Book Description
Just days after the end of World War II, German soldier Hans Schnitzler returns to a bombed German city, carrying a dead comrade's coat to his widow-not knowing that the coat contains a will. Soon Hans is caught in a dangerous intrigue involving the will; he also begins a tentative romance with another grieving woman, as together they seek an identity and a future together in he ruined city.
Customer Reviews:
A rather sad love story..........2007-07-20
This book, set in the horrible aftermath of World War II in Germany, depicts with superb clarity what life must have been like then. Many detailed descriptions of the burnt-out buildings, collapsing structures and rubble abound...but through it all circulates an engaging love story of sorts between a former soldier and the woman he befriends. A short novel that can be quickly read, it is not easily digested and is full of symbolism, especially of the religious sort. Once read, not easily forgotten...
The Literature of the Rubble.......2006-10-24
Written in 1950, the manuscript for Nobel Prize winner Boll's first novel was rejected by his publisher, who felt it was too depressing and that the German public wasn't interested in spending money to read about the grim postwar days they had just survived. (After finishing it, I can't say that I wouldn't have made the same decision in the publisher's place.) Thus, this book sat on the shelf, with elements and passages cannibalized by for use in in other works, until its posthumous publication in 1992.
The heavily autobiographical story is an elliptical, dreamlike journey through the rubble of 1945 Cologne -- where the only thing scarcer than scraps of bread is a sense of hope. Hans is a numb, exhausted, alienated, and depressed German conscript returning to his hometown, having escaped execution for desertion thanks to the intervention of a fellow soldier who died in his place. The story, such as it is, starts with his struggle to survive -- the need to find legitimate discharge papers, food, and shelter. Eventually, he comes to share a flat with a devout widow whose baby recently died, rendering her just as depressed and aimless as Hans. At the core of the book is the depiction of these two dead souls attempting to rekindle some flame of interest in life, and to find some glimmer of solace with each other.
Meanwhile, there's a somewhat confusing subplot involving Hans delivering a dead man's will to the man's dying widow. The widow wants to give this legacy away to the poor, but a rival legatee wants to steal and destroy the will in order to claim the money. As well as being a former Nazi, this man is a lawyer and art collector who seems to have come through the war just fine -- in fact, considerably better off. However, none of this plotting is handled particularly adroitly. What is memorable about the writing is the tone, which does a very good job of oozing exhaustion and emptiness. Boll does an excellent job of showing the numb shock of a people who've suddenly realized that their world is forever changed and that they will never know the security or comfort of the past. Worth reading by those with a deep interest in World War II or the psychology of survival but otherwise not particularly compelling.
Incredible.......2006-08-06
This is a terrific translation. There is a wonderful economy of words here conveying the emptiness of being on the losing side of World War II and human ethos in the face of tragedy. A super-easy, super-powerful read.
A small jewel.......2005-09-12
I stumbled upon this book in a used book store and decided to give it a read. The prose is lean and economical and conveys rich sense of the of Germany immediately after WWII. I have never read anything quite like it. While it doesn't have a gripping storyline in the usual sense it was compelling and difficult to put down. I highly recommend this book and have been inspired to read more of Boll's better known works.
Bleak, austere, unforgettable.......2003-05-06
The overwhelming feeling you get when reading this book is the desperate struggle for short term survival. The background is a German city (possibly Cologne) in the first
Days and weeks after the capitulation of the German army in 1945. Every conversation is focused on bread - not even full meals, just slices of bread. The city is bleak and devastated, the characters are transient figures struggling, dazed and nauseous, into whatever the future may hold. Their pasts are briefly mentioned, but the conditions in which they find themselves allow for almost total dislocation from their past lives.
The language of the book is austere, the characters are not clearly distinguishable, the colours mentioned - apart from grey destruction - are greenish and yellowish hazes. These tune in with the bilious, nausea of the characters as they continuously search for food and shelter. Throughout the story each character is portrayed as exhausted, struggling, nauseous.
