Quartet (novel)

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Quartet (in the English Quartet . Originally Postures ) is the title of a 1928 novel by the writer Jean Rhys . In it, the author tells the autobiographical story of a square relationship in Paris in the 1920s.

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The protagonist of the novel, 28-year-old Marya Zelli, lives with her Polish husband Stephan Zelli in Paris in the 1920s. She met the couple Hugh J. and Lois Heidler through a painter friend, de Solla. The Englishman Hugh Heidler is an art dealer and patron, his wife Lois is a painter. After Stephan Zelli was arrested and charged for selling stolen art objects, the almost destitute Marya moved in with the couple at Lois Heidler's instigation. Hugh Heidler begins an affair with her, Lois discovers this, but tolerates it in the following time. Stephan Zelli is found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison and then expelled from France. In addition to the already existing financial situation, Marya becomes increasingly emotionally dependent on Heidler, who tries to persuade her to break off relations with Stephan. The whole time Marya wavers between the love for her imprisoned husband and that for Heidler.

When Stephan is released, there is a meeting between Stephan and Marya Zelli and Hugh and Lois Heidler, but the relationship with Stephan is not disclosed. Four days later, Marya's husband has to leave Paris and travel to Amsterdam. Heidler breaks off the love affair, but does not break contact with Marya. Instead, he urges her - successfully - to leave Paris and travel to Nice, where he supports her financially, but at the same time deprives her of the means to go to her husband in Amsterdam. Stephan finally returns to Paris after failures in Amsterdam to meet with his wife before his planned departure for Argentina. You stay with a friend of Stephen's and Miss Chardin, who lives with him. Here Marya tells her husband about the relationship with Heidler. In the ensuing scene, her initial affection for Stephan turns into aversion and she confesses that she loves Heidler. Stephan then threatens to kill Heidler. After all, he only leaves with the intention of leaving the country and leaves his wife behind. When leaving the house, however, he meets Miss Chardin, who offers to come with him - an offer he does not refuse.

Biographical parallels

Quartet has strong autobiographical traits. The protagonist's experiences, from parts of her prehistory as a revue dancer to the events in Paris, are very similar to those of the author. Stephan Zelli is similar to Rhys' then husband Jean Lenglet (also Langlet), he was also sentenced to prison, but for a currency offense. Rhys also made it possible for Lenglet to publish his view of the events described. Hugh Heidler's character, finally, has many of the characteristics of the English writer Ford Madox Ford (actually Ford Hermann Hueffer), with whom Rhys had an affair at the time of her husband's imprisonment.

Film adaptations

  • Quartet (1981)

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Rhys, Jean, Smile please , 5-15

expenditure

  • Jean Rhys: Quartet . Munich dtv, 1995

swell

  • Rhys, Jean: Smile Please. An Unfinished Biography , Penguin, 1981.
  • Daryl Cumber Dance: Fifty Caribbean Writers . Greenwood Pub group: 1986.