cover image Lyric Novella

Lyric Novella

Annemarie Schwarzenbach, trans. from the German by Lucy Renner Jones, afterword by Roger Perret. Seagull (Univ. of Chicago, dist.), $15 trade paper (164p) ISBN 978-0-85742-016-9

After its initial publication in Germany in 1933, author Schwarzenbach, a lesbian who came of age in Weimar-era Berlin, insisted that its hero “was not a young man, but a young woman,” revealing it to be the story of a lesbian relationship. Translator Jones, in her preface, and Perret, in a biographical afterword that is as long as the novella itself, both imply that this makes it an important, groundbreaking early work on the subject, and that this gender awareness adds layers of meaning; it can be read either way, they argue. But one could impose such external meaning on nearly any book, and Schwarzenbach’s short study of a depressed, romantically frustrated young man, free of commentary, suggests little such depth. An unnamed narrator switches focus between the development and descent of his obsessive relationship with cabaret singer Sibylle, and his current state of remove in a small village, post-breakup. His moony reveries sometimes verge on the absurd, and the supposed love he feels for cold, ambivalent Sybille never creates any convincing sparks. (Oct.)