The novels main character has deserted the German Army in the final days of the war, and under a certain sentence of death for desertion, has assumed numerous identities as he flees. He has, however, promised a dead comrade that he will return a coat to his comrade's widow. A will is discovered in the lining of the coat and this yields an subplot of intrigue and corruption. The main character meanwhile meets and briefly lives with a dazed, tragic woman who has been psychologically damaged by the war.
The novel's main impression is the exhaustion of emotion, the breakdown of society brings about a breakdown of morality and order. Stealing and dishonesty of all kinds are part of daily life, as are small gestures of generosity. In the broken cityscape, there is neither trust nor complete anarchy, just a meandering from one slice of bread to the next. Towards the end of the book , the main character has established a certain routine which allows him to steal coal from trains, which gives him some power to barter.
Boll's austere tale, gives us a view of the amoral aftermath of a societal dislocation. While neither describing nor moralizing, he shows us a set of normal characters and the lives they adopt to survive in the much reduced circumstances.
Customer Reviews:
The story of cutthroat media bloodhounds and the casting aside of truth........2006-03-16
Information manipulation, secrets and lies and cover-ups all in the name of providing a service of keeping the public in the "loop" of day-to-day current events are the backdrops of Heinrich Boll's terse and relevant novel, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: Or How Violence Developes and Where It Can Lead. What happens when a person is pushed to the brink of insanity? Do they become a submissive doormat and allow themselves to be completely consumed or do they push back by whatever means necessary in order to obtain the caliber of liberty they once posessed? In this novel-the protagonist-Katharina Blum is placed in just such a scenario where a battle ensues between her and her nemesis, Totges, a hungry reporter who works for a tabloid news outfit appropriately called the "News," an unyielding and unflinching information organization that will stop at nothing-even slander and character assassination-to promote itself as being the ultimate "truth-seeker" despite their limited knowledge and understaning of that which they are seeking. Getting the story and fabricating it in order to remain first is the end-all and be-all, and truth and innocence takes a back seat. In the novel, Katharina is associated with Gotten, a "criminal". And because of that innocent connection, she is placed on par with him as a mastermind of evil, deviancy and debauchery; her life is firmly hybridized with his, and no matter how innocent her actions, she cannot escape the glued-on innuendo solidly attached to her reputation, and as the multi-layered cool and collected Katharina gradually gets stripped away to the bone, she lashes out and evolves into a real criminal, whereby before she was only a fabricated one, fodder for the news media in order to reach to the pinnacles of journalistic success. An example of print media manipulation is best shown on page 105 when Kathharina's mother-Mrs. Blum-is interviewed regarding the goings-on of her daughter: "Why did it have to end like this, why did it have to come to this?" out of which the News made: "It was bound to come to this, it was bound to end like this." Totges accounted for the slight change in Mrs. Blum's statement by saying that as a reporter he was used to "helping simple people to express themselves more clearly." The duality of truth and lies play a game with each other, and in this case, truth finished last. A powerful book that speaks volumes.
Well written, but rather outdated.......2002-02-09
Katharina Blum is a hard working, honest housekeeper with a small car, her own house and, after her divorce from her husband, not much of a social life. One evening during carnaval she decides to go dancing. Here she meets a man who she really likes, but who turns out to have a criminal record. And this is when things start to go wrong... A journalist from the ZEITUNG ("newspaper"), a pulp magazine, claiming to be a respectable newspaper, puts hus teeth into the story and starts damaging Katharina and her family, friends and acquitances. In the end Katharina takes justice into her own hands.
Place and time of this pamphlet (as Böll calls this book in an afterword) are West-Germany, 1974, so a conservative society at the height of the fear for the Red Army Faction, with an unbridled influence of the pulp press, in particular the notorious BILD-Zeitung. Böll has written a convincing accusation against these type of journals and the fact that people actually believe what they say.
