THE SHORT STORIES OF SIEGFRIED LENZ’

BY C. A, H. Russ

SIEGFRIED LENZ belongs to that talented cchelon of writers born in the later 1920s, and currently reaching the height of their powcrs. In our own country, translations of his work have been both published and broadcast. Yet he has not so far attracted the attention of ‘Germanisten’ hcre to the extent that one might have expected. It is in the hope of rectifying this situation, in some measure, that I would like to offer an interim survey of one department of his work.

Most of us gained our first knowledgc of Lenz from So riirtlich war Suleyken, published in 1955. Now such an introduction is misleading. It scems not to be generally known that the ‘Suleykcn’ collection was com- posed with the special aim of picturing the world of Lenz’s boyhood for the benefit of his wife. The comedy with which the East Prussian background is affectionately infused sharply distinguishcs these stories from those evoking grimmer memories of the region and of its recent history. For reasons of this kind, the present paper concentrates on Lenz’s other collections, Jiger des Spotts (1958), Das Feuerrckif(1960) and Der Spielverderber (1965.)~

At the end of his illuminating Autobicyaphische S k i ~ ~ e , ~ Lenz declares that he demands of the writer ‘ein gewisses Mitleid, Gerechtigkeit und einen notigen Protest’. A protest against what? Is it voiced in his own stories? W e should remind ourselves here that Lenz belongs to the Gruppe 47. As this suggests, those of his tales set in his own country regard it with critical detachment. His attack on, his ‘protest’ against, the commercialized values of contemporary West Germany is, if tempered by charity and humour, nevertheless real. He shows us a society where public rclations are more important than the quality of private livcs, and where only poverty may not be advertised, 3 society at which a story like Meiii verdrossenes Gesicht pokes fun. The hero of this tale is an ex-serviceman who acquires 3

social niche of Boll-like futility, posing for advertiscments which exploit his habitually gloomy expression. Similarly parasitic jobs arc pergormed by the hired Father Christmases in Risiko fiir Weihnaclztsmiinner, and by ‘Der Amusierdoktor’, in the story of that name, whose doctorate has secured him an occupation that begins when the real work of his firm has stopped:

scit drci Jahren bcziehe ich mein Gehalt dafiir, dass ich die auswartigen Kunden unseres Unternehmens menschlich bctrcue : wcnn dic zehrenden Verhandlungen des Tages aufhoren, wcrdcn dic crschopftcn Hcrren mir uberstellt, und meinen Fahigkcitcn blcibt es iiberlassen, ihnen zu belebendem Frohsinn zu verhelfen, zu cincr Hcitcrkeit, die sie fur wcitere Verhandlungen innerlich losen sol1 (F , p. 230).

242 THE SHORT STORIES OF SIEGFRIED LENZ

Yet, although so many of Lenz’s stories are ‘Geschichten aus dieser Zeit’ (as he subtitles the collectionluger de3 Sports), firmly set against the back- ground of modern Germany, he is not just a chronicler of his country’s recent history and present society, important as this function of the con- temporary German writer continues to be. He sees himself as a reformer, but he insists that his protest is subordinattd to, and conveyed by, his art: ‘Ich schatze nun einmal die Kunst herauszufordern nicht so hoch wie die Kunst, einen wirkungsvollen ’ Pakt mit dem Leser herzustellen, um die bestehenden Ubel zu ~erringern.’~ Lenz, we may add, although delineating German scenes and situations so vividly, tries to look beyond them to more universal issues. This may be illustrated by his tale Srimmungen der See, which depicts the clandestine attempt of three men to cross the Baltic. On internal evidence alone, it is hard to decide whether the action occurs during the war or afterwards, whether, in other words, the fugitives are trying to escape from the Nazi police State or from communist East Germany. Now what Lenz is doing in Stimmtrngen der See is to concentrate on psychological tensions set against the background of the sea that he knows and describes better than any other German writer of our time. The ‘Stimmungen’ are human as well as natural. The story’s historical point of departure is, in the final analysis, irrelevant to its timeless themes: tension between the genera- tions, the interplay of hope and fear, and man’s cruelty to man.5

Lenz has explained how a limited historical phenomenon-the collapse of Nazism-led him to the central issue of his stories :

Dann wurden h e Machtigen machtlos, die Meister der Gewalt biissten ihre Herrschaft ein, und seit damals hat mich dieser Augenblick immer wieder beschaftigt: urn selber verstehen zu lernen, was mit einem Menschen ge- schieht, der ‘fallt’, absturzt, verliert, habe ich einige Geschichten geschrieben, in denen der Augenblick des ‘Falls’ dargestellt wird. Schreiben ist eine gute Moglichkeit, urn Personen, Handlungen und Kodikte verstehen zu lernen (Autobiogruphische Skizze, pp, 77-8).

