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Book Review

From Time to Time by Hannah Tillich. Stein and Day Publishers, 1973. 152 pages.

The world of Tillich studies received a new prize in Hannah Tillich’s work, From Time to Time. Almost ten years after the great theologian’s death, his wife released her own autobiography documenting her complex relationship with her husband. From Time to Time is a work in which Hannah comes to grips with and possibly exorcises the demons of her complex marriage. Approaching this text written from the pen of Hannah Tillich, who always was secondary in a relationship, I was not only sympathetic towards her but also partially skeptical of what I would find. I was sympathetic because I knew she felt Paulus had betrayed her trust. I was skeptical because I was not sure if her emotions would allow her to give a far account of her and Paulus’ relationship. After reading the text, my sympathies and my skepticism were vindicated. I knew of Hannah Tillich’s resentment toward Paulus’ relationship with other women. These relationships without doubt played into Hannah’s critique of Paul throughout the text. The tumultuous times expressed by Hannah seemed to animate the marriage itself. The times themselves perhaps gave the marriage its life. Bordering on a polemic, quite justified, From Time to Time is an account of Hannah’s frustration against the person that she truly loved, Paulus. Her critiques and understandings of her intimate relationship with her husband reveal a deep sense of longing for stability that remained unsatisfied through most of the marriage. The text itself is a testament to the disparaging intricacies and difficulties when one’s identity, namely Hannah’s, is dependent upon a relationship to a beloved public intellectual.

Throughout the text, the reader is made aware of the difficulties that haunted Hannah. From her mother’s illness to the observation of her father’s weakness (46), Hannah seemed to grow up a young girl who found consolation in affirmation from others. From her first sexual encounter with her friend Annie, Hannah gained a sense of identity through the pursuit of pleasure. This pleasure seemed to give order to her life in ways that other pursuits could not. In particular, the First World War seems to mirror the sense of chaos that Hannah experienced in her life. To pursue pleasure was to pursue order in spite of the disorder that the war created. This pursuit of order through pleasure would only grow more emphatic as Hannah grew older. It seems to have given her a sense of stability when her early youth required much re-location because of her father’s vocation. At this time she also began to fill her mind with the sensuous pleasures of literature and art. These disciplines permitted her to express herself in ways that were otherwise not possible for her.

From Time to Time allowed Hannah to express her deep sense of both literary and artistic talent and at the same time cope with the tumultuous times in which she lived. Written lucidly and tactfully, the text explains how the first Great War overtook (73) her and her family about the time she went to art school. Everyone in Germany was affected by the war both physically and psychologically. Her time in school, documented in the text, allowed her to convey a sense of longing and a felt sense of approval once she found a new person or discipline to explore. She constantly probed the landscape for new experiences with a child-like infatuation. The end of the war meant a new Germany. Hannah’s new experiences and encounters changed her life forever. She met Paulus right after the conclusion of the war at a fancy-dress ball (83). Once again, Hannah’s infatuation with new pleasures would lead her into experiences she had never had before. Paulus was like no one she had ever met. Hannah vividly explains the first sexual encounter between her and Paulus. It left Hannah with a renewed sense of life and purpose: when he first entered her, “the world had become whole. I doubted nothing. I asked nothing. With heart-rending intensity, I was his” (86). The ordered life that she longed for, that the War would not permit, was revealed to her in Paulus. From their first sexual encounter until Paulus' death, Hannah found her identity in Paulus. This was an identity that she had perpetually longed for and hoped would come and was finally achieved.

As a result of the spiritual passion that Paulus created in her, the marriage of the two simply began the process of perpetual polarity between ecstasy and anxiety. The two became enmeshed in the very themes that would pervade Paulus’ thought. While both welcomed the ecstatic in their relationship, both individuals had unending anxiety about their identities in Europe. They would be unable to express themselves fully if they continued to live in Germany. As liberal intellectuals and objectors to Nazism, they both knew that, as the Nazi regime gained power, neither would be safe. As a result, they were forced to be refugees in a foreign land, the United States. The United States meant a new sense of freedom. Paulus was given new opportunities as a lecturer and teacher. Both Hannah and Paulus were able to socialize openly with the Jewish population in America as well as become enmeshed with the cultural opportunities that New York City offered. They each gained a new outlook and a sense of having a home away from home (171). It was a definitive turning point in the relationship that did not preclude moments of jealousy and instability. Although moments of a successful relationship were revealed in the text, a growing sense of disgust on Hannah's part toward Paulus began in the United States.

In various moments throughout the text, Hannah excavates those feelings of disgust. Hannah exposes the idiosyncratic features of Paulus’ personality and belittles his character as his fame in the American intellectual landscape began to grow. She also exposes her longings for the caress of many different individuals because of Paulus’ moments of distance from her. Once again, Hannah sought order in a lifestyle that granted pleasure. Revealing Paulus’ multiple sexual endeavors and his childish temperament when his aspirations were not met, each turn of the page is a glimpse into a scorned woman’s psychology. Repeatedly commenting on Paulus’ role as the taker of her virginal innocence, Hannah’s vignettes underline Paulus’ inadequacy to fill her emotional needs. He was believed to be distant yet ever penetrating, close without presence, passionate yet detached. Each of these attributes may have been the case, but Hannah was also a constant for Paul. Throughout the text, it is apparent that their relationship was dependent upon one another’s support. There is another side to Hannah's story that is untold. This other side is without voice because Paulus did not write a memoir detailing it. By her own admission, Hannah’s emotions continually are expressed in the midst of Paulus’ rational thought processes. The emotions that she conveys are often believed to fall on Paulus’ deaf ears. Her emotive expressions contrasted drastically with Paulus’ rational and structured thinking. She seemed to be the polar opposite personality to counter Paulus’ ordered sense of self in the world.

