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Loving Brecht
Book by ELAINE FEINSTEIN
Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
22 people want to read
About the author
Elaine Feinstein
67 books52 followersElaine Feinstein was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as an editor for Cambridge University Press (1960-62), as Lecturer in English at Bishop's Stortford Training College (1963-6), as Assistant Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Essex (1967-70), and as a journalist.
She has contributed to many periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement, and was formerly Writer in Residence for the British Council in Singapore and Tromsø, Norway.
Of Russian-Jewish ancestry, she has been influenced by Russian writers, especially Marina Tsvetayeva and Anna Akhmatova.
She is the author of a number of plays for television and radio and several biographies, including singer Bessie Smith, writer D. H. Lawrence, Poet Laureate Ted Hughes and Anna Akhmatova.
She has contributed to many periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement, and was formerly Writer in Residence for the British Council in Singapore and Tromsø, Norway.
Of Russian-Jewish ancestry, she has been influenced by Russian writers, especially Marina Tsvetayeva and Anna Akhmatova.
She is the author of a number of plays for television and radio and several biographies, including singer Bessie Smith, writer D. H. Lawrence, Poet Laureate Ted Hughes and Anna Akhmatova.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 27, 2024
Samuel R. Delany and A. S. Byatt both praised this one which was more than enough for me to give it a go. It did nothing for me though… I didn’t find the fictional protagonist interesting, nor the relationship with Brecht, nor Brecht as a character. It reminded me of Mary Reilley by Valerie Martin though not as enjoyable or engrossing. I think… I expected an elegant and insightful short novel with meticulous language and surprising construction. That’s not what this was. With a better understanding of the author’s intent, I might have enjoyed it more. I’ll keep an eye on other reviews to see what I missed.
January 1, 2024
I think it’s impossible to escape the fact that this book is essentially historical fan-fiction made about someone, actually many people, who really existed.
That’s because if Feinstein had come up with a similar, fictional playwright and introduced him to Frida, I would have no qualms. The book is good. Very good, actually, though I felt the hopping around the world with each new historical event in the second half a little clumsy. I would have preferred, like at the first half of the novel, for the changing world to simmer in the background of the Frida/Brecht situationship and not be the main focus.
As a communist Jew, she was doomed in Germany, then in the USSR and finally in America. Definitely connects strongly with the Jewish community’s search for a home. Brecht seems like a real tool, but the magic ability to wring the women around him dry (with very little effort) is interesting.
There’s one little bit where he is truly manipulative, and it’s so unexpected it seems out of character. So far, these weirdly dedicated women have consented to play a part in supporting his promiscuous, leech-like lifestyle, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s an unreliable narrator, and he was truly manipulative all along?
That’s because if Feinstein had come up with a similar, fictional playwright and introduced him to Frida, I would have no qualms. The book is good. Very good, actually, though I felt the hopping around the world with each new historical event in the second half a little clumsy. I would have preferred, like at the first half of the novel, for the changing world to simmer in the background of the Frida/Brecht situationship and not be the main focus.
As a communist Jew, she was doomed in Germany, then in the USSR and finally in America. Definitely connects strongly with the Jewish community’s search for a home. Brecht seems like a real tool, but the magic ability to wring the women around him dry (with very little effort) is interesting.
There’s one little bit where he is truly manipulative, and it’s so unexpected it seems out of character. So far, these weirdly dedicated women have consented to play a part in supporting his promiscuous, leech-like lifestyle, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s an unreliable narrator, and he was truly manipulative all along?
March 8, 2014
What fascinated me most about this novel was its portrayal of Brecht as a philanderer and arch manipulator - a revolutionary for sure but hardly "loveable". It turns out that the great man was perhaps not quite the genius we have been led to believe he was. Feinstein suggests that Brecht's women supplied him with much of the work for which they received no credit.
The heroine of the story is Frieda Bloom, a Cabernet singer who shared the stage with the famous, Lotte Lenya, the wife of Brecht's key collaborator, Kurt Weill. Freida composes some of the songs incorporated into the plays, performs in others and works around the clock typing up and "improving" Brecht's manuscripts. In this she reminded me of Sophie Tolstoy - though I'm unsure whether Freida is a fictional character or was an actual person.