Lenz’s concern, then, is with generally valid, universaI themes which, as in Srinimuiigen der See, transcend any purely historical context. Indeed, the timeless figure of the loser, the man who fails to survive the moment of truth, the fallen idol, dominates Lenz’s fiction. Sometimes the character is trapped by external forces, or by the action of others, but sometimes, too, his own failings are unmasked. Whether he be tycoon, farmer, athlete, journalist, or teacher, his status-his security-will be demolished. The techniqucs with which Lenz handles this simple theme in his tales rcpay closer study.

We may first consider five of the ‘Ich-Erzihlungen’ which form a sub- stantial proportion of Lenz’s short stories. Each of the five employs a narrator-observer who records the ‘fall’, or defeat, that he has witnessed.

~ ~~~

THE SHORT STORIES O F SIEGFRIED L E N 2 243

In D i e Festung, a Eon recalls how his father, a dispossessed East Prussian farmer, finding his tenure of new land cancelled, in turn, by an army requisition, ensconced himself in an improvised fortress as futile as the son’s sandcastle. In Risikof i ir Weihnachtsniatzvrer and Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe, a hired outsider stumbles on a travcsty of family life. The narrator of the former story, wearing his ‘Uniform der Freude’ as Father Christmas, finds himself enacting the grotesque charade of handing presents to a childless couple: his former commanding officer, now unbalanced, and his wife. The baby- sitter hired for the ‘Haus aus lauter Liebe’ discovers that a ‘family-loving’ tycoon has, if not a skeleton in the cupboard, an embarrassing father kept under lock and key. Two other stories in this group probe the world of organization men, to arrive at similarly disillusioned findings. Thus, in Der grosse Wildenberg, the narrator is confronted in the great man’s sanctum with a lonely figure-head who is delighted to receive a visitor; and in Der seelische Ratgeber, which deserves to be read in conjunction with Nathanael West’s M i s s Lonelyhearts, the assistant to the editor of an advice column gradually realizes, as do we with him, that the editor’s own private life is a catalogue of mismanaged relationships.6

The narrator-observer of Der seelische Ratgeber is also a narrator-victim. The idol falls, but so, in a scnse, does his admirer : the effect is all the sharper in that his disillusionment, although constantly implicit, is not articulated until the final sentence. Narrator-victims appear in other tales. Lenz again shows us characters who, through their own fault or not, emerge as vulner- able or unable to fulfil expectations. In the narratives to which we now turn, however, the ‘icy himself is exposed. Thus, in Lukas , sarlfiniiitiger Knecht, a white farmer recounts his desperate journey terminating in the discovery that the Mau Mau had reached his home before him. The narrator of the lighter M e i n verdrossenes Gesicht cannot sustain the gloomy expression on which his carcer as a photographer’s model depends. The ‘Amusierdoktor’ suffers even greater discomfiture, and nearly goes thc way of all fish. Once more, then, the commercial world comes under Lenz’s scrutiny, as in the first group of ‘Ich-Erziihlungen’. Howcvcr, whereas the great Wildenberg’s powerlessness is seen through the eyes of his visitor, the model and the ‘Amusierdoktor’ themselves retail their misadventures. Narrator-victims have replaced narrator-observers.’ In Lieblingsspeise der Hyurzeii, on the other hand, we find both devices. They are not hcre combined, as we have seen them to be in the figure of the editorial assistant of Der seelische Ratgeber. Instead, the narrative structure, one ‘Ich-Erzahlung’ inside another, entails a situation in which the first narrator-the observer-listens to the second, American narrator-the victim-lamenting that his womenfolk’s obsessive visits to shoe-shops throughout the family’s European tour have prevcnted his re-visiting the scenes of his wartime expericnces.

