Customer Reviews (4)

Heinrich Boll wasa natural story teller
How many author could possibly deliverpoignant stories within handful of pages as Heinrich Boll repeatedly did?There have been only few and unfortunately there isn't any left now. This book is the compilation of most notable stories written by him such as"Children are civilians too" whose accutely realistic backgrond is strangely surreal as well as "And where were you , Adam?" one of the most powerful novellas come out of the war;In which,the chapter that describes the death of Ilona delivered such a powerful blow that it almost gives a narcotic effect on me. What I particulary admire about Heinrich Boll is his sympathetic look on so-called "Kleine Mann" (little man). Most of protagonists/narrators of his stories are no other than ordinary Landsers ( ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers like Boll himself),refugees, and civilians whose destiny and often tragic deaths are not consequence of thier acts but played by ones beyond their comprehension . Boll never tried to delve into searching for the causality of the war and it's tragic outcomes. The futile efforts that makes a writer neglect the sufferings of ordinary people.
With superb translation, the book will grip anyone's attention and shows the mastery of Boll's story telling.
Highly recommended if you can find the book

Heinrich Boll is a story teller.
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
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 the400+ pages. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will introduce you toone of the finest writers of the 20th century.

Fantastic
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. ... Read more

Product Description
Includes the full German text, accompanied by German-English vocabulary. Notes and a detailed introduction in English put the work in its social and historical context. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

The Individual vs. The State (or The Church)
Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.I have the impression that he is one of the more deprecated Nobel laureates, one of those most frequently cited as undeserving.I believe, however, that he can stand with the last three Prize winners (Lessing, Le Clézio, and Mûller).I also think that THE CLOWN, though not great literature, is worthy of a Nobel laureate.

The narrator is Hans Schnier.He introduces himself as follows:"I am a clown, official description: comedian, no church affiliation, twenty-seven years old * * *."(That is as straightforward as his narration ever is.)Hans is the estranged son of a wealthy German family.As WWII came to an end, his parents sent off his older sister Henrietta, then 16 years old, to join an anti-aircraft crew; she never returned.About age 20, Hans ran off with Marie, who came from a working-class background.Hans refused to marry Marie, in large part because she wanted to be married in the Catholic Church and he could not bring himself to guarantee that their children would be raised Catholic.For about six years they traveled from city to city in Germany as Hans plied his trade as a mime or clown.As the novel begins, Marie has left Hans, he has taken to drink, he has allowed his performances to deteriorate to the point that he has become the laughingstock of the critics, and he has returned to his hometown of Bonn, flat broke.The novel consists of a compressed time frame of one evening as Hans phones around to family and acquaintances trying to raise some money, interspersed with flashbacks to moments from the past and with Hans's frequent diatribes.

One of the themes in THE CLOWN, which was published in 1963, has to do with the repression of the Nazi past in then-contemporary German politics and society.For example, when Hans calls home, the phone is answered by his mother, who had been a staunch supporter of the Nazis, willingly sending her daughter to help defend the Reich.Now she answers the phone, "Executive Committee of the Societies for the Reconciliation of Racial Differences."Hans is offended, and asks to speak to her daughter (the long-missing Henrietta).His mother responds, "I suppose you can never forget that, can you?"Hans replies:"Forget?Ought I to, Mother?"Hans/Böll cannot forget the Nazis and what they did, both large and small.Meanwhile, many other former Nazi supporters are now being lauded as champions of liberal democracy.For Böll, this was a familiar theme, a hobbyhorse of sorts, and my guess is that it was primarily due to this motif in his writings that Böll was deemed politically worthy of the Nobel Prize.

But the more prominent theme of THE CLOWN has to do with the institutionalization of morality.This theme is played out primarily in the context of a group of earnest Catholic activists, who, at least as Hans sees matters, scuttled his union with Marie.They brainwashed Marie with "metaphysical horrors" and "principles of order," so that she finally turned away from Hans to take up with another earnest Catholic, Heribert Zûpfner. Hans then sees himself as "a kind of opposite number to Henry the Eighth: he had been polygamous and a believer, I was monogamous and an unbeliever."Böll's critique of the "liberal" German branch of the Catholic Church is scathing.More broadly, his target is people who adopt the values and morals of an institutional group, whether religious or political in nature, rather than exercise their own personal conscience.

And there is more.For instance, through the figure of Hans's father Böll has much to say about the absurdities and inherent immorality of capitalism and the acquisition of wealth for its own sake.THE CLOWN is a fecund and provocative novel.What complicates it, and paradoxically rescues it from becoming some sort of screed, is its unreliable narrator.

I first read the novel about 35 years ago.I find it still worth reading, despite its being addressed to strains of society prevalent in 1960's West Germany.Indeed, it is not difficult to find in today's United States analogous movements to institutionalize morality and to revise, or sanitize, history.(Note:I understand that in 1985 Böll wrote an epilogue to THE CLOWN.My copy of the book was published in 1971, so I have not read Böll's epilogue.)

Strange book from a strange guy
This book is a little strange, Heinrich Böll seems to me to be a somewhat strange man. Anyway the book is about the nazis, the cathologic religion and love. The main character Hans seems to always be in conflict with everyone. But he is quite outspoken, for one example he is playing with some Hitler jugend in nazi Germany and then he exclaimingly call them nazi-swine! Now that's kind of bold isn't it? This book reminded me about some of the works by Georges Bataille, in it's irrational selfdestructiveness.

One of the best books I have read
I have read several other reviews, and I had a different take on this book. To me, the book is first and foremost a romance, a tale of lost love, like The Great Gatsby or Lolita. Like both those novels it shows the flaw of devoting your entire life to one romantic love, because no relationship is perfect, but perfect romance demands nothing less. In all three books the heroes find out what happens if, like in the T. S. Eliott poem, the woman says, "That is not it, at all."