The other key women characters certainly were real and include Elizabeth Hauptmann, Helene Wiegel and Ruth Berlau.
A bit of research seems to support Feinstein's presentation of these talented women as being at least key creative collaborators, if not the actual authors of some of the works or roles in his plays.
Elizabeth Hauptmann
She is purported to have composed the majority of the text as well as provided a German translation of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" on which the musical play is based, as working material for Brecht and Kurt Weill. She also wrote at least half of the Mahagonny-Songspiel, although she is uncredited.
Helene Weigel
Weigel became the artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble after Brecht's death in 1956. She was most noted for creating several Brecht roles, including: Pelagea Vlassova, "The Mother" of Brecht's eponymous play in 1932; "Antigone" in Brecht's version of the Greek tragedy; the title role in his civil war play, "Señora Carrar's Rifles" as well as the iconic "Mother Courage."
Ruth Berlau
Became Brecht's lover in 1936, divorced her husband and threw herself into the collaboration with him acting as a secretary as well as writing, translating, photographing and directing. With Brecht she published the short story collection "Jedes Tier kann es." In 1940, she followed the Brecht clan to Sweden, Finland, the USSR and finally to the United States, where a rupture with Brecht took place in 1944. After the war, she followed the Brechts to Berlin but was blacklisted from the Berliner Ensemble by Weigel after Brecht's death in 1956. She died in the Charité hospital after setting her bed alight with a cigarette.
The novel itself moves rather clumsily from the collapse of the Weimar, through to the years of terror in Moscow, on to America at the time of the McCarthy trials and back to Berlin. In the last section Brecht is feted but shown to be increasingly disillusioned by the new worker's state in which he has become a hero.
For those who love Brecht's poetry (as I do) - and the fabulous songs they became under Kurt Weill - the book provides good background to "those dark times" which Team Brecht famously wrote about.
The heroine of the story is Frieda Bloom, a Cabernet singer who shared the stage with the famous, Lotte Lenya, the wife of Brecht's key collaborator, Kurt Weill. Freida composes some of the songs incorporated into the plays, performs in others and works around the clock typing up and "improving" Brecht's manuscripts. In this she reminded me of Sophie Tolstoy - though I'm unsure whether Freida is a fictional character or was an actual person.
The other key women characters certainly were real and include Elizabeth Hauptmann, Helene Wiegel and Ruth Berlau.
A bit of research seems to support Feinstein's presentation of these talented women as being at least key creative collaborators, if not the actual authors of some of the works or roles in his plays.
Elizabeth Hauptmann
She is purported to have composed the majority of the text as well as provided a German translation of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" on which the musical play is based, as working material for Brecht and Kurt Weill. She also wrote at least half of the Mahagonny-Songspiel, although she is uncredited.
Helene Weigel
Weigel became the artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble after Brecht's death in 1956. She was most noted for creating several Brecht roles, including: Pelagea Vlassova, "The Mother" of Brecht's eponymous play in 1932; "Antigone" in Brecht's version of the Greek tragedy; the title role in his civil war play, "Señora Carrar's Rifles" as well as the iconic "Mother Courage."
Ruth Berlau
Became Brecht's lover in 1936, divorced her husband and threw herself into the collaboration with him acting as a secretary as well as writing, translating, photographing and directing. With Brecht she published the short story collection "Jedes Tier kann es." In 1940, she followed the Brecht clan to Sweden, Finland, the USSR and finally to the United States, where a rupture with Brecht took place in 1944. After the war, she followed the Brechts to Berlin but was blacklisted from the Berliner Ensemble by Weigel after Brecht's death in 1956. She died in the Charité hospital after setting her bed alight with a cigarette.
The novel itself moves rather clumsily from the collapse of the Weimar, through to the years of terror in Moscow, on to America at the time of the McCarthy trials and back to Berlin. In the last section Brecht is feted but shown to be increasingly disillusioned by the new worker's state in which he has become a hero.
For those who love Brecht's poetry (as I do) - and the fabulous songs they became under Kurt Weill - the book provides good background to "those dark times" which Team Brecht famously wrote about.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews