but all the characters share to some degree his intense involvement in the landscape. Further, Lenz and Storm write at the same leisurely narrative pace, with what one might call a conscientious realism. Actions and objects in Deutschstunde, as in Der Schimwrelreiter, are described in exact and lingering detail, detail that may often appear merely incidental or even irrelevant. Thus a scene such as Dr. Busbeck’s birthday party in Deutschsttrnde, with its unhurried depiction of the figures eating, examining the presents, dancing, walking and talking in the garden, could at times almost be mistaken for Storm.

The qualification ‘at times’ is essential, because obviously, quite apart from

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 407

the differences in content between the two authors (Lenz’s idyll is signifi- cantly interrupted by Jepsen’s unpleasant confrontation with Nansen, and by Addi’s epileptic seizure), the narrative tone is different. The events of Deutschstunde are, after all, being related by an unhappy boy in a reformatory. The irony with which he habitually treats past characters and events recalls not Storm, but Thomas Mann: particularly when, as here, he is describing the behaviour of adults. At those times when Siggi has to confront a centre of extreme tension like his parents or Dr. Himpel, it is true, the irony may become savage, and recall Heinrich rather than Thomas Mann. But normally it consists of little more than a gentle self-distancing: Siggi, like the author of Buddenbrookes and Der Zmiberberg, feels the need to hold everyone at arm’s length. The treatment of the local characters around Rugbiill (for example the postnian Okko Brodersen, old Captain Andersen, Asmus Asmussen, Hiimerk Timmsen, Deichgraf Bultjohann) in particular recalls the sympathetic but mocking irony of Thomas Mann.

Lenz has briefly admitted to learning from Thoman Mann? and probably the ironic stance is one of the ways in which he has learnt. The other main technique he has learnt from Mann, I would suggest, is that of using closely detailed description of a person’s exterior (his face, clothes and mannerisms) to reveal his inner psychology. Lenz has above all a very sharp eye for bodily movements and gestures. No admirer of Buddenbrooks should fail to recog- nize in this depiction of Dr. Busbeck rising to give his speech of thanks, a talent kindred to Mann’s :

Gerauschvoll setzten sie die Glaser auf den1 Tisch ab und zerrten die Stiihle ruckend, umstandlich wieder zu sich heran, wahrend er, Doktor Busbeck, stehenblieb, zart und beweglich in seiner Verlegenheit und sich zu entschul- digen schien dafur, daB die Gesellschaft sich seinetwegen hatte erheben niussen. Er trat hinter den Stuhl. Er sah auf seine Hande hinab, die uber die geschnitzte Lehne strichen. Dann sagte er, was er wohl schon oft gedacht hatte, stattete dem Maler und Ditte, aber auch allen andren, seinen Dank ab und bedauerte, daB er ihnen zur Last falle schon so lange Zeit.

At the end of this speech:

Und zum SchluR verbeugte er sich tatsachlich vor Ditte und der ganzen phantastischen Versamnilung, griff hastig nach seineni Glas und kippte den Klaren, den ihm der Maler hingeschoben hatte. Danach war ihm Erleichterung anzumerken. Er nickte heiter uber den Tisch dieseni zu und jenem. Er schob die gesteiften Manschetten mehriiials geduldig unter den Jackenarmel. Er bat darum, ihm das Glas von neuem zu fullen init weiBem Klaren. Er wischte sich uber die Stirn und war zufrieden.‘

Lenz’s mastery of this technique is displayed most amply in his depiction of Siggi’s father: he is a both complex and convincing character, yet almost

C GLL

408 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEI

all we know about him is learnt from his physical attributes: his facial expressions, his way of standing, his stolid and methodical movements, his manner of putting on his cape, his dogged cycling against the wind. Siggi’s mother is portrayed largely by the same method and with the same success; so too is Nansen.

It was noted in passing that at times Lenz’s irony recalls Heinrich, rather than Thomas Mann. Himpel especially, the director of the reformatory, with his knickerbockers, spring music-making and jovial faith in psycho- logical science, is a near-caricature whose combined ridiculousness and unpleasanmess make him a relation of Professor Unrat. However, it is not the latter novel. but another by Heinrich Mann, which Dartschstitnde recalls most acutely. The central theme of Deutschstunde, the theme of duty, of adherence at all costs to the dictates of power, irresistibly recalls that classic study of attitudes to power of fifty years before, Der Untertan (1918) : both novels, in their different ways and periods, are a n analysis and indictment of such attitudes and a warning of the personal and public calamity to which they give rise. Both novels, too, follow a world war for which the Germans were largely responsible, and focus on psychological habits which fostered those wars.

