Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Böll

First published:Gruppenbild mit Dame, 1971 (English translation, 1973)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1922-1970

Locale: Rhineland, Germany

Principal characters

• Leni Pfeiffer, née Gruyton, the lady
• Hubert Gruyton, Leni’s father
• Heinrich Gruyton, Leni’s brother
• Lev Borisovich Gruyton, Leni’s son
• Alois Pfeiffer, Leni’s husband
• Otto Hoyser, Hubert Gruyton’s head bookkeeper
• Lotte Hoyser, his daughter-in-law
• Erhart Schweigert, Leni’s cousin and lover
• Walter Pelzer, Leni’s boss
• Rahel, a nun
• Margret Schlomer, Leni’s best friend
• Boris Lvovich, Leni’s lover and Lev’s father

The Story:

Leni Pfeiffer, at the age of forty-eight, seems in serious financial and personal difficulty. Her son is in jail, she is unemployed, and bailiffs have seized many of her possessions. In addition, she is harassed daily by neighbors who call her bitch, slut, or Communist whore. The author learns this while writing a “portrait” of Leni. Because she is both taciturn and reticent, however, he is forced to obtain his information from interviews with as many informants as possible. These range from her loyal friends, such as Margret Schlomer and Lotte Hoyser, to a nun in Rome who knows of Leni only through gossip and records.

Leni’s educational career has been disastrous, primarily because most subjects are presented in a way that neglects a sensual dimension. Her only successes come when, from the age of fourteen to sixteen, she attends a convent boarding school and meets Sister Rahel, who understands Leni’s type of intelligence and respects her instinctive appreciation of nature and of the entire body, including its waste, secretions, and internal organs.

In 1939, her brother, Heinrich, returns from school. The homecoming is troubled because Heinrich scorns his father’s attempts to keep him out of the military and he refuses to be spared when others are not. In defiance, Heinrich joins the army, together with his cousin Erhard. Leni loves Erhard, but he is too shy to consummate their relationship, sublimating his feelings in passionate poetry. In 1940, Heinrich and Erhard are sent to Denmark, where they offer an antiaircraft cannon to the Danes for its value as scrap metal. At the trial, Erhard says, “We are dying for an honorable profession, for the arms trade.” Just before they are executed, Heinrich cries, “Shit on Germany.”

A period of mourning falls on the Gruytons. Then in June, 1941, Leni attends an office party and meets Alois Pfeiffer, the son of one of her father’s friends. She dances with him fourteen times and spends the next three days with him, only to find him insensitive both as a lover and as a man. At his insistence, they marry the same day that Alois is called to join his division. After his son’s death, Hubert Gruyton lost interest in his own company and created a totally fictitious business staffed by characters from Russian literature. The deception is discovered and Gruyton is jailed for life. Shortly after, at the end of 1942, Leni’s mother dies.

To support herself, Leni gets a job working as a wreath maker for Walter Pelzer. There she meets Boris, a Russian prisoner under the secret protection of an unnamed important personage. When they meet, Leni infuriates her patriotic colleagues by offering him a cup of coffee. In spite of the danger, Leni and Boris begin an affair. Leni becomes radiantly happy at last, since this relationship provides her with the transcendent spiritual and physical experience she has been seeking.

Chaos engulfs the city in 1945 as the war nears its end, but Leni ignores this, selling her property in order to provide simple pleasures for herself and her lover. Freed from prison, her father returns. Boris gets the papers of a dead German soldier, which enable him to move about openly. The now pregnant Leni, Boris, Hubert, Lotte Hoyser and her sons, and Margret move into vaults under the tombs in the cemetery. However, Boris is picked up by the Americans; believing he is a German, they give him to the French. Leni seeks him frantically and crosses military lines on her bicycle, only to discover his grave.

By 1970, Leni has left her job. Lotte Hoyser’s father-in-law and sons plan to evict Leni from her apartment in the house she had once owned because they believe she is totally irresponsible for subletting her apartment to foreigners and garbage collectors and for refusing to profit on the rent she charges. Discovering this, the author immediately contacts Leni’s friends, who establish a “Help Leni” committee, collecting money and using garbage trucks to create a huge traffic jam so that her debts can be paid before the bailiffs arrive.

Leni is content now: She is pregnant, her apartment is saved, and Lev is soon to be released from prison. The author and other members of the Help Leni committee are also secure in their lives and relationships, at least for the present.

Bibliography

Butler, Michael, ed. The Narrative Fiction of Heinrich Böll: Social Conscience and Literary Achievement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Analyzes Böll’s recurring themes of love, morality, economic pressures, and organized religion and his emphasis on renewal and utopianism. Discusses Leni’s influence on other characters and the role of the narrator.

Conrad, Robert C. Heinrich Böll. Boston: Twayne, 1981. Excellent introductory source. Provides a helpful chronological summary of the novel’s complex development and identifies key actions, ideas, and symbols.

Finlay, Frank. On the Rationality of Poetry: Heinrich Böll’s Aesthetic Thinking. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996. Discusses Böll’s writings on literature, in which he defends the “rationality of poetry” and expresses his philosophy of aesthetics.

Reid, J. H. Heinrich Böll: A German for His Time. Oxford, England: Berg, 1988. Provides relevant biographical information and evaluates historical and literary influences on the writer. Discusses symbolism and defines the refusal to participate in the evils of society as Böll’s central theme.

Tachibana, Reiko. Narrative as Counter-Memory: A Half-Century of Postwar Writing in Germany and Japan. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998. Although this book does not discuss Group Portrait with Lady, it analyzes other fictional works in which Böll draws upon his personal memories to describe Germany’s defeat in World War II and its subsequent occupation and reconstruction.

Vogt, Jochen. “Böll’s Utopia: Great Refusal, Small Pleasures.” In From the Greeks to the Greens: Images of the Simple Life, edited by Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Examines historical and political influences on Böll’s themes and discusses the effects of materialism and capitalism on the common man. Traces these themes through earlier novels, finding a culmination in the character of Leni.

Zachau, Reinhard K. Heinrich Böll: Forty Years of Criticism. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1994. Discusses critical approaches to Böll’s work. Provides a clear overview of theme, characterization, and symbolism and evaluates Böll’s influence on subsequent German literature.