244 THE SHORT STORIES OF S I E G F R I E D L E N Z

Schiuierige Trauer requires separate attention. It is an ‘Ich-Erzahlung’ in the form of an apostrophe to a dead member of the narrator’s family: the mayor ofan Eastern border town preoccupied, on the flight to the West, with saving trivial documents, whatever the human cost. Here the ‘ich‘ is not so much the observer, or victim, but rather the agent of the denunciation directed against the mayor, who is, of course, in the terms of our discussion, the idol with feet of clay. Personal anger may explain the, for Lenz, unusual techcal choice of a dynamic fictive narrator: for the writer was an eye-witness of the flight from the East.

We turn to stories outside the ‘Ich-Erzahlung’ category. As we have seen, the latter includes tales dealing with inadequacy or defeat, observed by the narrator in others or himself. Now, in further works, characters observe each other’s failure to meet a challenge. We might term this the device of the character-observer. The observed challenge arises, in each case, on the physical plane, but its implications transcend that level. Like Stimmungen der See, these stories marry physical action and psychological reaction in a man- ncr typical of Lenz’s work. In Druben aujden Inseln, a young man drowns as his sweetheart looks on helplessly-the intruder into a closed world has succumbed to the elemental forces within it; and in Das Wrack a son observes his father’s frustrated exhaustion as he dives repeatedly, and fruitlessly, to search a submerged wreck. Silvester-Unfll, another of Lenz’s many explora- tions of close relationships, shows a family watching its head, who is doomed by disease, during the forced festivities of his last New Year’s Eve. Here, as in Das Wrack, the act of observation is underhed by repeated allusion to it. In such other tales as Der Laujir, Ball der Wohltuter andluger des Spotts, the witnesses of defeat are multiple, although Lenz’s victim-figure in the latter story may (almost literally) snatch some measure of victory from its jaws.

In these narratives, employing character-observers, the agent of man’s failure is nature itself, represented by the sea, by animals, and by the vulner- ability of the human body to exhaustion, age and disease. Even the deed which leads to the athlete’s disqualification, in Der Luurfer, seems more a rcflex action, or bodily accident, than wilful. Elsewhere, however, Lenz portrays the victims of other characters. The latter engage in more than observation, are less passive than most of the narrators of the ‘Ich-Erzahlungen’ (recahg, rather, the opponents confronting some of the narrator-victims), and may therefore be termed character-agents. Thus, Der Iun,qere Arm and Nur auf Sardinien each portrays a wife’s undermining of her husband’s self-respect. Die Hut ist piinktlich heightens the theme of marital tension: a wife alters her husband’s watch, ensuring that he w d be cut off by the tide, freeing her for a new life with another man.g This second man, however, is also prescnted as a kind of victim, watching the husband walk out from terra firma and remaining unaware of the woman’s capacity for evil until it is too late.

T H E S H O R T STORIES OF SIEGFRIED LENZ 245

Stirwiungen der See, as alrcady indicated, also hinges on antagonism bctwcen characters. One of them-the Professor-is divested of his precarious authority. Lorenz, his young companion, brings this home to him, and to us, by alluding to the Professor’s classroom humiliation of ycars before, and by openly abusing his old teachcr. The idol has not merely fallen, it has been pushed over!

W e may claim that Lenz treats his central theme with considerable ver- satility, observing his figures of defeat from varying angles, and sometimes actually identifying them with his fictive narrators. In emphasizing his resourcefulness, wc are moving from description to evaluation. Let us, to the same end, and however tentatively, now review some other aspects of his work as a short-story writer, beginning with some observations con- cerning literary influences.