Power and its misuse is also the theme of Johannes Bobrowski’s most celebrated novel, Levins Miihle (1964). Like both Der Uiitertuiz and Deutsch- stunde, it is the work of a moralist. Thematically it is close to Deutschstunde in three main ways. First, its central theme, the injustice suffered by the help- less Jew Levin at the hands of the narrator’s powerful grandfather, re- sembles Lenz’s theme of the injustice suffered by Siggi at the hands of authority-represented not merely by his father, but by the punitive forces of the state and the institution to which he is sent. Second, there is in each novel a contrast, rendered so clearly as to make it archetypal, between an inhumane world of power and manipulation, and the life-affirming world of those who live spontaneously from the heart. As in Levins Miihle, these two worlds are represented by the grandfather and the German nationalists on the one hand, and by the gypsies, Jews and ‘Polacks’ on the other. True, in Dezitschstunde the second world does not have nearly as much say as the first, but it is there in recognizable if struggling form in such figures as Nansen, Siggi, Hilke, Klaas and perhaps Mackenroth. As in Levins Miihle, the second group of characters is victimized by the first: power hounds them into submission. Thirdly, each novel depicts small provincial events in such a way that they are seen to mirror larger events on a national, even universal scale: the wide public acclaim earned by both novels reflects the success of their authors in extracting a universal moral lesson from a single concrete predicament.

Formally, also, Deutschstunde resembles Leviirs Miihle in three main ways.

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 409

First, both novels use a narrative technique whereby the past is deliberately viewed through naive eyes which are actually less naive than they seem; the chief difference being that whereas we know one narrator well and he also figures himself in the events he describes (thus adding to the novel’s complexity), we know little of the other narrator, and he does not partici- pate in his own chronicle of events. Second, both narrators are character- ized by their whimsical manipulation of the narrative flow. Two brief quotations will illustrate this point, which will be treated in greater detail in comparing Lenz to Grass. From Levins Mid&:

Den vierten Satz haben wir hinter uns und sind uberhaupt ganz hubsch vorangekommen: mit unserer Geschichte von der Muhle, die geblieben ist und noch dasteht. . . .5

From Detrtschstunde :

Ich konnte die beiden acht Tage in diesem Gegenuber belassen, das ware durchaus einc Gcschichte, die sich rechtfertigen lieBe, aber schlieBlich muBte ich dann doch bekennen, daR es der Maler war, der ein weggesprungenes Holzscheit aufnahm. . . .6

Finally, the sombre narrative tone of both novels is frequently lightened by the same kind of ironic humour. Siggi’s account of the methods his fellow- pupils use to evade essay-writing (Charlie Friedllnder turns a greenish hue at will; Ole Plotz falls from his bench ‘in erfolgreichen Kr lm~fen’)~ is par- alleled for instance in Leuins Miiihle by the narrator’s highly ironic account of the antics of the performing circus animals: Tosca the rat, ‘dieses italien- ische Wunder der polnischen Natur’, Francesca the hen, and Casimiro the wolf-dog.8 The humour is the same in both cases because it is dead-pan: consistent with the preceding narrative the tone pretends to remain serious, but an unmistakable irony enables us to glimpse, as it were, an unadmitted smirk on the narrator’s face.

This brings us to Grass. At first sight no two novels may seem less easy to compare than Die Blechtromnrel and Deutschs tdc : the one extravagant, obscure, anarchic and noisy, the other conservative, disciplined, gently explicit. Yet a closer look at the two works shows numerous similarities between them.