The problem with this book is that it is outdated: in the meantime the world has moved on, readers (even those of newspapers like the ZEITUNG) have become more aware of the fact that these type of newspapers tend to lie and the accusations made in those types of newspapers are nowadays even more outrageous than in 1974. I also had some problems with the style of writing: even though the book is well written (what one may expect from a Nobel laureate), the narrator actively comments on what is going on, which is sometimes irritating and does not add anything to the story.
An early attack on the power of tabloid journalism........2000-09-09
Katharina Blum's murder of a newspaper reporter, to which she has confessed on the opening page, is not the point of attack for a mystery story, despite that implication on the book jacket. There is too little suspense and character development to make you care much about her. Instead, Boll uses the murder and its aftermath to offer a cautionary tale about overzealous police investigators and the unfettered tabloid press--showing how the press descends on Katharina and everyone who has ever come into contact with her, twisting words, creating false impressions based upon police department leaks, casting aspersions, ruining lives, and inciting Katharina to eventual murder.
Sound familiar? The novel may have been startling, and even controversial, when it was published in 1974, but no contemporary reader familiar with the tabloids at the supermarket checkout or with sensational talk shows conducting outrageously one-sided investigations will find this depiction of the press even slightly shocking. In fact, the methods of the press in this novel seem unrealistic, not because they are so extreme, but because they are so obvious, crude, and lacking in subtlety. Boll may have been prophetic with this novel in 1974, but it is a product of its own time. While it may confirm that the conflict between responsible journalism and irresponsible sensationalism has a long history, it offers few useful insights for the present day.
Mandatory reading!.......1999-10-03
I have to admit, I saw the film before reading the book, and I recommend them both. In today's climate in America, - when the police profession is considered one of the noblest by liberals and conservatives alike, and the so-called "liberal" press, which crossed the line into tabloid journalism awhile ago, and which still hides behind the myth/lie of "objectivity," - this book is as timely and relevant today as it ever was, and should be mandatory viewing/reading.
Fantastic novel that suggests Germany is like Orwell's 1984.......1999-07-16
Böll has several enemies he seeks to attack: the press, the police, and the German government's secret service. He describes the mud which the tabloid "News" throws at people, mud which sticks. He shows the incompetence and unruthfulness of senior police officers. He also shows how tax payer's money is squandered on tapping people's 'phones for very little useful information. In all Böll shows that Big Brother was really watching West Germans and that the state could make things really nasty. He also showed how all this was supposedly done in the name of anti-communism (a noble cause of course!)
Customer Reviews:
A great book and more timely than ever.......2007-04-24
I read this book years ago (on a plane ride) and it has stayed with me as few other books have. It cuts to the heart of something that is wrong with our culture, maybe with all of our civilization; specifically, I mean the habitual hypocrisy and the over-riding need to self-rationalize. Of course, this theme has been treated before, but I have never seen it done with the simplicity and eloquence with which it is done here.
The story is perfect somehow: a woman leaves her husband, a decent man (the narrator), for someone who is more powerful within the Catholic Church, the same Church that ostensibly preaches "blessed are those who are meek for they shall inherit the earth." By focusing on these smaller acts of injustice and hypocrisy (rather than on the overwhelming horrors of Nazi Germany), Boll brings what happened in Germany into a focus that I had never seen before.
When I hear George Bush talk about "spreading freedom" while suppressing democracy at home or condemn "evil doers" while condoning torture, I think of this book. It captures the emptiness at the heart of the mealy-mouthed pieties that afflict our civilization with a economy and grace that is unique.
How to Manual for Advanced Writers.......2007-03-27
One of the finest books of the superb Boll, the Clown is a demonstration work. Superbly mixing pathos and humor, the bittersweet life of Boll's narrator - this is a work told in the 1st person - shows off a master writer's craftsmanship as his tragic character attempts to hold his life together. The narrator's omnipresent self-doubt dominates his every thought and act: human vulnerability is probably as well captured here as anywhere in fiction - the hero attempts to survive through dogged determination to hold on to his skills and pits his fading artistic persona against the edginess of ever present failure and ultimate collapse. Following the narrator as he runs through his routines over and over again the reader comes as close as possible to the alternate universe of the clown.