Lenz readily admits his indcbtedncss to other, notably foreign, writers. Among those named in the Autobiographische S k i z z e are Camus and Heming- way, As he points out in the same cssay, his university studies included ‘Anglistik‘ and ‘Literaturgeschichte’, and thesc have undoubtedly influenced his devclopment. His treatment of leit-motifs, transposing and modifying the constituents of a motif, crcating divcrsity within unity, is somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s tcchnique, although neithcr as elaborate nor, frankly, as subtle.’ ‘) The English-speaking rcadcr, however, will probably be most sensitive to general rescmblanccs bctween Lenz’s work and Heming- way’s (thc use of anaphora, the recurrent theme of the tcst, or moment of truth), and to such parallels as those bctwccn the beginnings of For Whonr the Bell Tolls and Stimmungen der See, or the endings of T h e Old M a n atzd the Sen and the title-story of the collectioiiJzger des Spotts, or the sub-title of that collection-‘Geschichten aus dieser Zeit’-and In o w Time.’ ’ Like Heming- way, too, Lcnz works into his fiction various kinds of specialized knowledge, cntcring, for instance, the esoteric world of the athlete in Der Liirrfr (and in the thematically rclatcd novcl Brot trnd S p k k ) .

We must not, however, ascribe to direct influence what may rcsult from affinity and from similarities of background. Likc Hemingway, Lenz knows and loves thc sca, arid cnjoys fishing, which, as he tclls us, has i~iflucnced his approach to his art.’ Again, the economy evinccd in Lcnz’s descriptive passages and in his dialogue partly dcrivcs, as in Hcmingway’s case, from the practice of journalism.’

Another familiar literary effect employed in Lenz’s storics is that of thc ‘Pointc’. The closing sentences of, for example, Der seelische Rngeber and N w mtf Sardinien round off the works in question decisivcly and illuminat- ingly. The same device operates in RiA iko f i r Weihriachfsnriiritier and Meitz verdrossenes Grsicht, the endings of which closcly resemble each othcr, and in Der Verzicht. In the latter tale, which is set, unusually for Lenz, directly in

246 THE SHORT STORIES OF SIEGFRIED L E N 2

the period of the war, the last Jew left in an East Prussian community has almost reached the place of his execution, and a new captor takes charge of him. The Jew’s unresisting acceptance of his fate, and Lenz’s avoidance of ‘die Kunst herauszufordern’, are, in the closing sentences, crowningly and paradoxically exemplified :

Ein junger, breitgesichtiger Mann kam ihnen entgegen, sein Gewehr schrag vor der Brust. Er trat zwischen sie. Er befahl Heinrich Bielek [the first captor] zuriickzugehen. Als er sich umdrehte, bemerkte er, d a s s der Mann in der erdbraunen Joppe, den er weiterzufiihren hatte, ihm bereits mehrere Schritte stillschweigend vorausgegangen war (S, p. 4).

If Lenz is a practitioner of conventional techniques rather than an experi- mental writer, this brings compensations. There are few German story- tellers of our time who so grip the reader as Lenz does in Nur uufSurdinien or, particularly, in Lukas, sanfimiitiger Knecht. He is, quite simply, adept in the traditional art of seizing and retaining the reader’s attention. This bears both on his liking for a ‘Pointe’, towards which the story drives, and on the enigmatic titles designed to whet the reader’s curiosity: Jiiger des Spotts, Risiko f i r Weihnachtsmanner, Die Clucksfmilie des Monats, etc. The opening sentences ofhis tales are often equally intriguing. Lenz likes to plunge in medias res, rcferring to characters or events as if we were familiar with them already, and thus stimulating our desire to acquire that familiarity. Equally conventional, and equally enjoyable, is Lenz’s use of surprise. To take other titles, consider how he arouses false expectations by such ironic headings as Ein Freund der Regierung and Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe.

Lenz also turns convention to his own advantage by reinvigorating out- moded or debased forms. If So zirtlich WUY Suleyken is a collection of latter- day ‘Dorfgeschichten’, and a story like Silvester-Unfall a modem ‘Familien- gemalde’, as it were, such tales as Der seelische Rurgeber and Mein verdrossenes Gesicht represent a kind of twentieth-century ‘Dummlingsmarchen’, recording the impressions of an innocent abroad in the jungle of advertising and the mass media. Most important, Lenz takes the narrative of action, the adventure story, for example, and shapes it so that it illuminates the human qualities and relationships that fascinate him. In Stimmungen der See, we have noticed, the sea forms the setting of an exciting tale of action with psychological undertones (in the context of such works, it is tempting to recall that other exile from Eastern Europe, Joseph Conrad). In Der Luujer, memories passing through the athlete’s mind during his last race comprise over half the narrative. These recollections are themselves a retrospect of his career, so that physical action and psychological exploration are wedded.

