Minute of silence (Siegfried Lenz)

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Minute of Silence is a novella by Siegfried Lenz from 2008.

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The action takes place on the West German Baltic Sea coast in the unspecified post-war period, with mentions of Ray Charles on the radio, the song Spanish Eyes and a VW Beetle most likely pointing to the 1960s or 1970s. The story begins at a memorial service when students and teachers say goodbye to the young English teacher Stella Petersen, who was fatally injured in a boat accident in the auditorium of the Lessing Grammar School. Christian, an 18-year-old student, remembers his affair with Ms. Petersen. The story is told as a flashback from Christian's point of view, who, during the minute's silence, recalls his relationship with his dead lover and his experiences with her.

One day during the summer holidays, Stella passes the harbor where Christian is helping his father - a stonefisher and operator of an excursion boat. Since Stella is interested in the job of stonefisher at the beginning, Christian offers her to go with them, later the two dance together at a village festival. A few days later they go on a trip to a nearby bird island , where they seek shelter in a small hut due to a thunderstorm and get closer. After their return, they sleep together in the hotel room. From now on they go on trips together, but always without showing the affection in public, as that would end Stella's career as a teacher. She hesitates when Christian takes a photo with her, which he later hangs up in his room. The photo leads Christian's mother and the girl next door, Sonja, to suspect the love affair despite no openly depicted proof of love.

Stella tries to separate her affair with Christian from her job as a teacher. However, the young man is disappointed that she will treat him like the other students after the summer vacation. As she walks the Animal Farm by George Orwell read Christian interprets the described therein consequences of the uprising of the animals, gives the power struggles after the "conquest" but no attention. When he unexpectedly visits Stella in her father's apartment and takes the opportunity to research the result of his work, Stella, despite all the affection and experienced closeness to Christian, marks out the field of her authority when she says: “This is probably not the place to to talk about censorship. "Nevertheless, Christian is spinning on plans for a common and lasting future (" ... I believed I had a right for the duration of my feelings ".)

A storm during a boat trip that Stella goes on with friends separates the two: If the boat hits a stone wall, Stella is thrown against a pier . Christian visits her with classmates in the hospital, but apart from a few tears, which can be recognized when the students sing, she shows no emotion. Only once does Christian think he can hear her quietly pronounce his name. A few days later she dies of the consequences of the injuries. After her burial at sea, there is a memorial service for the teaching staff and the students. Christian, when asked to give a farewell speech, refuses to do this and in silence seeks a way to internalize what has happened: "... perhaps what makes us happy must rest in silence and be preserved." Ultimately, it remains an unfulfilled love, because she ends before it really starts.

people

  • Christian Voigt , the 18-year-old student and first-person narrator as well as the main male character of the novella.
  • Stella Petersen , Christian's young English teacher, with whom he falls in love and with whom he starts an affair
  • Wilhelm and Jutta Voigt , Christian's parents, who suspect his affection for the English teacher from a photo in his room. While Christian's father sees it as a youthful crush and is relaxed, his mother suspects the affair and reacts skeptically to Mrs. Petersen.
  • Stella's father , an old radio operator who has health problems and is looked after by his daughter. As a World War II veteran, he became a British prisoner of war and later aroused his daughter's love for the English language.
  • Georg Bisanz , Christian's classmate most frequently mentioned in the novel. He is considered top of his class and is rescued by Stella when he almost drowns in a sailing competition.
  • Director Block , the head of the Lessing Gymnasium. He reacts somewhat disappointed when Christian, as class representative, does not want to speak for Ms. Petersen during the funeral service.
  • Mr. Kugler , a widowed teacher colleague of Stella who is close friends with her and may also have romantic feelings for her.
  • “Colin” , a former fellow student of Stella, who appears in the novella only through a photograph with a dedication in her room. Nevertheless, Christian reacts jealously to the photo and later falsely believes that he recognizes Colin in a tourist.
  • Sonja , Christian's younger neighbor, who hopes in vain for his attention at a dance party.
  • Frederik , Christian's father's assistant in his job as a stone fisherman *
  • Vogelwart Matthiesen , who gives up his lonely position as bird warden on Vogelinsel in the course of the novella because of rheumatism . Christian then dreams of moving to Matthiesen's hut on Vogelinsel with Stella.
  • Mr. Thomsen , the port captain and unofficial mayor of the place.
  • Mr Püschkereit , a retired history teacher from Masuria (Lenz's homeland), who speaks about funeral rituals in Masuria at Stella's funeral.
  • An old man sitting with Christian on a park bench in front of a hospital and telling him about his son's attempted suicide .