Perhaps the moments when Paulus seemed most disordered are also the moments in which Hannah’s rationality prevailed. She had to make sense of her perceptions of him. Hannah sought order in her chaotic relationships. Unfortunately her search for order conflicted with her passions for her pleasure-seeking lifestyle. She began trying new things to cope. From Yoga, which she called “the great liberation” (191), to her peaceful times at Harvard (197), Hannah explains how she learned to flourish in the United States. Although enmeshed in a bustling lifestyle, Hannah found some solace in the cities where Paulus worked. The move to the United States marks a definitive shift in the autobiography. She was liberated from the pressures that Germany created and yet she still worried about her relationship with her husband. Hannah needed to find something that she disagreed with in her husband’s lifestyle. As a result, she objectified Paulus as an intellectual driven by his desire for the seduction of those whom he impressed intellectually. In light of the text of this book, there is a secret life of Paulus that was hidden from the world. One of the obvious motivations for this text is the exposure of the erotic seductive life of Paulus’ most guarded subject, his sexuality. This personality trait was masked from society at large. Unaware of the precise motivation for Hannah’s exposure of Paulus’ ways of being in the world, I can only postulate that jealousy of Paulus's fame motivated much of the aggression of the text. Regardless, many who feel betrayed by the ones that they love often have a very difficult time letting go of the past that is clouded by a feeling of loss. When someone is betrayed it can feel as if a part of you has died and you will do anything to recover that which you once experienced. Hannah’s critique of Paulus’ character should be understood in that light.

The bluntest critique of Paulus’ extramarital activities is revealed in the final section of From Time to Time. Hannah returns to a house that she and Paulus owned in East Hampton to find in Paulus’ office evidences of his infidelity. As Hannah relives the many memories of her and Paulus’ tumultuous yet satiable marriage, it seems as if she finally is capable of speaking of the psychological effects and persistent hurt that her husband’s actions created. Although no longer alive, the spirit of Paulus looms ominously in her memory. After stating that “many women” (241) had deteriorated their marriage Hannah seems to molt out of the skin she felt forced to inhabit, the poor unassuming wife. She believes that the most intimate moments that she and Paulus ever experienced involved a bottle of wine and a hangover in the morning. Despite her respite she seems to gather herself enough to gain a sense of closure. But by what means does she gain her prize? After years of teetering on the “seesaw of suffering and hate” (241), Hannah expresses her deep feelings of regret for marrying someone who, she realized at his death, she never truly knew. In the locked drawers of Paulus’ desk and dressers, Hannah uncovered images and letters of her husband’s past for the first time. These words and images flooded into Hannah's mind and she could not help but express her feelings of repugnance and resentment. She was hurt, provoked to anger, and she wondered about her place in this fractured world of deception and vice. Feeling ever apart from Paulus’ ultimate concern she ends the narrative by filling the void of her own personhood with every demeaning statement that would portray Paulus as a spiteful, arrogant and childish monolith. She is begging for a voice amongst the tattered vestiges of the husband she once knew. At the end, she seems alone in a world that diverges dramatically from everything she thought she knew.

What can one make of such a harrowing tale of marriage? First, one must understand the politics of storytelling. Second, one must be aware of how those politics play out in the othering of another person through discursive poetics. The politics of storytelling creates identities through a narrative framework. These narratives in turn express value judgments about those portrayed in the story. If that is the only encounter a reader has with an individual, then the individual, in this case Paulus, is a maligned character. I am sure Paulus’ memoir would have discussed his disapproval of some of Hannah's actions as well. The creation of Paulus’ identity in From Time to Time is conveyed in the discursive poetics of the narrative. As a result Paulus is conveyed as a deviant other who diverges from the proper path. Hannah creates the deviancy of Paulus as a means to distance herself from his memory. Understandably, she was hurt and felt betrayed by the man who always helped order her world. Is her objectification of Paulus correct? Of course, she had whatever feelings she had for her husband. She was heartbroken and frustrated by his deceit. If I had been betrayed by someone who I loved for so long, I believe that I too might need to write down my feelings and display them to the world.

The beginning of the narrative conveyed a sense of cohesion between Hannah and Paulus. So much a part of one another, they seemed to share their lives completely. As From Time to Time concludes, the audience is left with a scar that seems to penetrate deep into the theological flesh that the theologian Paul Tillich nourished so imaginatively. What are we to learn from a narrative about a fallen hero and the compassionate woman who seemed ever at his side yet never acknowledged? Perhaps one can glean the diversity in the polarities of these two fascinating minds. Yes, there seemed to be a depth dimension to the love that Hannah and Paulus shared. But masking that depth is the secret life of the emotions that one can never fully bridle. To bridle such emotions would inevitably suppress the ecstatic. Perhaps the final glimpse that we gain into the life of Hannah in her East Hampton house is exactly what troubles the individual who is plagued with such proximity to great individuals. Sacrifice befits us all in some measure. Being great and being affiliated with great individuals creates a necessity for sacrifice. People must be neglected in order to pursue greatness. And that can produce deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and longing on all sides. Success on any level will often leave those, who are not as successful, begging for a voice to be heard and willing at any opportunity to tarnish the gloss that idols receive. Paulus was an idol that Hannah refused to polish and as a result she coped by trying to make a name for herself. From time to time we all become jealous and capable of pushing away the things we truly love.

Trip Barnes
Boston University
Spring, 2008

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