A memorable book!
Perfect Novel.......2006-05-02
(I'll qualify that this is more of a recommendation than a review.)
Stumbled upon Heinrich Boll while reviewing past winners/laureates of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Curious that I had not heard of him...
Where to start with such a novel? Boll captures much in this short book.
While this novel is certainly a social critique; it is less an ATTACK on society (religion, capitalism, etc) and more of a resigned discussion of society's absurdity.
Just read it.
Dark, world-weary, edgy buffoonery at its best, a classic........2006-03-18
A grim post-war novel abounding in fatalism, doubt, sarcasm, loss and survival, Heinrich Boll's exploration is a true literary masterpiece that could make one almost wince in its no-holds-bar truth offering. The life of Hans Schneir, a down-on-his-luck, melancholy, incisive clown could represent any human life after surviving and living the day-to-day economic and emotional traumas hatched by war and the idiocy of policy that brings it about. What is normalcy after war? In most cases it is the love of a future wife and the co-creation of a family, for when one is in a war-and for survival sake-must sometimes end a human life, it is natural that the desire afterwards would be to help bring about life, as well as the beauty surrounding it. But for Hans Schneir, that is not the case, for he is encased in a cocoon of soulful hardness, an all encompassing iciness of mistrust, cynicism and destroyed ideals. Whereever he looks, he sees people manipulated by guilt, best exemplified by his mother, a former Nazi sympathizer who ultimately evolves into a kind of champagne activist while serving as president of the Executive Committee of the Societies for the Reconciliation of Racial Differences. He sees people who can not deal or cope or who are wounded with life, as is the case with his brother, Leo, who converts to Catholicism and then enters and is ultimately stashed in a seminary. All the time while German citizens flounder in their varied emotional states, Hans has two things which keep him stable, his unbending emotional hardness and his lover, Maria, who, as well, drifts away from him while gradually embracing the ideals of a Catholic neophyte named Zupfner. Hans Schneir's resolute closeness versus Maria's relentless openness casus the two to clash in many ways. Where he sees hypocracy and weakness, she sees Truth and possibility. Yet, to Hans, that is exactly what she is supposed to see and fall into, another trapping created by man to make a big power machine (the Church) even bigger. Thus he loses her, and she becomes the "first lady" of German Catholicism-Pg. 176. As all that Hans holds near and dear to him slowly drift away, the one thing that he clasps onto is his art, the talent of pantomime, whereby he immitates those in his environment: politicians, religious leaders, people who use other people and institutions merely in order to feel a sense of worth. But as he acts out the truths that he sees yet things that people do not wish to see, he even fails at his art, for who wants to see a sad clown? In the end, he struggles along, fighting to incorporate snippets of hard truth into his life, truth that nobody wants. Heinrich Boll is indeed the grand master of exploring the harsh truth of human behavior and how humanity uses a veneer of politics and God in order to not confront itself.
Excellent Book.......2006-01-17
Some friends recommended this book to me. I started reading without having any expectation about it. But the book really surprised me. All of us go through this crisis moment at sometime in our life. But the way in which he is going through his life till that point and his final decision is so natural. You dont' feel like some things are happening because the author wanted it, rather everything is so as that is the natural way for them to happen.
Customer Reviews:
A short story- - - s t r e t c h e d.......2003-09-17
Not a novel with a good story line,character development,visual scenes,humor,etc.Most of the book consists of mental gymnastics over expecting death soon.After a hundred pages of this one is left with wondering if this is ever going anywhere and finally all wraps up in a few pages.So, its a classic and with all its mental gymnastics,can probably provide lots of inconclusive discussion fodder.It reminds me of the stuff we were subjected to in school which turned so many of us off.If you like this sort of stuff,great. If not,don't be too influenced by classics,prize winners,best sellers,etc. There's a whole world of books out there,whatever your taste,go find them and enjoy!