Probably the most striking similarity is that of narrative view-point. Both novels are written by a young person interned in a cell. In both cases the liarrator has been interned because he is considered a danger to society: Oskar because he is suspected of murder, Siggi because he is a compulsive thief. In both cases we have the leitmotiv of the peep-hole in the cell door, through which the outside world (whether the keeper be called Bruno or Joswig) keeps a vigilant eye on the internee. In both cases also the very

410 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

friendly relations between keeper and internee arc stressed-and cigarettes are smuggled. In both cases, even, the interim is sensitive to his keeper’s smell!-‘Wonach roch Joswig nur?’ Siggi asks himself at one point, and identifies it as ‘Desinfekti~nsinittel’.~

‘Wir sind alle Gefangene, jeder lebt in seinein Gefsngnis: der eine mit, der andere ohne Wgchter’ says a character in Lenz’s earlier novel Stadc- gespruch.1° It is a theme which hangs heavy over the post-war German novel : three of the finest, Detrtschstide, D i e Blcchtrornriiel and Max Frisch’s Stiller, are written in the first person by a man in a cell. But that broaches a wider field which there is no room to explore here.

The resemblance of narrative setting means that in each novel the narrator is physically as well as emotionally estranged froin his social milieu. Each is in a situation of isolation where he can reflect before being plunged back into the world that he has left. In each case the narration is largely of events in the past which continually impinge upon the present situation. The play on the time-sequence in each novel reflects this, a continual movement between past and present allowing insight into the character of the individual as it has been affected by past events. The difference is that while Oskar relates his entire life froin the beginning (even from before the beginning !), Siggi relates only his more recent past, between the ages of about ten and twenty-one (at the opening of Chapter Fifteen lie divulges the useful in- formation that he is twenty-one on that day, 25th September 1954). Indeed, both narrators have an important birthday during the writing of their accounts: Siggi his twenty-first, Oskar his thirtieth. Both birthdays repre- sent a ‘coming of age’ in which the narrator feels less than confident. Both novels end with the imminent release of the writer from the institution, his return to society, and his anxiety at the prospect. Oskar will leave his mental hospital to confront the terrifying childhood figure of ‘die schwarze Kochin’, who has the last word in the novel; while Siggi, as he awaits his final interview with Dr. Himpel, knows that for him there is never an escape from his past experiences :

Eingerahmt von meinen Leuten, von Erinnerungen umstellt, getrankt von den Ereignissen an meineiii Ort, unterwandert von der Erfahrung, dafl Zeit nichts, aber auch gar nichts heilt, weiB ich, was ich zu tun habe und was ich tun werde inorgen fruh. Scheitern an Rugbiill? Vielleicht kanii man es so nennen.]

