From Time to Time

by Hannah Tillich

Memoir by the wife of Paulus Tillich, who she says was both his helpmate & his nemesis.
Childhood
Youth
Marriage
The United States

Genres: Biography, Memoir

252 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1973

Reviews

[Judy]

I read this book at the same time I was reading Tillich's book "On the Boundary"
It is a little hard to read about his moral indiscretions and life choices and then read his theological and philosophical wisdom. But I suspect there is more truth here in this reality than in a constructed reality that does not acknowledge failings or imperfections. Somehow both can be part of the truth.

[JJ Waggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly don't know what to think about this memoir from the wife of Paul Tillich. I'm a theologian, so I'm aware that you can't move three feet in 20th century theology without running into Tillich, and it's fascinating to get this view of him that's decidedly murkier than his works would have you think. (He was a punk who stepped out on his wife a lot, is the short of it.) But Hannah is herself no bed of roses; both of them, actually, strike me as utterly selfish and unaware people, which is wild. Both of them kind of slept with whoever and didn't seem to care how that affected the relationships they helped ruin, nor how it twisted them in their own marriage. (N.b. there are a couple of vividly described sex scenes, so, just be aware. Not many, but seriously, these folks were the swingin' 60s long before the 60s. I was really excited initially that Tillich was a bi woman living into that reality, but she downplayed all of her encounters with women pretty harshly. I think that's a timeframe thing, but I wouldn't put it past her that she really didn't think the encounters mattered.) I'm glad she makes a point of saying she promised her kids she wouldn't write about them and then keeps that promise; it was kind of the only laudable thing here.

The format of the book is interesting--Tillich alternates her memoirs with her own poetry and she's not bad. Her background is art, so I was a bit sad that none of her drawings or anything made it into the volume. And it was fascinating to see such huge world events (the end of WWI, the wreckage of Germany in reparations, the rise of Hitler) in the background of life as she and Paul moved through their social circles. But I could never get past how I just didn't...like anyone, I guess. Even though these are all real people, there were never any likeable characters.

Tillich wrote this after the death of Paul as a way to kind of deal with their life together and I highly recommend this to anyone who reads Paul's theological works to get that side view. I'm really glad to have read this for the history and the sexuality and the context, but I'm not hanging onto it.

[Brian Cubbage · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting but vexing book. Hannah Tillich, the widow of famous Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, wrote this memoir after Paul's death. My understanding is that it caused a sort of furore at the time it was published because it disclosed their open relationship in some detail.

That aspect of the book was of some interest, but not primarily because of its discussions of Paul's erotic escapades--escapades which, we discover, he went to such lengths to hide from his wife that he had difficulty even acknowledging them in her presence. More interesting was her own tormented relationship with Paul's promiscuity, even when she herself describes numerous liaisons within their marriage. As she puts it, she loved multiple people, always definite others, whereas for him there was her, the individual, and then the indiscriminate crowd consisting of all other women.

Her reflections on her marriage are a significant part of the book, but by no means all of it. Hannah Tillich was in many ways a person of her time, moving through avant-garde art, psychoanalysis, the paranormal, and, after coming to America, Eastern religion and spirituality, which she describes with a certain sort of relief as a kind of "anti-religion" after the religion of her theologian husband.

Tillich's narrative technique grated on me after a while. The book is broadly chronological, but she eschews most unambiguous signposts such as dates and instead gives us impressions that sometimes skip forward and backward in time. (The book is aptly titled, certainly.) I just found the impressions scattered and desultory. The narrative chapters are separated by interludes containing Tillich's poetry and fictions, many of which bear an only tangential relationship to the overall story.

This is an important read for intellectual historians and those interested in Paul Tillich and 20th century theology. Everyone else can probably find more compelling memoirs elsewhere.

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that was an interesting read, FROM TIME TO TIME (1973), the autobiography of Hannah Tillich (1896-1988), wife of noted theologian, Paul Tillich (1886-1965). She was also a poet and artist, with chapter sections divided by poetic interludes. Humans are complex creatures--the Tillichs were charismatic (especially Paulus), brilliant, and repulsive in their particular ways. In her own words: "Our marriage had been broken into small pieces by the relentless assault of the many women...But how could I get away from a man whose life I had lived, whose children I had borne, whose thoughts I could guess, who was as close to me as my own heartbeat? I had been exhausted by my own inability to love this man right, been disgusted ever so often by his childish attempts to pretend he loved only me...I decided to look at my own life and try to come to an awareness of what I had lived. I insisted that I could go back to the time and the place of any experience in my life and find it there untarnished, living it again as it was, remembering its sweetness and sorrow." I'm not sure I would recommend FROM TIME TO TIME except to those who are tempted to idolize heroes. Husbands should be wary of what their wives could write about them and themselves (just imagine Sarah's version of Abraham).

PS: Besides the Tillichs' erotic ventures, one also learns about what life was like in Germany after World War I (he narrowly escaped arrest by the Gestapo because of his friendships with Jewish colleagues, and Hannah refused to allow her children to be taught Nazi ideology) and about their adjustment to life in America as emigres.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This autobiographical account of the lives of Paul and Hannah Tillich, written by the latter, came out when I arrived at Union Theological Seminary in 1974. It was much discussed, many of the older faculty having known Tillich as a colleague and friend, some being rather scandalized by its contents. Not being myself overly impressed with Tillich as a theologian, I did not acquire the book until doing a directed reading on Dostoevsky with Paul Driver, who had started at Union as Tillich's teaching assistant, and did not get around to reading it until after graduation.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It shocked many readers to learn that Paul Tillich the theologian enjoyed the pleasures of women other than his wife. Hannah had her own loves outside their marriage too. The excurses into drama and poetry were a little tangential for my taste, but this was an intimate look at Paul Tillich the man.

[Daniel Vojta · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating read.. but very sad ...

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Intimate. I would have liked to know her in person.