Fateful Journey.......2003-05-20
Andreas, a German soldier in World War Two, is on a troop train destined for the Eastern Front. He is convinced that he will meet his death there. He is sure of the time of his demise, if not the precise location.
The main interest in "Der Zug war pünktlich" is whether or not Andreas will escape his "fate", and the fact that Andreas's certainty of his death causes him to question how he has lived his life. Various incidents on the journey cause him to recall past experiences: most often such thoughts are stimulated by food of smells (perhaps a Proustian influence in Böll's writing?)
"Der Zug war pünktlich" is therefore, a very introspective and reflective novel. There were various plot devices which I thought let it down slightly: the character type represented in this novel by the Pole Olina, for example, has popped up in various guises in World War Two stories and films.
Nonetheless, this is the first novel by Böll I've read, and it was interesting enough to encourage further reading of his works.
G Rodgers
Der Zug war pünktlich.......2003-03-07
I had to read this for a senior-level university class on the wars of the Twentieth Century. I read it originally in English, although I have since re-read it in the original German. I remember very clearly the day I sat down to read it. I had to read it and its companion novel, "Where were you, Adam?", and I was running behind on my reading. I had just finished the first novel, and I sat down to read the second novel-only 110 pages. And something happened that rarely happens to me reading: I was so affected that I cried. I sobbed through a good half of it...
The story is of a young German soldier who leaves Paris on a train on a Wednesday in September of 1943 and he is absolutely positive he will die on Sunday at 6:00am. He has numerous opportunities to leave the train (on pain of court-martial, of course), and yet he cannot and will not. He feels powerless to resist his fate.
Heinrich Böll was a master. And, while this is not one of his more famous novels, it is splendid. I strongly encourage you to pick this one up.
Tragic Postwar Delicacy.......2002-09-30
I started reading this book for a project in my high school German class, and finished it while I was traveling in Europe. it's very short, and shouldn't take more than a day to read-my mom claims it took less than two hours-but it took me a while, for whatever reason. Anyways, I highly recommend this book. The bleak, wartime images that Böll conjurs up stick with the reader long after finishing the book; I read it over a year ago, and certain lines and pictures still run through my head.
Wolfgang Borchert and Erich Remarque get more press as German postwar authors, but Heinrich Böll, with this book, deserves attention. Read it- despite the bleak subject matter, it's fun, and even funny at parts.
Enter The Twilight Zone.......2001-06-24
This is a remarkable book that is only about 100 pages long. The author, Heinrich Boll, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. It's clear as to why he won the Prize after reading this book. It's a well-written European Classic. I forget how I discovered it. I think I saw it listed as required reading for a Literature class somewhere in New York. It's about a German Soldier and his adventure on a train as he envisions and wonders how he will die. The 'Twilight Zone' ending comes only too SOON. Great book with some great lines...like the one that reminded me that life is beautiful and that cheese, white wine, bread and cookies make for a glorious meal. It's true. I tried the simplicity of this glorious meal, today, on this summer afternoon of June 23,2001.
Customer Reviews:
Pervasively amazing.......2005-11-11
Billiards at Half-Past Nine is an encompassing view of post-war Germany, both in the First World War and the Second. It chronicles the lives of the Faehmel family, and is quite challenging with its multitude of internal monologues. It only occurs in the span of one day, but this single day is enough.
We start with Robert Faehmel, a prosperous second-generation architect. We can already see in the beginning that he is not unlike a machine: his life is set like a clock. Every single day he works for only an hour, but there is little disparity, little uniqueness in his schedule. One could easily dismiss him as one who has an obsessive-compulsive disorder, but later on, one sees that this is only Robert's facade: he is trying to forgo of his guilt-laden and tragic past by offering himself no time to think about it.
This guilt-laden and tragic past comes from Nazism and Nazi Germany. Euphemized by Boll as 'the host of the Beast,' this is what mars the lives of the Faehmel family. The young ones who do not take this are battered and tortured, while those who do take it become strangers to even their own family. Robert did not take it, and he was whipped in the back with barbed wire, bloodied, and was to be executed if not for the help of friends. His brother took it, and such was the powerful psychological re-education of the Nazis that his brother was the one who told on his family - his brother was the one who wanted their family imprisoned. He became 'the husk of a child,' from the words of Robert's father, Heinrich.