Further, in both novels we have as central figure a child who above all observes and reports on the world of adults. This special perspective is exploited by both authors, particularly in that a child can see things, and get away with things, that an adult normally could or would not. An example of this in Deutschsttrnde is the episode where Siggi hides in the felled poplar-

~~~~ ~

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 411

trunks and spies as Jepsen informs Nansen that his paintings are to be con- fiscated by the state.12 Like Oskar under the skat-table,13 Siggi can only see up to the hips of the speakers; though what he sces is of course a great deal less scabrous! Another example is the episode where, unnoticed by the English soldier who has come to arrest his father, Siggi is able to rescue some of Nansen’s paintings from the fire Jepsen has made.14

Of course thcrc is a difference, too. In Grass’s novel the prematurely wise narrator decisively rejects the world of the adults around him, and takes pleasure in deriding it; the perspective of the child-dwarf is exploited largely for satirical purposes, as in the depiction of the Nazi rally.15 But in Lenz’s novel the narrator is a victim of the adult world, driven by it into compulsions he is unable to control. Thus while Oskar takes an exuberant critical stance reminiscent of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Siggi takes an m- happy critical stance: he is caught. In this he resembles Hans Schnier, the down-and-out hero of Heinrich Boll’s Ansichten cines Clowns, whose specific problems and conflicts are in many respects similar to Siggi’s.

The historical period covered by both Die Blechtrommel and Deutschsttrnde is similar, in that both novels deal with the Nazi and the immediate post- Nazi period: Grass ranges from 192s to 1955, Lenz from about 1943 to 1954. This brings certain thematic similarities. Both novels are about the German past, and its continuing effects on the prcsent-effects which are seen not only in the narrator’s own personality, but also in the society around him. Both novels attempt to comment on the mentality which led people to embrace Nazism: there is a parallel between the dogged adherence to duty which characterizes Jepsen, and the mental limitation of Oskar’s father Matzerath. In both novels, the son decisively rejects the Nazi afiliation of the father. It is true that a central theme of Deutschsttrnde, the theme of duty, plays only a very minor role in Die Blechtrommel; but a secondary theme is contnon to both novels: the conflict between the artist or intellectual and the state. If we agree with Elizabeth Boa16 in seeing in Oskar a representative of the modern artist or intellectual struggling with a problematic relation- ship to political power, there is an obvious parallel to the symbolic con- frontation in Deutschsttrnde between the policeman Jepsen and the painter Nansen.

The two novels also have in common that they concentrate on a relatively small group of people from the same social class, the lower middle-class. Although both novels aim at a wide representative significance, they limit themselves to a small numbcr of main characters, with minor characters on the periphery. In both novels the iiucleus of the action is centred on the family and on family relationships. And in both cases these relationships are fraught with alienation: Oskar, of course, asserts a cheeky independence from the beginning, while Siggi even as a child is so estranged from his parents that

412 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

he can speak of them to his sister Hilke as anonymous strangers in thc third person : ‘Der Polizeiposten Rugbull und seine Frau’.17

In both novcls, too, it is not so much political events that are important, but the effect of thcm on characters. Grass shuns the political stage: hc is not interestcd in what Hitler or Goebbels are doing, only in how their decisions eventually affcct the Matzeraths in Danzig. In Lenz the action is even more provincial and circumscribcd. It is notable that Hitler is only once mentioned in Deutschstunde, and that is in Mackenroth’s account of Nansen7s pre-war career.18 The politicians are referred to only as ‘sie’, or ‘sie in Berlin’ ; they are completely anonymous. The only other Nazi official mentioned by name is Donitz, whose photo Siggi gliinpscs in a ~iewspaper~~ : this has a purpose, thocigh, since it suggests to us that Donitz has taken over the government after Hider’s suicide, thus that thc war is drawing to a close.