As a practised writer of ‘Horspiele’, Lenz is, of course, a master of dialogue. Thus, Der lungere Arm is devoted to a conversation between husband and contemptuous wife; and Die Nacht im Hotel, largely given up to a nocturnal

THE SHORT STORIES O F S I E G F R I E D L E N 2 247

dialogue in a dark room, is, as it were, a radio-play transposed to the sphere of prose fiction.

The sheer range of Lenz’s short stories is impressive. We have already studied both his versatility in handling his central theme of the moment of truth, and the interplay of physical and psychological interest characterizing his work. The same resourccfulness enriches his treatment of background, be it the north German winter scene of Der Anjang von etwas, the meridional landscape of Nur auj Sardinien, or the lush Kenyan setting of Lukas, sanftnriitiger Knecht. A different kind of versatility embraces the tragedy of Schtuierige Trauer and the comedy of Der Amusierdoktor. Again, the raw material of Lenz’s tales, his vocabulary as such, is remarkably wide, ranging from nautical words (‘wriggen’, ‘krangen’, ‘achteraus’) to precise allusions to the bric-8-brac of modern civilization (‘Kunststoffloffel’, ‘Bauchladen’, ‘Einkaufsnetz’). To characterize his style, however, we must look more dccply, to the realistic and the figurative elements of his narrative prose, and we may now review each of these in turn.

Lenz the realist reveals a keen eye for visual detail, from the momentary flash of the sun on an aircraft cockpit high abovc the fugitives’ boat in Stirnnzungen der See-an elusive symbol of liberty (or danger ?)-to the effects of heat on lead, conveying both the suspense generally inherent in the context of ‘Bleigiessen’ and the menace latent in the particular setting of SiIvester-

Lcnz’s description of nature also tcstifies to his accuracy as an observer: even the negative phenomenon of darkness is exploited, in Stimmungen der See:

Als der erste Vorlaufer des Sturms sie erreichte, war es finster uber dem Wasser, eine fahle Dunkelheit herrschte, es war nicht die entschiedene, trostliche, ruhende Dunkelheit der Nacht, sondern die gcwaltsame, drohende Dunkelheit, die der Sturm vorausschickt (F , p. 275).

And the variety of settings referred to previously is, of course, articulated in specific local colour.

In the field of human sensation, we find a series of realistic cffccts with, again, the familiar psychological undcrtones. Thus, in Juger des Spotts, ‘das dumpfe Gliicksgefuhl der Erschopfung’ (1, p. I 54) resembles the ‘weiche, wohlige Miidigkeit’ provoked by the simple meal describcd so mouth- wateringly in Die Festung(1, p. 76). The fusion of physical sensation and psycho- logical process becomes, in Der Anfang von etwas, an aspect of human com- munication: ‘Hoppc spiirtc, wie sich Paulas Finger um seinen Unterarm schlossen, ihr Erschrecken sich im wachsenden Druck der Finger fortsetzte.” The proferred hand conveys false feeling in Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe and genuine distress in Die Fe~tung.‘~ Everyday gestures are endowed with meaning.

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248 THE SHORT STORIES OF SIEGFRIED L E N 2 ~

To return to Der Anfang uon etwas, this story also exemplifies Lenz’s realistic treatment of sound. As Hoppe prepares to cast his belongings into the river, the privacy and secrecy of his intended action are conveyed by the distance and impersonality of the sound that he hears: ‘Er . . . spahte die Pier hinab, musterte die Luken der Speicher, stand und lauschte auf das schleifende Gerausch einer fernen Strassenbahn‘ (F, p. 183). The enormous care devoted to realistic detail in Lenz’s stories may be fmally illustrated from this same tale by the accumulation of visual and acoustic elements relating to the fruit-machine.