The different lives of the Faehmel family are delved into with this book, and each one of them carries emotional and psychological scars from the past war. Some scars belong to Robert, who could never accept his country turning his back on him, some on his relatives, some on his friends, and in the end Boll reveals that no one got out of the wars unscathed. Not Germany. Especially not Germany.
Not one of Boll's best efforts, but still worth reading........2002-01-15
Heinrich Boll, Billiards at Half Past Nine (Signet, 1962)
Heinrich Boll was a brilliant mystery writer. Moreover, he was capable of writing mysteries unlike anything seen before, mysteries that turned the genre on its head. He was also capable of expanding the mystery genre so that it not only bordered on, but crossed over into, literary fiction. Unfortunately, at one point Boll allowed the mystery to slide into the background and started to concentrate on the literary side of things. This leads to the inevitable question for the reader: what does a mystery novel look like when the mystery is absent, or at least so far in the background as to be unnoticeable for most of the
novel?
Billiards at Half Past Nine is your answer. While there are elements of mystery within the novel, the focus is less on what's going on around the characters than the characters themselves. This is not, in itself, a bad thing; the characters upon whom the focus rests, all of whom are members of the Faehmel dynasty of architects, are interesting enough, and it would take conscious effort to make the first half of twentieth-century German history boring in any way. We are shown that period of time through the eyes of various members of the Faehmel family in a series of recollections leading up to Heinrich Faehmel's eightieth birthday party in 1958. And were that the basis of the novel, it would have been a good, solid piece of literature; ultimately forgettable, but good.
Boll felt the need to add something else to it, and it is there that the mystery comes into play. In the opening scenes, Heinrich's son Robert, the present scion of the Faehmel dynasty, tells his maid that, while he is playing Billiards at a local hotel, he is only to be disturbed by certain people. Most of them are family, or other members of his business; there is one name, though, that stands out, because no one knows who this Schrella character is, or why Robert Faehmel considers him on a plane of import with the others. This part of the book is where it is lacking; one gets the feeling that Boll felt it necessary to impart complications into a novel that doesn't require them.
While it's a worthwhile read within the context of Boll's complete works, it's not a place for a novice to begn an exploration of one of Germany's finest novelists. The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum and The Train Was on Time are much better jumping-off points. ** 1/2
Gripping panorama of German life.......2001-06-13
This work, in my opinion Boll's greatest, takes place duirng a single day in the life of Robert Faemel. He is an architect and ex-soldier who since WWII has turned inward, relying on routine to get him through the days. As the story unfolds, the reaader learns of the difficult and tragic events in his life that have led Robert to seek escape from the world, and ultimately gives hope that even these darknesses can be overcome.
Through his memories and those of his family, the book paints a remarkable panoramic picture of German life from ~1920 through 1960. The book really presents 3 generations of a German family and their experiences through this harrowing period. It shows both the dark side of postwar Germany, where many ex-Nazis had risen to positions of power and influence, as well as the lonely lights of human goodness and decency that remained throughout the dark period of the Nazis rise to power and the second world war.
As always, Boll's character's are expertly drawn and powerfully human. The storytelling can be difficult, requiring attention to keep up with the flashbacks and change in narrators. But it is absolutely worth the effort, as reading it will be a powerful experience that will stay with you.
The precise symbolisim of breakfast........2000-05-09
Heinrich Boll describes Robert Faehmel as a man who is percieved by his peers as armour-like and unflinching. Slowly, you get to watch the man disintigrate and further on -- rebuild. At half past nine everday, mid-morning, our hero "locks" himself into a room and begins the endless tirade of billiards with the bell-boy of a local hotel. Does he describe the game at all that he has? Only the conversation. Does the character brag about his skill on the felt? Only to tell you that he does it everyday at Half-past Nine. I truly felt that I was reading the journal of someone who was coming to copes with a serious case of P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and you can't but help but be unnerved sometimes by the descriptions, illucidating how badly Boll was running when he wrote this. It's a very un-german approach to writing and it's most likely the reason why he was given the Nobel Prize.