Deutrchstuiide and Die Blechtrommcl resemble cach other therefore both in the period they treat, and in the focus they train on that period. They also resemble each other in their treatment of place. For both novels are strongly regional. Grass docs for Danzig what Lenz does for Schleswig: each novel is full of rich and detailed description, evoking powerfully the presence of a specific area. In one case it is a city, in the other a landscape; in each field the novelist reveals his special strengths. Some details of Deutschstirirde actually recall Die Blechtrommel-for example the river-freighters which chug past Siggi’s island, like the timber-rafts of Die Blechtromnzel, and the constant sea-gulls, both on the coast of Schleswig near Rugbull and over the Elbe as Siggi sits writing. We are always aware in both novels that the sea is not very far away.

A subordinate theme is common to both novels : the conflict between the abnormal outsider and the efforts of medical science to categorize and cure him. Oskar is constantly the subject of medical curiosity, chiefly because of his stunted growth and his freakish glass-shattering powers; he is even the subject of a learned article by Dr. Hollatz in Artz iind Hc survivcs triumphantly not only this, but also frequent sojourns in hospital. Siggi, in his institution, is constantly used as a guinea-pig for the investigations of clinical psychologists, and a great deal of satire is directed at them and their coniplacent categorizations-as for instance when Siggi is iiiterrogatcd by the five visiting psychologists in Dr. Himpel’s study.2l Like Oskar, Siggi survives his encounters with medical science by maintaining an inner distance which expresses itself in a bitterly ironic humour.

The use of ironic humour in general is distinctive in both novels. Lenz, of course, is much more sparing in his use of it than Grass, with few excep- tions (the exhibition at the Hamburg art gallery is the outstanding one) it is limited to Siggi’s experiences in the reformatory. But it is deftly used, and with a very Grassian kind of effect. The class-room episode in which Charlie

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 413

Friedlander and Ole Plotz evade essay-writing by feigning illness has already been cited; a similarly Grassian humour is present in Siggi’s account of Philipp Neff who, absolutely unable to begin an essay on thc subject ‘Ein Mensch, der inir auEiel’, was driven to desperate expedicnts :

. . . a m dritten Tag schlug er eincn Wartcr nicdcr, brach am, wurgte mit einer unter uns unvergcssenen Wirkung den Hund dcs Direktors, konnte bis zitni Strand fliehen und ertrank bei den] Versuch, die Elbe in1 September zu durchschwimmen. Das einzigc Wort, das Philipy NeK diem tragische Beweis fur Korbjuhns unheilvolle Tatigkeit, in scin Heft geschrieben und hintcrlassen hattc, hieR : Karunkel-was immerhin vcrmiiten lie& daf3 ihm cin Mcnsch mit eincr Fleischwarze bcsondcrs aufgefalleii war.22

There is a brief code to this account: Zum Sommer, das ist sicher, werden sic die Pfahle wieder richten, denn es sind besonders dic Wassersportler, die die Besscrung der jugendlichen Gefangenen auf der Inscl gePihrden konnten : das ist die Meinung desDirektors, und das ist auch, wie nian crfahren kann, die Meinung, die der Hund dcs Direktors ~ e r t r i t t . ~ ~

This irreverent, tongue-in-cheek kind of narration is typical of Die Blech- tronunel.

The ironic manipulation of thc narrative flow, which was noted too in Bobrowski, is especially characteristic of both Grass and Lenz. Siggi frcquently poses as a story-teller in the old-fashioned sense: he dctaches himself from the events he is describing, addresses the reader directly, and shows his sovereigiity ovcr his material by explicitly introducing or omitting something, momentarily freezing his narrative, hastening or slowing it down. An cxaniple of this was given to indicate the similarity to Bobrowski (cf. note 6); further examples will give the full flavour of the techniquc:

So, und jetzt l a w ich vier unterschicdlich gcwachsenc, sehr unterschiedlich gekleidete und auch dreinblickcnde Manner aussteigcn, fordere sie auf, sich zunachst einnial unizutun. . . .24

In dieser Fassungslosigkcit oder Verbliiffung inochte ich die beiden einen Augenblick sich selbst iiberlassen, mochtc, wahrend sie nach Luft und nach Worten schnappen, endlich crzahlen, was mit der Post ins Haus gekonimcn war.25 Mir geniigen die Boden- und Wasserproben von Rugbiill, hier werfe ich mein Planktonnetz ails iibcr meincr dunklcn Ebene, hier sammle ich cin, was sich Pangt. Wie immer, wenn ich das Netz offnc, komnit zuerst mein Vater zum Vor- schein, der Polizeiposten Rugbull. . . .26

The last passage might recall to some readers Dylan Thomas’s whimsical delving into a snowball of memories :

