Luise Rinser
Abelard's Love: Abelards Liebe
Trans. Jean M. Snook
European Women Writers Series
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Pp. 151. $35.00 $15.00
Reviewed by Josef Schmidt

Rinser's treatment of one of the great medieval love stories shows the writer, who at the time of publication of Abelards Liebe (1991) was eighty years old, at the height of her powers. In this tale, Abelard and Heloise are judged by the fruit of their forbidden love, son Astrolabe, "abandoned by his parents and so inhibited that he is fit only to become a canon, a clergyman serving in a cathedral" (Snook, XII). And the son of a famous father states right at the beginning of his narrative about his parents' relation: "I was never anyone on my own." The local priest explains the etymology of his name as "the name of an astronomical instrument used to determine the position of stars" (1), but later on he has to find out from a physician that his strange name is but a pale anagram of that of his illustrious father (43f.).

But this is not just modern psychology projected onto a medieval myth (like Alfred Muschg's Der rote Ritter; The Red Knight). The main theme is one of iconoclast Rinser's lifelong concerns: the clash between institutional dogma, pride, and Christian love and charity. In this story, it appears as an anatomy of love: erotic, relgious, parental, and filial. But this modern view is strongly staked out with historical incidents. From "greedy monasteries" to viciously squabbling medieval scholars, ecclesiastical intrigues, and false but profitable relics, there is a rich variety of facts in fiction. The most impressive are, of course, the numerous excerpts from the love letters between Abelard and Heloise, after the former was anointed and castrated and the latter cloistered, although they had been legally married. Strong stuff!

One way to read this tale is to take it as a historical introduction to medieval life. Rinser stands here in a recent tradition of eminent historians imparting their knowledge through semi-fictitious narratives. Natalie Zemon Davis's The Return of Martin Guerin (1983) and Steven Ozment's Magdalena and Balthasar (1986) are the most prominent examples of attempts to depict the world of sixteenth-century Europe through silm life stories. Or there is Swiss novelist Gabrielle Alioth's Wie ein kostbarer Stein (Like a Precious Stone, 1994), the life story of prioress Anna in fifteenth-century Strasbourg, unfolding amidst war and epidemics, and based on archival records. Another way, probably more appropriate, is to understand this book as a roman à clef, a medieval setting mirroring issues of modern Catholic dogma and spirituality. Given the author's profound religious interest - she covered the Second Vatican Council as a journalist and was deeply influenced by the groundbreaking theology of Karl Rahner - this is not surprising. Her feminist views also shape the story visibly, although the hero, as the title idicates, is Abelard, and the main victim of this love is the son: "the shadow in the shadow of my father" (102).

The story makes for a good read - there is a strong flavor of detective fiction; and the translator has picked up Rinser's crisp prose admirably in that one soon forgets that one is reading a "translation." The introduction could have been more substansive in explaining basic concepts that play a central role, like the divine trinity; there is also no mention of Etienne Gibson's famous study of this couple (1951). The back cover erroneously attributes to the author "dozens of novels and autobiographical works," when in actual fact Rinser has produced a baker's dozen of such fiction!