The unworthy lover

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The Undignified Lover is a novel by Rudolf Borchardt published in 1929 . It appeared along with three shorter stories in the anthology The Hopeless Sex .

content

A few years after the First World War, the novel is set in a noble milieu on an estate in southwest Germany. Baron Moritz von Luttring lives there with his wife Tina and stepmother Eugenie. They receive a visit from Baron Konstantin von Schenius, who seduced Moritz sister Steffie, whereupon she was divorced and who now wants to marry her. Schenius appears to the conservative Luttrings as a windy character with whom they would rather not be related.

In a subplot, Luttring wants to fire his estate manager because he has been betrayed by his wife and has lost his reputation among the employees. Luttring believes that in the past a seducer “came under the sword or under the dog whip”, but now one is “a hopeless sex” and can no longer say no.

Luttring rejects Schenius' advertising for the sister, as he could not provide for her maintenance, and for lack of professional experience he could not be employed on Luttring's goods. Schenius takes revenge for the rejection by seducing Luttring's wife Tina. At first he secretly strokes hers with his foot over and over again at dinner and woos her. After a conversation and an appointment in the park the following day, the two flee. Years later, after breaking up with Schenius, Tina von Luttring kills herself.

interpretation

The novella shows a noble, conservative society using the example of the Luttrings, who want to defend their values ​​and conventions against a more modern and more indifferent environment, only following the pleasure principle, represented by Baron von Schenius, and fails because of this. The mental state of the characters shows the situation of a society that has already given up its rules internally. Moritz von Luttring cannot "force the seducer to the sword" and Tina von Luttring runs away with the unworthy lover despite completely different previously expressed convictions. The conservative author Borchardt sympathizes with the backward-looking attitude of the Luttrings, but describes their disintegration precisely, balanced and without a clear statement.

reception

While Borchardt was previously only known to a few people interested in literature, this novella was the first to receive broad criticism. This was mostly very positive. It was said that the novella was masterful in the psychological structure of the plot, masterful in describing the milieu and, above all, in the unique leadership of the dialogue parts, which were dramatically moved from within ( Bernard Guillemin in the Vossische Zeitung ), and showed a solitary and inexhaustible art of style ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung ) and belong to the masterpieces of narrative prose in which everything is a plastic figure ( Franz Blei in the “Literary World”). However, its rampant psychological detail to the limits of the bearable (Dresdner Nachrichten) and a consideration of the most private conditions, seen through resentment ( Kurt Hirschfeld in the Berlin stock exchange courier ) are said to be.

filming

The novella was filmed in 1980 with the same title under the direction of Ludwig Cremer as a television play of the Bavarian radio . It played Karin Anselm as Tina of Luttring, Wolf Roth as Moritz von Luttring and Jan Niklas as Konstantin von Schenius.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Wellershoff : In private life, the state of the world shows itself. In: Novels from yesterday - read today, volume two, edited by Marcel Reich-Ranicki , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1989, page 161

expenditure

  • The Unworthy Lover , in: The Hopeless Sex. Four contemporary stories , Horen Verlag, Berlin, Leipzig, 1929
  • The Unworthy Lover , in: Collected Works in Individual Volumes. Published by Marie L. Borchardt, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1974

literature