414 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of liolidnys resting at the margin of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.27

or even, in its parallel sea-imagery, the utlco~~scious cvocations of the dreaming Captain Cat in Under Milk Wood.28

Such ironic controlling of the narrative is typical of Die Blechtromrttel-so typical that illustration is superfluous. The whole narrative is permeated with Oskar’s tone of self-confident intimacy with the reader: his impudent sovereignty over his material is rarely in doubt. Grass of course pushes this sovereignty even further than Lenz, springing from ironic irianiptrlation into deliberate and unashamed invention. Lenz, in contrast, remains constantly attentive to the claims of empirical probability.

This brings us to the subject of fantasy. Perhaps what most obviously makcs Deutschstwde different from Die Blfchtromvltel is precisely the fofmer’s conscientious realism, its lack of the inventive fantasy characteristic of Grass’s novel. This basic distinction cannot bc questioned. Aftcr all, Grass’s hero Oskar is himself a creation of fantasy, in the same way as Rabelais’ Panta- gruel: where Siggi, as we arc constantly reminded, is all too human, Oskar is blatantly less-than-human or super-human-a ‘Kunstfigur’, a fictional clown invented by a marvellously fertile satirical mind. At the same time, though, it is worth noting that Grass’s novel is a work not merely of fantasy, but also of highly conscientious realism: think of the exact descriptions of the city of Danzig, for example, or the Matzerath’s house; their minutely described meals; or the nauseating detail of the ‘Karfreitagskost‘ chapter. Similarly, there are isolated passages in Lenz’s novel where a highly original fantasy is at work. The most striking of these is the depiction of the guests at Dr. Busbeck’s birthday party as sea-creatures :

. . . doch dann, als ich zogernd eintrat und mich umwandte, erschrak ich, wie jeder erschrocken wire, der die Wohnstube betreten hhte mit meinen Erwartungen: an dem schmalen, unbegrenzten Geburtstagstisch saB feierlich altersgraues Meergetier und trank schweigend Kaffee und wurgte schweigend, ganz versenkt in eigensiniiige Kontemplation, trockenen Sandkuchen und Nufitorten und blafigelben Streuselkuchen herunter. Stelzbeinige Hummer, Krabben und Taschenkrebse hocktcn auf den hochmiitigen, geschnitzten Sesseln von Bleekenwarf; hier und da verursachten harte, gepanzerte Glieder ein trockenes Knacken, eine Tasse klapperte, wenn knochige Hummcrscheren sie absetzten, und einige streiften mich mit einem Blick aus gleichgultigen Stielaugen, unerschutterlich, n i t der monumentalen Gleichgiiltigkeit gewisser Gottheiten, das niochte ich meinen. Dabei glich diese schweigende Versamm- lung von Meergetier durchaus Leuten, die ich kannte. . . .29

This extravagant fantasy jars, however, in the otherwise realistic context of the novel. Where Lenz is more modest in his use of fantasy, espccially in

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 41s

his use of extcndcd metaphor, he acliievcs a successful integration comparable to that of Grass. Many of these metaphors, like one recently quoted (cf. note 26), derivc from sea-faring:

Julius Korbjuhn konnte nieine Schwierigkeiten nicht einschen, glaubte niir nicht die Qua1 des Beginnens, konnte sich cinfach nicht vorstellen, daO der Ankcr der Erinnerung nirgendwo fahe, dic Kette straffte, sondern nur rasselnd und polternd, bestenfalls Schlamni aufwirbclnd iibcr den tiefen Grund zog, so daB keinc Kuhc cintrat, kcin Stillstand, der notig ist, inn ein Netz uber Vergangcnes zu werfen.30

As was noted in comparing Lenz with Storm, the action of Deotschsttrnde proceeds at a very leisurely pace. The same is true of Die Blechtvorirwlel: in fact Grass, whose fascination with detail surpasses even Lenz’s, makes corre- spondingly greater demands on the reader’s patience. He largely compen- sates for this, though, by his unique stylistic brilliance.

Lenz’s prose style is, of course, very different from Grass’s, in ways which need no explanation. Perhaps one might sum them up by calling one style gloriously drunken, the other stone sober ! But there are two specific stylistic techniques comnion to both novels, and thcir resemblaiice is so close that one suspects Lenz has here imitated Grass, be it consciously or unwittingly. One technique is thc insertion into narrative prose of dramatic dialogue. W e find this in Die Blechtrowlmel in the ‘Beton besichtigen’ chapter in Part Two; in Detrtschstiimfe it is uscd with great cffcct in the scene in thc ‘Wattblick’ involving Tinimsen, Jepsen and N a i i ~ e n . ~ ~ Here the dramatic form with its abruptness and directness conveys the uneasiness of the con- versation, the awkward pauses in it, the difficulty the three men have in communicating with each other. Secondly, Lenz seem to borrow Grass’s trick of repeating a single phrase hypnotically over and over again, to give a point force. This occurs in Joswig’s story about the Hamburg rowing eight?* where the repeated ‘Es war eininal’ irresistibly recalls Grass’s incanta- tion: ‘Es war einnial ein Musikcr, der hieR Meyn und konnte ganz wunder- schon Trompetc blasen’.33 A siniilar example, this time with comic effect, is Siggi’s recurring ironic coiiinieiit on the home guard as they take up position :