History of origin

Siegfried Lenz began work on the work, which initially had the working title Wellenbrecher , shortly before the death of his wife Liselotte in February 2006. In an interview in 2014, Lenz stated that the book can also be read as a declaration of love to his wife “post mortem” could: “This is a love story that can be addressed without obligation. And she has an address. ”After the death of his wife, Lenz put the minute's silence on hold for around a year and a half. Only with the reassurance and support of his new partner Ulla did he continue working on the novella.

In 2008 alone, around 360,000 copies were sold, making the book a sales success. According to Marcel Reich-Ranicki , it is Lenz's first major work in which a love story is at the center of the plot.

Language and narrative form

The novel is portrayed in the first person from Christian's point of view. The novel begins with the minute's silence, which in retrospect tells the couple's love story. Hellmuth Karasek interpreted the first-person narrator in such a way that he may be recapitulating his first and probably the most intense love relationship from the perspective of an already older man. This is indicated by a few sentences towards the end of the novel: "Not the smuggler himself, but his image will stay with me forever, I suspected that and my suspicion was right" (page 127).

In terms of style, it is particularly noticeable that the narrator Christian addresses his lover Stella alternately in the 2nd and 3rd person. Despite the personal narrative technique, more intimate details of the relationship are left to the reader's imagination - in line with a statement by Lenz that characters simply “send to bed” have “too little evidence” for him. In addition, the frequent use of sailor jargon such as mole , dinghy , keel , winch and trap is noticeable.

Conflicts and Readings

The focus is on the extraordinary relationship between a teacher and a student. The reader can make his own thoughts as to whether the two protagonists could have become a couple or whether circumstances or people would have stood in the way of the two, since their affair, unlike many similar works, is never revealed by the other characters. Lenz leaves further questions unanswered: The reader only learns hinted at how, when and above all why they fall in love in the first place.

The discourse of silence called up in the title of the novella takes place on two levels in the narrative: as a conventional element when it comes to the minute of silence proclaimed by the school management within the funeral service, which, laid out as a framework, repeatedly breaks the flow of the text; also in the utterances and behavior of the people involved, in which Lenz plays through various motives of silence. For Christian, the self-imposed act of silence turns into memory work in which time levels and motifs are intertwined. Lenz affirmed that the novel was about silence and overcoming silence.

Lenz has sketched the shape of Stella in several facets. The name metaphor (Stella = Latin for star) refers to the important function that Stella has for Christian. It enriches his knowledge; she is his "star", his love object, also his fate. The predominantly “green” clad, “looking like a student”, the young teacher shows a special sensitivity for nature, especially for the water world with its living beings. Inspired by quotations from Faulkner's near-natural work , the voice of the author Lenz may be heard, who creates a committed protagonist.

Stella is often associated with the legendary, mythical figure of a water woman . One of the fisheries experts at the congress, which deals with fishing quotas, even portrays her as a mermaid . An invitation from the young teacher to dance at the beach festival on the part of the “local water god, the octopus man” and a portrayal of her as a “mermaid ... with a beautifully curved fishtail” support this reading. The structuring of the narrative text according to the model of the Undine or Melusine saga (love of a beautiful mermaid for a mortal, separation after untaboosing interference and forced return to the water kingdom) remains contoured.

expenditure

filming

2016, the film version was minute's silence as ZDF -Fernsehfilm directed by Thorsten Schmidt with Julia Koschitz as Stella and Jonas Nay as a Christian in the lead roles.

literature

LiteraNova: Siegfried Lenz: Minute of silence. Lesson model with copy templates for German lessons, developed by Markus Müller. Berlin: Cornelsen 2010. ISBN 978-3-464-61643-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berndt, Uwe: Visiting Siegfried Lenz; in: Kampa, Daniel (Ed.): Conversations among friends. Hoffmann and Campe, 2015. pp. 488–489.
  2. ↑ Berndt, Uwe: Visiting Siegfried Lenz; in: Kampa, Daniel (Ed.): Conversations among friends. Hoffmann and Campe, 2015. p. 489.
  3. ^ NDR: Siegfried Lenz and the NDR culture radio play "Schweigeminute" in Flensburg. Retrieved December 2, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki: “Minute of Silence” by Siegfried Lenz: For him, bed stories never had the quality of proof . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 3, 2019]).
  5. ^ Siegfried Lenz "Minute of silence" in the literature club (Karasek, Radisch, v.Arnim, Caduff) (2008). Accessed December 3, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ - In love with the English teacher. Accessed December 3, 2019 (German).
  7. ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki: “Minute of Silence” by Siegfried Lenz: For him, bed stories never had the quality of proof . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 3, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Berndt, Uwe: Visiting Siegfried Lenz; in: Kampa, Daniel (Ed.): Conversations among friends. Hoffmann and Campe, 2015. pp. 489–490.