Customer Reviews

Stella

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"A minute of silence" (Schweigeminute) is the original title of this deceptively simple novella by Siegfried Lenz, which takes place during a memorial assembly for Stella Petersen, a young teacher of English at a German high school, somewhere on the Baltic coast. As the president of his class, Christian, the protagonist, has been asked to deliver a eulogy. He refuses, because his connection to Stella is deeper and more personal, and he wants just to be left alone with his memories. Memories mainly of the preceding summer, which Christian spent helping his father build breakwaters, taking tourists on boat trips round a nearby island, and getting to know his young teacher whenever occasion threw them together.

You can see this short book being made into a bittersweet art-house movie, either in black and white or breeze-blown sun-bleached colors. It has an understated perfection in which very little actually happens but where knowing and unknowing, awakening and loss, hang suspended in a salt summer haze. Lenz, a former associate of Günter Grass, writes with a simple clarity matched by few other contemporary writers. The translation by Anthea Bell is a good one, but it makes me wish that I was reading in German, the better to appreciate the author's straightforward style. The book jacket compares him to W. G. Sebald, the author of AUSTERLITZ, though Lenz is far more transparent. But the comparison has some justification, in that both authors carry their message as much by what is not said as by what is.

By extraordinary coincidence, I opened this book immediately after reading and reviewing another contemporary novella -- THE LAST ESTATE by Conor Bowman -- which is also about the love of a schoolboy for his young teacher, and whose leading character even has the same name, Christian! But beyond that, the two could not be more different. Although both books begin very tenderly, Bowman's contains much stronger color (including jealousy, violence, and murder) and quite explicit eroticism. Lenz paints in watercolors. He allows his hero similar fulfillment, but the talisman that his Christian keeps most precious in his memory is a night spent with Stella, fully clothed, sleeping side by side on the same pillow. Most stories of teenage love are about the access of knowledge, carnal or otherwise. Lenz, by contrast, writes of the persistence of un-knowing: the things one can never fully know about another person, though one may well discover more about oneself in the process of trying.

Though fully alive to the reader, Lenz's Christian is always presented ambiguously, as though never sure of his standing. He recounts Stella's doings in the third person, but every so often jumps to "you," addressing her memory directly. The eulogy is actually delivered by a peer, Georg Bisanz, whom Christian refers to as "Stella's favorite pupil" -- and continues to do so, even after he himself has found a place in Stella's affections that surely trumps Georg's. His meetings with Stella are relatively few; he is well aware that she continues her own life in between them -- seeing other members of the staff, going off on a yacht for several days with friends among the Danish islands -- but he never finds out the details, even when he meets the young man whose photograph she keeps in her room, signed "Stella, with love; Colin." For a while, the reader tries to be cleverer than Christian, looking for evidence of subplots that will eventually create a climax in the manner of a conventional novel. But they never come -- and there is a silent beauty in their absence.

Eighteen-year old Christian, high school student in a small seaside town along the Baltic Sea coast, is a silent participant in the memorial gathering for highly popular English teacher, Stella Peterson. While others praise her youthful and lively personality, express their respect or admiration for the colleague and teacher, Christian is absorbed by his own memories of Stella. In a confident, if somewhat nostalgic, tone and a very tender gentle feel for his young narrator, octogenarian Siegfried Lenz has written a touching, dreamy and somewhat idealistic love story that, tragically, ended before it had really begun.

Using the memorial assembly at the school as the frame for his novella, Lenz has Christian tell his story. His mind moves between the present and the recent past. In the now, he addresses Stella directly, expressing his intimate thoughts and feelings, his dreams of a future that he was too reticent and shy to express before. Alternating the direct voice with his account of the previous summer's events that brought Stella into his inner circle and intimately close to him. Stressing the duality of timelines, Lenz applies voice changes between the direct "you", and indirect "she" for Stella, sometimes quite abruptly. Evoking the atmosphere of the beautiful seascape around the small maritime town and describing its summer activities the reader gains insights into Christian's life, complementing his evolving love for his teacher. Christian helps his father, a "stone fisher", in the strengthening of the breakwater barriers, he takes tourists around Bird Island, and joins with friends in the annual summer festival. Stella is enjoying all the events and more, allowing the secret romance to evolve. With the depiction of the surroundings and summer activities Lenz creates a second, important narrative frame that, at least to me, adds depth and plausibility to a story that is more about a young man growing up into a new world of emotions than the depiction of an "affair". Consequently, beyond Christian's perception of her, Stella remains an enigma, her actions open to questions. She lived in Christian's imagination more than in life. The "warm bearing wave" of love, her note, written on a postcard to Christian, is the only message left to him that will have to carry him beyond the grief.

Siegfried Lenz is a highly regarded German author of long standing with a large body of fiction and non-fiction work. This short prose work, written in 2008, was his first to break a long silence following a devastating personal tragedy. Having read the book in its original German, I cannot comment on the English translation. His language is straight forward and easy and subtle when describing the very few private encounters of "the lovers". It seems to me, however, that the English title 'STELLA' is somewhat misleading; Stella is not at all in the centre of the story. The German title "Schweigeminute" - minute of silence - captures the core of the novella much better. [Friederike Knabe]

Teenaged Christian falls in love with his lovely teacher Stella. The attraction is mutual and turns sexual. When Stella dies, Christian is unsurprisingly crushed. The story alternates between the progressing relationship between Christian and Stella and his devastation at her loss. Great plot premise, and a book I'd recommend as a quick, interesting read, especially in summer or when you're looking to beef up your "books read" numbers. The downside: I never fully felt Christian's pain, nor the reason for the deep and immediate attraction between the two. Stella wasn't developed enough. Actually, a lot of things weren't. It was somewhat formulaic in nature. The taboo attracted me; I love unconventional stories of love, especially if they end badly. You might say I don't believe in romance, and you'd be quite right. Well-written but left me with a feeling of disappointment.