SOURCE: "More German Lessons," in The New York Times Book Review, November 26, 1989, p. 14.

In the following assessment of The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz, Demetz names Lenz "the last gentleman of German writing" in view of the deft understatement of Lenz's political themes.

Among the few postwar German writers who have reached an international audience, 63-year-old Siegfried Lenz has been least tempted to be an educator of the entire nation or a front-page prophet of dire events. In matters of language he is less innovative than Günter Grass, who has never been particularly coy in his public appearances, and far less eager to push his somewhat left-of-center political views than Heinrich Boll, who, in his recurrent fits of rage, wrote with a hammer, not with a pen. In his inclinations and habits, Mr. Lenz is a quiet north German who believes that perhaps his writing will do...