Some of this work makes me feel like it's the unknown life of the ficticous Kaiser Souze. Some of this work seems a little bit on the cusp of 'needs editing'. It's a dark read, but one worth pondering.
A chilling post-war masterpiece.......1998-12-07
Through Robert Faehmel,the subject of Boell's stark description of life in post-war Germany, the modern reader can truly feel the same sense of unsettlement and social insight. Boell depicts a society where former Nazis, barely unfit to be tried at Nurenberg, now rule over Germany's biggest cities as mayors and serve in the modern beaureacracy. Faehmel is a man who can not survive here without his own rigid regime and almost stereotypic German precision in order to escape his fate in the present and his decisions and losses in the past. In "Billiards at Half-Past Nine," brought to the Engish reader by Pulitzer Prize winning translator, Leila Vennewitz, Heinrich Boell, Germany's conscience and master story teller, presents perhaps his greatest work.
Customer Reviews:
A Symphony.......2001-02-20
This is a piece of music composed by Heinrich Boll which at the beginning sounds non-harmonic and confusing and as the story continues it turns into a magnificant symphony of rhythms and melodies; in fact a death march for the Third Reich era. Heinrich Boll takes us to the Nazi Germany era and lets us see the world through the life of an interesting woman, a very normal human being who is actually too normal for those abnormal days of war and savage.
fantastic!.......1999-07-18
one of the best books i've ever read! a 10.000 pieces puzzle! i don't know the english version, i've only read the german original.
A Great Book.......1999-05-31
Boll is a wonderful writer and this was a wonderful book
ÈÀÚÀÇ ³»¸éÀû °í³ú Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,.......1999-04-24
Among the windings the violins And the ariettes of cracked conect Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins absurdly hammering a prelude of its own ,caprecious monotone ,that is at least one definite 'A false note ... Let us take the air, in atobacco trance, admire the late events, correct our watches by the public clocks. ¼¼»ó»ç·ÎÀÇ ³²¼ºÀû µµÇÇ(the masculine escape to externals)¸¦ ÇÏ°ÔµÊ "8¿ù'Þ ¿ÀÈÄÀÇ ±úÁø ¹ÙÀÌ ¿Ã¸° ¿¡¼ ³ª¿À' Áý¿äÇÑ ºÎÁ¶ÈÀ½Ã³·³ "¿¡ ºñÀ¯Çϸç Â¥Áõ°ú ºÒÄÚ¤À°¨À» º¸ÀÎ'Ù. the voice returns like the insistent out of tune of a broken violin on an august afternoon.--metaphsical conceitÀÇ ÁÁÀº ¿¹-- ÀÌÁúÀûÀÎ °ÍÀ»'ëÁ¶ you will see me any morning in the park reading the comics and the sporting page, particularly i remark? ÀϹæÀûÀÎ 'ëÈÀÇ 'ÜÀýÀÓÀ» ¾Ë ¼ö ÀÖ'Ù. An english countess goes upon the stage. A greek was murddered at a polish dance, Another bank defaulter has confessed.°¨Á¤ÀÇ °µµ¸¦ ÁõÁø ½ÃÄÑÁÜ
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Fiction Magazine, Volume 14, Number 2
Joyce Carol Oates ,
Mary Gordon ,
Heinrich Boll ,
Emily Cerf ,
John J. Clayton ,
Tim Gautreaux ,
Ben-Zion Gold ,
Elizabeth Graver , and
Roger Grenier
Manufacturer: City College of New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Literary
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| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Anthologies
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Anthologies
| Short Stories
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Oates, Joyce Carol
| ( O )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
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ASIN: 7447080497 |
Book Description
A regular international publication of the best new writing, Vol. 14, no. 2 of Fiction features short stories from Heinrich Boll, Emily Cerf, John J. Clayton, Tim Gautreaux, Ben-Zion Gold, Mary Gordon, Elizabeth Graver, Roger Grenier, Tabitha Griffin, Neil Grimmett, Stephen D. Gutierrez, Daniel A. Gutstein, Fanny Howe, Frigyes Karinthy, Laura Long, Liza Lorwin, Morton Marcus, A.G. Mojtabai, Kirk Nesset, Joyce Carol Oates, Bennet Paris, Dorothea Straus, Gale Renee Walden, and Debbie Lee Wesselman.