Ja, und jetzt streif dir eine Armbinde uber: der ganze Volkssturm geht bei uns in Stellung. Bei uns ging also der Volkssturni in Stellung. Mit solchen Reden ging bei un4 der Volkssturin in Stcllung. So ging unser Volkssturin in Stcllung.~4

Having discussed some of the similarities between Detrtschstunde and Die Blechtrowniel, I shall not insult the reader’s intelligence by proceeding to list the very evident dfireuces between the two novels. Many of them have of

416 SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

course already been mentioned. But a valuable way to conclude is to com- pare the two authors in terms of their basic attitude to their art.

Both Grass and Lenz have repeatedly made clear their belief in the neces- sary ‘Engagement’ of the writer: both believe he cannot turn his back on social and political issues. At the end of his ‘Autobiographische Skizze’ Lenz lists the qualities he expects in a writer as ‘eiii gewisses Mitleid, Gerechtigkeit uid einen notigen Protest’ ;25 lie expatiates on these themes in his speech accepting the Bremen Literature Prize in 1962 (which was, ironic- ally enough, withdrawn by the city fathers from Grass on account of the alleged scurrility of Die Blechtronrrriel). Many of Lenz’s statements in this speech would hold equally well for Grass:

Ein Schriftsteller . . . entschlicBt sich . . . freiwillig dam, niit Hilfe des scharf- sten und gefahrlichsten, des wirksamsten und geheinmisvollsten Werkzeugs- niit Hilfe der Sprache die Welt zu entblooen, und zwar so, daB niemand sich in ihr unschuldig nenneii k a n ~ i . ~ ~

Or : . . . vieles kann man von einer Literatur vcrlangen, aber unter keineii Umstan- den dies: daB sie irgendjemandem zii eineni guten Gewissen verhilft. Wo Herrschende ein gutes Gcwissen zur Schau stellen, da geschieht es auf dem Grab cincr freen Literatur. 3 7

But in two fundamental ways Lenz differs in his approach from Grass. First, he shows a greater empathy with the underdog; indeed he sees ‘das selbstverstindliche Engagement des Schriftstellers’ in the latter’s solidarity with ‘den Machtlosen . . . den vieleii, die Geschichte nur erdulden miissen und denen sogar Hoffnuiigeii verweigert ~ e r d e n . ’ ~ ~ Siggi Jepsen is a classic case. Thus where Grass tends towards cynicism and aggression, Lenz is capable of compassion and even tenderness. Secondly, and it is a point related to the first, whereas Grass achieves his effect by challenging and provoking-by mounting a jesting assault on all our sensual, intellectual and moral faculties-Lenz takes a quieter approach :

Ich schatze nun einnial die Kunst, herauszufordern, nicht so hoch ein wie die Kunst, einen wirkungsvollen Pakt mit dem Leser herzustellen, um die beste- henden Ubel zu verringern. Wer darauf aus ist, zu provozieren, braucht nichts anderes zu tun, als starrsinnig die Wahrheit mitzuteilen: es wird inimer jemanden geben, dcr an dcr bescheidensten Wahrhcit AnstoR n i n ~ n i t . ~ ~

‘Einen wirkungsvollcn Pakt mit dem Leser’ is what Lenz achieves in Deutsch- sttrizde, by the quiet integrity of its narrative tone, its faithfulness to experi- ence, the breadth of its moral concern and, not least, its compassionate awareness of human frailty.

The two writers are thus taking quite different approaches to their task,

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL 417

and for this reason it is vain to compare Derrtschsturzde qualitatively with Die Bkchtrommel. To pit Lenz against Grass could easily be as passionate and as futile an enterprise as it once was in Vienna to pit Brahms against Wagner, and for the same reason: the genius of the bold innovator and that of thc mature classicist arc so differeilt in kind as to make qualitative comparison impossible. The innovator may well seem anarchic to the classicist, the classicist stuffy to the innovator. As the evidence presented here must suggest, posterity may well recognize, as it has with Brahins and Wagner, that the two parties not only had an equal claim to famc, but also had more in coinmon than was at first recognized. And-to return to the thesis from which this discussion set out-it may be conjcctured too, on the evidence which has been presented, that if Detrtschsturzde is as keenly read by posterity as it is now, it will be viewed not only as the univcrsal work it assuredly is, but also as a work with its roots in North Germany-and as a work which subsumes and unifies, be it consciously or instinctively, many qualities of its honoured North German predecessors. Victoria Utiiversity of Welliugton, N.Z.