For his descriptive material, then, Lenz draws heavily on the sights, sensations, gestures and sounds of everyday life. Yet, as we have noticed, the descriptive elements in question often carry some deeper implication. Even in that highly documentary account of the operation of a fruit- machine, unexpected abstract nouns link the mechanical process and the feelings of the players: ‘wenn die Stille schon Verlust zu bedeuten schien, Aufforderung und neuen Einsatz, dann erfolgte mit herausforderndet Verzogerung ein Rasseln‘ (F, p. 178). Lenz is not, therefore, a mere chronicler of surface reality. What we have seen to be true of his themes is true also of his style. He is neither merely polemical in his a proach nor merely natural-

dimensions are metaphor, as in the passage just cited, and simile. Their conjunction with the ‘documentary’ elements further typifies Lenz’s versatility. Let us now review the role of figurative usage in his stories.

Driiben aufden Inseln includes a good example of the meaningful location of images in the structure of Lenz’s work. The loss of young life which forms the climax of the story is prefigured, in the second paragraph, by the comparison of a motionless windmill to a dead, black flower. Similarly, at the start of Der Anfang uon etwas, the hero’s chance of a new life is anticipated not only by the story’s title, and by its being set on ‘Silvestermorgen’, but perhaps also by the reference to his shadow: ‘Unter dem Schneetreiben kam Hoppe hervor, nur ein Schatten zuerst, eine muhsame Ankiindigung seiner selbst’ (F, p. 164).

The maritime world, which he knows so well, furnishes Lenz with crisp and appropriate images. In Driiben auf den Inseln, for example, the hermit- like existence of the islanders is perfectly caught in an image drawn by one of them from her own environment: ‘Jeder lebt abgeschlossen fur sich wie eine Muschel’ (J, p. 125).

Images with an ornithological reference are also recurrent. However, it is in the treatment of nature itself, and of concomitant elements, that Lenz gives full rein to his figurative talent, particularly, as we would expect, in the context of the sea. Thus, in Die F h t ist piinktlich, we again find, as in Driiben ouf den Inseln, an early image prefiguring the tragic denouement.

istic in his technique. Among the means by w Ki ch his prose acquires extra

~

T H E S H O R T S T O R I E S OF S I E G F R I E D L E N 2 249

To the dead, black flower in the image prcviously discussed we may compare the motionless, black strip of water, ‘dcr wie zur Erinnerung fur die Flut dalag, nach sechs Stunden wieder zuruckzukehren und ihn aufzunehmen init steigender Strijmung’ ( J , p. 162). In D i e Hut ist piinktlich, as in Stint- mtcngen der See, thc sea appears endowed with a life of its own, and ablc to claim its puny victims at will. This is implied both by the titles of the two stories and by an image which they share: that of the breathing sea.” Stiw- nzungen der See contains, as well, images like that of thc ‘Muschel’, above, in which the figurative reference is itself rooted in the narrative milieu, thus : ‘Die Ruderblztter Fachelten leicht im Wasser wie dic Brustflossen cines lauernden Fischs (sic)’ ( F , p. 252). Complementally, the coast-line on the horizon is comparud to the blade of an oar.18 The effect of these echoes, or correspondences, within one image, and between two images, is actively to sustain the narrativc unity. Lenz does not use thc sea as an avenue to ‘poetic’, lyrical effkct. On the contrary, figurative language here brings the sccnc more sharply bcfore us. Furthcr figurcs in the natural description convey the ‘Stimmuligcn’ imbuing both the setting and the fugitives : clouds scem hampered in their progress; the sun riscs, only to vanish again- ‘so als hatte sic sicli nur uberzeugen wollcn, dass das Boot noch trieb und die Manner noch in ihm warcn’ (F , p. 272). This sombre transformation of a traditional symbol of hope, the rising sun, may be counterbalanced by the shadow-motif in D e r Anjarg uoyz ettuas, which, it was tentatively suggestcd, may have an (unexpectedly) optimistic implication. What is certain is that a figure dcscribing the falling snow in Der Ailfang v o t ~ etiuas reflects the hcro’s imprisoned existence and, then, his cscapc from it : ‘Aus dem Windschattcn sah Hoppe den Weg zuruck . . . schrzg ging der Schnee nieder, wie hinter gespannten Schnurcn eincs weissen Gittcrs vcrbarg cr das andere Ufcr’ ( F , p. 165). The story ends with Hoppe gazing at his possessions, symbols of the past, vanishing ‘hinter dem weissen Gittcr des Schneetrcibens’ (F, p. 184), then going on his way to a new freedom.