Customer Reviews:
Heinrich Boll is a story teller........2000-12-26
What an amazing collection of short stories. Heinrich Boll gives a revealing look into WWII from a German soldier's point of view. Heinrich Boll was a German soldier. Heinrich Boll tells a great story. He is a human being. He grew up and was who he was and now he leaves behind stories. My personal favorites are: 'Parting', 'At the Bridge', 'In the Darkness', 'Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We..', and 'A Soldier's Legacy'.
Tremendous.......1999-11-04
A fantastic collection. Boll shows a beautiful touch in presenting the horror of WWII and its aftermath. The story "Stranger bear word to the Spartans..." alone is worth the cover price, and it's only 5 of the 400+ pages. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will introduce you to one of the finest writers of the 20th century.
Fantastic.......1998-07-08
This book is an excellent introduction to Heinrich Boll's writing. It contains many excellent short stories, some of which reveal a delightfully humorous side of Boll, and several novellas, including 'The Train was on Time' and 'A Soldier's Legacy'. If you buy just one book by Heinrich Boll, make it this one. You will be well rewarded by the rich and varied collection found within.
Average customer rating:
- A striking and terrifying view of war and its aftermath
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The Casualty (Norton Paperback Fiction)
Heinrich Boll , and
Leila Vennewitz
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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A Soldier's Legacy (European Classics)
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The Train Was on Time (European Classics)
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The Bread of Those Early Years (European Classics)
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Little Man, What Now?
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Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949
ASIN: 0393305996 |
Customer Reviews:
A striking and terrifying view of war and its aftermath.......2000-01-11
These 22 short stories by Heinrich Böll are powerful and moving. Most of the stories are very short, "The Casualty" being the longest (40 pages in this edition). "Vive La France" gives a good description of the passing of time, and is a tense, atmospheric story. "Beside the River" is also especially good, the despair and hopelessness of the story is almost tangible, and the switching of narrators is well done. All in all, I was very impressed with these stories, and am surprised that they are not more widely read.
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Stories, Political Writings And Autobiographical Works (German Library)
Heinrich Boll
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
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ASIN: 082641799X |
Book Description
H E I N R I C H B Ö L L (1917-85) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. He was one of the most outspoken of literary figures, "The Conscience of Germany" if not the West, in speaking upon the hypocrisies of both denazification and the wonder of German economic recovery during the 1950s. A wounded soldier himself, Böll was a champion of individual rights over the authority of the State. The year he won the Nobel Prize, there were also calls to revoke the award following Böll’s article in Der Spiegel in defense of the constitutional rights or a terrorist group.
Essays in this volume include:
Cause of Death: Hooked Nose
In the Darkness
My Uncle Fred
The Postcard
Murke’s Collected Silence
Action Will Be Taken
Bonn Diary When the War Broke Out
When the War Was Over
The Staech Affair
Till Death Do Us Part
Rendezvous with Margaret
In Defense of Washtubs
The Freedom of Art Individual Human Dignity
Nobel Prize Acceptance
Undine’s Mighty Father
My Father’s Cough
In Defense of Rubble Lite
This Type of Cheap Propaganda
Books:
- The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
- The Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics)
- The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
- The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction (Bantam Classics)
- The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics)
- The Twilight Lord (World of Hetar)
- The Wood Beyond (Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries)
- The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island (King Kong)
- Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel
- Travels with Charley in Search of America
Books Index
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