NOTES

‘Originally published as an epilogue to the selection Stirnntungeri der See (Stuttgart, Keclam, 1962) ; reprinted in: Sieg,fried Leriz. Ein Prospekt (Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campc, 1966), pp. 11-14.

2‘Mein Vorbild Hemingway. Modell oder I’rovokation.’ In: Siegfried Lenz, Beriehungen. Ansichter: undBekenritrrisse zur Literutur (Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1970), pp. 50-63. This is a reprinting of a 1966 essay with the misleadingly aggressive title: ‘Warum ich nicht wie Hciningway schreibe’.

jIn the essay just cited, pp. SO-SI. ‘Siegfried Lenz, Dentschstunde (Hamburg, Hofftnann und Canipe, 1968), pp. 81-82. All references

5Johannes Bobrowski, Levios A/liihle (Frankfurt a.M., Fischcr, 1970). p. 37. 6De:&fschsfunk, p. 487. ’ibid., p. 10, p. 15. *Lcvins Miihle, esp. p. 45. ’Deutschstunde, p. 427.

‘?Siegfried Lenz, Studfgesprich (Hamburg, Hoffniann und Campe, 1963), p. 189. llDeutschstunde, p. 559. ‘Zibid., p. 88 ff. I3Giinter Grass, Die Blerhtrotnnrel (Frankfurt a.M., Fischer, 1962). p. 54 ff. All references are to this

edition. 14Deutschsturidr, pp. 3 86-7. ISDie Blerlitronirnel, p. 96 tf. 16Elizabeth Boa, ‘Gtinter Grass and the German Gremlin’, GLL, vol. XXIII(January 1970), pp. 144-151. 17Deutschstrrride, p. 483-4. ‘%bid., p. 199. Igibid., p. 382. ZoDie Blechtrotnmel. p. 56. Z’Deutscltsfunde, pp. 180-185. %bid., p. 19. 23ibid., p. 21. %bid., p. 441. *%bid., p. 477. Zoibid., p. 428. 27Dylan Thomas, ‘Memories of Christmas’. In: Quite Early One Morning. Broadcasts (London, Dent, 1954)~ P. 22. **Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood (London, Dent, 1954), p. 3. ZgDeutschstunde, p. 75. 30ibid., p. 15.

are to this edition.

41 8

31ibid., pp. 164-169. 32ibid., pp. 423-425. 33f)ie Bfechfroinmel, pp. 160-167. 34Detrtschshmde, pp. 362, 363, 366, 367. ’jop. cit., p. 14. ’%iegfried Lenz, ‘Der Kuiistler 31s Mitwisser. Eine Rede in Brernen (1962)’. In: Beziehuirgen (cf. note 2) , p. 281. J7ibid., p. 284. ’%bid., p. 282. ’%bid., p. 278.

SIEGFRIED LENZ’S ‘DEUTSCHSTUNDE’ : A NORTH GERMAN NOVEL

SCENES FROM FAMILY LIFE: THE NOVELS OF WALTER KEMPOWSKI

BY B. M. KANE

WALTER KEMPOWSKI has prefaced his novel Uiis geht’r j u noch gold (1972) with the motto ‘ A k s frei erfunden!’. This is a conscious (and elsewhere acknowledged) irony, since this and the two other novels he has written are linked not only by the stylistic principles which they have in common, but also by the fact that they all adhere closely to thc events of thc author’s own life. Although Kempowski does not object to his work being called autobiographical, this term would not adequately define what is achieved in his nove1s.l In three respects thcy go far beyond it. Firstly, he freely admits that certain figures drawn from his own experience have been tampered with, or ‘gemixt’, to use his own terminology.* Secondly, hc does not use the sovereign pcrspcctive of the present from which to recreate the past, nor does he avail himself of hindsight in order to comment on and evaluate it. And, finally, it is not the author’s own immediate experiences which are made the principal focus of the novels, since thc reactions and responses of the different autobiographical ‘1’-figures which are used at various stages in the chronology are made largely subordinate to the wider social picture which is portrayed. Kempowski, whether narrating as boy, youth or man, merges discreetly into thc background, laying first emphasis on projection of family and social milieu, rather than on his own private concerns and reflections.

Two of Kempowski’s novels, Tadelloser G. Wow (1971), and Uns geht’s j a noch gold are subtitled, respectively, ‘Ein burgerlicher Roman’ and ‘Roman einer Familie’. In conjunction with Im Block (1969) thcy constitute a chronicle of the varying fortunes of the author’s family during the period 1939 until 1956. Wc are told that Kernpowski plans two further novels which will round the project off and bring this fictionalized account of his family history up to the present day.

At first sight one might be tempted to see Kempowski’s efforts as the