A particularly promincnt kind of figurative language in Lenz’s tales articulates his almost obsessive preoccupation with thc human head, and especially the human face. Many of the itnagcs falling undcr this rubric represent caricature. This is bcst exemplified by the rangc of facial description in Der Anfang von etwus. Such figurative elcnients oftcn help, of course, to establish ycrsonality and atmosphere. Thc ‘eichclformige Augen’ of the man scnt to fetch thc last of the Jews in Der Verzicht convey menace and cunning ( S , p. 3 3 ) ; the ‘knolliges, kartoffclartigcs Gesicht’ of thc wife in Silvester- Urlfnll conspircs with her husband’s forced smile and his face’s rcsemblancc to a mask composed of dissimilar halves to hcightcn the strained, unnatural atniospherc of the macabre festival.”

In the treatment of sound, too, thc elrmcnt of documentary transcription,

250 THE SHORT S T O R I E S OF S I E G F R I E D L E N Z

already reviewed, is counterbalanced by arresting figurative usage. Thus, in Der Luujr, the hero’s awareness of his surroundings as his last race begins is expressed largely by aural elements of this kind:

und er horte d a s Brausen der Stimmen, horte die murmelnde Bewunderung und die Sprechchbre, die. . . wie ein skandiertes Echo durch das Stadion klangen . . . die Sprechchore sprangen wie Font5nen ad, hinter ihm und vor hm(J p. 82).

In Der Anfang volt etwus, Hoppe’s unexpected opportunity is ‘echoed’ in sound. Early in the tale, noises are ‘verstiimmelt’ and ‘erstickt’ in the falling snow. At the end, the change of reference in the imagery to one of physical well-being underlines, like the modulation of the ‘Gitter’ motif previously discussed, the transformation of his life :

dam trat er zuriick, hob ohne Zogern den Karton an und liess ihn knapp neben der Pier zwischen die Eisschollen fallen: ein tiefes ‘Wumrn’ drang zu ihm herauf, ein Laut wie ein tiefes zufriedenes Aufseufzen (F, pp. 183-4).

Perhaps Lenz’s favourite figure is an adjective qualifymg an abstract noun in a surprising juxtaposition. In Mein verdrossenes Cesicht, the heartiness generated between reunited wartime comrades is epitomized in a phrase of this kind : ‘schulterklopfende Frohlichkeit’ (J, p. 171). Sometimes the juxta- position is so startling as to amount to oxymoron: ‘vorschriftsmassige Begeisterung’ (F, p. 209) ; ‘biedermknische Tucke’ (F, p. 279) ; Schwierige Truuer.

A writer who financed his university studies by combining the roles of black marketeer and blood donor is, perhaps, likely to have a sharpened sense of the incongruous. Be that as it may, the element of paradox revealed in the phrases just quoted forms the stylistic counterpart of the desire to question accepted truths, to explore established reputations, and to test performance, which, as we have seen, furnishes Lenz with a wealth of inter- related characters and situations. Language, too, is scrutinized in new and unexpected guises. Yet Lenz is no more a revolutionary in the realm of narrative tone than in that of social criticism. The judicious desire to ‘conclude a pact’ with the reader, rather than overtly to challenge him, informs the style as well as the content of his short stories. He has, indeed, been termed the most conventional writer of his generation in his use of language.20 On the other hand, there are signs that Lenz’s inquiries may now be leading him to a greater degree of technical experiment. His latest novel, Studtgespruch, represents an attempt to practise on the grand scale the form of the narrative apostrophe, or harangue, already adumbrated in Schwierige Trauer.z’ A recent short story, Der sechste Cebtrrtstug, essays the-for the male writer-difficult task of employing a female fictive narrator.22 We may hope

T H E SHORT S T O R I E S OF S I E G F R I E D L E N 2 251

that other experiments will follow in the years to come. For, if Lenz suc- ceeds in fusing experiment with the traditional narrative virtues which are his already, he may emerge as a major artist.

