The Temple [Paperback]

Stephen Spender (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 1997

“Beyond the wonderful insights ... there is a portrait of the world in the eye of the storm between two world wars. It is a novel of awakening –– awakening to sex, yes ... but also an awakening to the presence of evil in the world and to the possibilities of love and friendship.” –– The Bloomsbury Review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Those who remember when modern poetry was entering its primethe era of Eliot, Auden, Spender and Day Lewiswill read this autobiographical novel, written when Spender was 19, and recently rediscovered and revised, with nostalgic interest. With portraits of Auden and Isherwood barely disguised by fictional names, it chronicles Spender's first visit to Hamburg in the summer of 1929 and his second, actually in the fall of the same year, now updated to 1932. Events are few: afternoons of swimming, drunken evenings at nightclubs, a week's hike along the Rhine, but Paul, the narrator, relates them with poetic sensibility that renders place and people snapshot-clear. Bantering reference is made to the partly Jewish background of Paul and most of his friends, but it is not until his second visit that the Nazi threat becomes tangible. By then, sexual preferences have been sorted outthere's a pungent interlude with the Isherwood character and the shifty-eyed German youth who became his long-term loveras well as political proclivities. Chilling anticipation of the harm that will be dealt by Nazi sympathizers to young businessmen and artists lurks in the breaking off of once-intimate friendships. Doom, nowhere articulated, is implied in the eagerness of Paul's friends to misinterpret the signs. Always gracefully, sometimes elegantly, written, this is a fine example of a young poet's first attempt at the novelist's trade.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

First drafted when Spender was 19, this novel has lain dormant in the archives at the University of Texas since 1962, whence it was ferreted out and brought to Spender's attention again a few years ago. Spender rewrote it during 1986-87 and has now published it for the first time. Set in Germany in the Thirties, it combines aspects of Bildungsroman and roman a clef ; thematic concerns include sexual mores, naturism, and fascism. Any new publication by Spender is an event, and this item's peculiar history will cause additional stir. That said, the novel has relatively little to recommend it; the plot meanders, the effort at experimental fiction is uninspired, the dialogue is stilted and the prose flat. It will be read primarily by students of Spender and his circle. Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (August 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135242
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135247
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,558,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do not go to the gym - read this instead, October 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Temple (Paperback)

This simply told but sincere and intelligent story captured me. So much has been written on the subject of Germany, before, during, and after World War II... I felt relieved but also invited by the apparent simplicity of the text. It betrays the underlying emotions and discoveries, which are poignant and real, and brings the experiences of a different time closer. I was reminded of the temporal, fragile nature of every human constellation, be it family or friends, so it makes sense that I found the book in my stair well... Finally, it was very refreshing to read a nonpolitical, nonmoralizing book on the experiences of a young gay man, focusing on the human traits of emotions, a sense of belonging, and friendship. Especially the description of the fascination with health and the body as a machine at that time should be pertinent for our culture at present.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Touching Memoir, January 29, 2007

By 

Pippin Black (Milwaukee, WI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Temple (Paperback)

While some people may find The Temple flawed, I was quite touched by its vividness and immediacy. Especially in the first part, it made me feel like I was there in 1929 Germany enjoying that summer with the tremendous intensity and uncertainty of youth that Spender so beautifully captures. Yes, there isn't much of a plot and the writing is uneven, but this is all about recording the experience, fictional though it may be, and The Temple succeeds spectacularly at doing that.

The second part takes place in the winter of 1932 when the Nazis are about to take power. Spender contrasts the freedom of the Weimar Republic with the oppression of the Third Reich by depicting 1929 in Summer light while the impending darkness of the Nazi's rise in late 1932 occurs in gloomy wet weather mostly in the dark. This not-too-original technique works for me even if it is obvious. Paul, the English narrator of the story observes the rise of the Nazis without fully accepting its reality, and the German characters are either in total denial or casting their lot with the Nazis, whom they can see are going to prevail. It's all too believable.

So for me, The Temple is a big thumbs up. It's intensity and immediacy more than make up for its flaws in style, pacing, and plot.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books - unique perspective on the Reich, April 2, 2010

By 

Crescent R. Varrone ""Ernest"" (Denmark) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Temple (Paperback)

I read Stephen Spender's The Temple many years ago, when it first came out. It is an absolutely unique work, in that he wrote part of it back in the early 30s when the storm clouds were forming over Germany -- and then finished and polished it in the 80s, once one could look back on the whole of the 30s and 40s with a more objective eye.

He is also just such a wonderful writer - beautiful prose, lovingly rendered. I am sure that anyone with a fine eye for elegant prose will love this book as I did!