The exhibit represents the first large-scale survey of the life and work of writers Franz Hessel and his wife, Helen Hessel. The exhibit and catalog skillfully combine primary materials and analysis about the writings of both Hessels, their complex personal lives, and their relationships with friends, colleagues, and fellow intellectuals of the day-including Walter Benjamin and Hans Fallada, but with particular focus on their mutual friend, Henri-Pierre Roché. Many of the original letters and diaries of Roché and the Hessels discussed and shown in the catalog belong to the extensive Hessel collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
As expected, the first half of the catalog is organized more or less chronologically, starting with Franz Hessel's childhood in Berlin and continuing through his life, literary endeavors, his friendship with Henri-Pierre Roché, marriage to Helen and intimate relationships among his wife, himself, and their friends. The second half of the catalog follows a more thematic layout, with chapters covering topics such as the Hessels' essays for fashion magazines, Franz Hessel's position at Rowohlt Verlag (he translated Balzac, Proust, and Romains), the Hessels' return and exile to France in the 1930s, and the film Jules et Jim. Hessel's exceptional descriptions of city life and his portraits of urban dwellers fills another chapter. The following quotation conveys Hessel's flair with language, keen insight, and sense of humor:
"Noch ist Berlin, vom Standpunkt der Gesellschaft aus betrachtet, klein und die Eleganz der Dame ein Produkt aus zweiter Hand. Aber schon kommt ein neuer Frauentyp auf ... Sie gehen so hübsch in ihren Kleidern ohne Gewicht, herrlich ist ihre Haut, die von der Schminke nur erleuchtet scheint, erfrischend das Lachen um die gesunden Zähne und die Selbstsicherheit, mit der sie paarweise durch das nachmittägliche Gewühl der Tauentziehenstraße und des Kurfürstendamms treiben; nein, treiben ist nicht das richtige Wort. Sie machen crawl, wenn die anderen Brustschwimmen machen. Scharf und glatt steuern sie an die Schaufenster heran." (p. 77)
One fascinating section of the catalog details the plans of the Hessels and Roché to collaborate on a work about their ménage-à-trois. The catalog includes descriptions written by Helen Hessel, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Franz Hessel about their reunion following World War I and liaison in 1920. The friends separately wrote their impressions of the visit, making plans to combine their thoughts and prose into a joint journal in the future. This project was finally realized more than twenty years later with Roché's novel Jules et Jim. In the 1950s François Truffaut discovered their story and made their friendship world famous in his film of the same title.
The real delights of this catalog lie in its design and production, which work in tandem to create a handsome book. The reader's journey through the catalog is simplified and enhanced through the use of clever design elements. For example, the text of the catalog and quotations consistently appear on right-hand pages. The facing (left-hand) pages are reserved almost exclusively for reproductions of exhibited items, including photographs, postcards, manuscript pages, letters, and book covers. Quotations taken from notes and published works by the Hessels, Roché, and others are encased inside pale, green-shaded boxes. This color highlighting provides both a visual cue to the reader of upcoming quotations as well as eye-pleasing variation.
Sadly, the catalog lacks an index, which would have proved helpful for readers looking for references or materials about specific individuals. Another unnecessary irritation concerns the citations of books and documents quoted and reproduced in the catalog. Although a list of lending institutions and individuals appears at the end of the catalog, item-specific information, such as size and location, is not given. The most disturbing oversight is the absence of a descriptive checklist of the some 115 documents reproduced in this catalog from the exhibition.
For those interested in twentieth-century German literature, however, this catalog deftly chronicles the life and work of several minor literary figures from the first half the century. As Hessel scholar Manfred Flügge explains in his Gesprungene Liebe : die wahre Geschichte zu "Jules und Jim," the story of the friendship between the Hessels and Roché is one that moves between Germany and France, but also between the feminine and masculine spheres (Berlin : Aufbau-Verlag, 1996, p. 15). As would be hoped, the authors of this catalog touch upon the interconnections and tensions between these differing worlds. This catalog, with its liberal illustrations, successfully combines biographical and historical background about Franz and Helen Hessel, providing a refreshing approach to literary biography.
Marje Schuetze-Coburn