NOTES

An abridged version of a lecture delivered at the Institutc of Germanic Studies, University of London, on May zoth, 1965. Lenz has subsequently published Der Spieluerderber, a new collection of stories, which gathers together certain tales cited in the lecture and others on which somc observations have been addcd in preparing the present article.

Published by Hoffman und Campe Verlag, Hamburg. The distribution of the stories to which reference is made in the present articlc is as follows: InJuger des Spotrs: Lukas, sanfimiitiger Knechf; Das Wrack; Ein Haus aris lauter Liebe; Die Festung; Der Liujer; Der grosse Wildenberg; Driiben aufden Insebt; Der s~elische Ratgeber; Ji@r des Spof ts; Die Flut ist piitrkrlich; M e i n uerdrossenes Gesicht; N u r auf Sardinien; and Die Nacht im Hotel. In Das Ferierschrfl Ein Freund der Regierufy; Der Anjang uon efwas; Lieblingsspeise der Hyutieti; Der lingere Arm; Der Sohir des Diktators; Siluester-Unfall; Der Amusierdoktor; Risiko fur Weihr~achtsmiinner; and Sfimmungen der See. In Der Spiduerderber: Nachrahlutrg; Der Vrrricht; Vorgeschichte; Der Spieluerderber; Der sechste Geburtstag; Kuste im Fernglas; Die GliickSfamilie des Monats; Der Cleich- giiltke; Der Beweis; Ball der Wohltiter; Srkurierige Trauer; Ihre Srhwester; and Die Lampert der Erkimos. The three collections are henceforth referred to as], F and S, respectively.

At the end of the Reclam selection Sfimmungen der See (Universal-Bihliothek 8662), Stuttgart, 1962. The tale which appears in this selection as Celegenheit zum Verzicht has been re-titled Der Verzicht (in S).

In Die W e l f , January 27th, 1962. Cf. Marcel Reich-Ranicki’s discussion oflenz’s restraint in ‘Siegfried Lenz, der gelassene Mitwisser’ (in M. Reich-Ranicki, Deufsche Liferatirr in West und Osf, Munich, Pipcr, 1963, pp. 169-84, see esp. pp. 172-3).

The following extract from comments kindly supplied by the author makcs the same point from a different angle: ‘Was den Ort angeht, an dem diese Geschichte sich zutragt, so habe ich zwar an die deutsche Ostseckiiste gedacht, doch an keinen speziellen Wiikel. . . . Die gewisse Ortlosigkeit, meinc ich. deutet vielleicht schon eine ubemagbarkeit des Konlliktes an.’

The story is based on fact. Other examples of tales employing the narrator-observer include the recent Nadzahlung and Der Beweis.

‘I For other examples oi the narrator-victim, cf. Der Sohn des Diktators, Der Gleichgiiltige, Ihre Srhwester and Die Lampen der Eskinros.

* The story Der Spieluerderber features an inuohttfarily ‘dynamic’ narrator who unmasks other characters by blurting out inconvenient truths. They, in turn, ensure that he is also a narrator-victim !

Cf. Kiiste im Fernglas. l o Sce, for example, the descriptions of fog in Stimmrrngen der See.

The author tells me that Der At@ng uon efwas is a pendant to Hemingway’s The End of Something (the third story of In our Time).

l 2 Aufobiogruphische Sk ixze , loc. cit., p. 79. Ihid.. D. 78.

I ‘ I ~~

l4 F, p. 259, and F, pp. 224-5, respectively. I s F, p. 177. Cf. the rather similar effect in Der Gleichgiiltke ( S , p. 155). - - - 16 J , p. 59, and], pp. 72-3. respectively. * ’ J , p. 169, and F , p. 253, respectively.

l9 F, pp. ?,IS, 216, 218, 226. 2o R. W. Leonhardt, in Schrifsteller der Cegenwart, cd. K. Nonnenmann, Olten and Freiburg im Br.,

21 Cf. Vorgeschichte, Der Spielverderber and Ball der Wohlriiter in each of which only cine side ofa dialogue

2 2 Already employed, however, in Vorgeschichfe, which further anticipates Der scdufe Gebirrtstag as a

F, p. 277-

Walter-Verlag, 1963, p. 217.

is given.

variation on Lenz’s paradoxical, Pinteresque theme of the macabre festival.