Meanwhile, the side issues of his profession, his relationship with his family, and the society around him are brilliantly and imaginatively illustrated, with many great details. He calls his mother and his attitude towards her changes when she answers the telephone in her "comittee voice". Our hero's powerful imagination allows him to smell things over the phone. The book is full of a thousand great details like that, and a dozen wonderful characters, kind and cruel, all of them real, and great comments on professionalism and family and life. I think people make too much of the setting in post world war II Germany, frankly, the same way that they say The Great Gatsby is about the roaring 20's. The story is a romance told so brilliantly that it highlights and makes comments on the setting, but the story is about the romance, and love, and it is a great book.

Die Kriegsheucherleianklage
I made that word up, in the honorable German tradition of patching words together as if they thus existed as a single entity, a 'Ding an sich.' The three component words are: War Hypocrisy Accusation. If I've understood this furious book correctly, that's what it amounts to. I read it in German - Ansichten eines Clowns - in a yellowed old paperback that's been waiting for my attention for at least twenty years, but Böll's writing style is blunt and I'm sure it would be just as blunt in an English translation.

Clowns, dwarfs, agoraphobic pianists, incarcerated juvenile sociopaths: the first-person narrators of German novelists of the post-war generation have a lot in common, which is to say, their anomie. In Böll's version, Hans Schnier is the clown, and an embittered alienated vengeful Pagliacci he is! Most of his bitterness is directed at two targets: his wealthy family and their circle of war-cronies now eluding the truth about themselves, and the German Catholic 'hypocrites' who have so willingly exploited the post-war blend of economic recovery and spiritual depression. Hans's non-ritualized marriage has failed; his Marie has run away with a prominent Catholic figure. Hans has taken to booze. Most of the narration depicts him moping in his empty apartment in Bonn, calling his old friends and relations to ask for help in conversations that inevitably dissolve into accusations and confrontations. Hans himself is the only real character in his narration; all the others are seen by the reader only through Hans's bloodshot eyes, yet all of them have the sort of ugly plausibility of faces in a painting by Max Beckmann. One might expect such a story to end with suicide, as Hans's recollections of his earlier life become more and more fragmented and frenzied. In short, this is not a cozy novel to read at the beach, in any language.

It's interesting, in a grim way, to note that current American fiction has turned to narration by characters who are outsiders: autistic, demented, of limited intelligence, drugged, defiled in one way or another. Shall I invent another German compound word? How about "Selbstgerechtschuldgefühlanklage"? (PS: see correction in comments below. "Selbstgerechtigkeitsschuldgefühlanklage mit Schlag, bitte!)

Many of my German acquaintances are skeptical of Heinrich Böll, and I wonder why. Possibly it's the danger of being awarded the Nobel Prize, and being perceived as not quite worthy of it. Certainly German Catholics must feel viciously targeted by this novel, though it's fair to say that the Clown is just as contemptuous of other faiths, including Leftism, as of Catholicism. There's a nasty negativity in this book that anyone might prefer to reject, although it's devastatingly justified. I'd love to hear other reactions to this book, especially from German readers.

Americans! If this review prompts you to read Heinrich Böll, one thing I'll request of you: don't read The Clown as simply a depiction of the anxieties of post-war German society. Take it to heart. Like a performance of Hamlet in modern clothing, The Clown could easily be rewritten as a contemporary tragedy.

A great book and more timely than ever
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 suppressingdemocracy 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Symphony
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!
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
Boll is a wonderful writer and this was a wonderful book

È­ÀÚÀÇ ³»¸éÀû °í³ú Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
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 ... Letus take the air, in atobacco trance, admire the late events, correct ourwatches by the public clocks.¼¼»ó»ç·ÎÀÇ ³²¼ºÀû µµÇÇ(the masculine escapeto externals)¸¦ ÇÏ°ÔµÊ "8¿ù'Þ ¿ÀÈÄÀÇ ±úÁø ¹ÙÀÌ ¿Ã¸° ¿¡¼­ ³ª¿À' Áý¿äÇѺÎÁ¶È­À½Ã³·³ "¿¡ ºñÀ¯Çϸç Â¥Áõ°ú ºÒÄÚ¤À°¨À» º¸ÀÎ'Ù. the voice returnslike the insistent out of tune of a broken violin on an augustafternoon.--metaphsical conceitÀÇ ÁÁÀº ¿¹-- ÀÌÁúÀûÀÎ °ÍÀ»'ëÁ¶ you will seeme any morning in the park reading the comics and the sporting page,particularly i remark? ÀϹæÀûÀÎ 'ëÈ­ÀÇ 'ÜÀýÀÓÀ» ¾Ë ¼ö ÀÖ'Ù. An englishcountess goes upon the stage. A greek was murddered at a polish dance,Another bank defaulter has confessed.°¨Á¤ÀÇ °­µµ¸¦ ÁõÁø ½ÃÄÑÁÜ ... Read more

Product Description
Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll's powerful novel about a woman terrorized by the media

In an era in which journalists will stop at nothing to break a story, Henrich Böll's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum has taken on heightened relevance. A young woman's association with a hunted man makes her the target of a journalist determined to grab headlines by portraying her as an evil woman. As the attacks on her escalate and she becomes the victim of anonymous threats, Katharina sees only one way out of her nightmare. Turning the mystery genre on its head, the novel begins with the confession of a crime, drawing the reader into a web of sensationalism, character assassination, and the unavoidable eruption of violence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A good novel
It is true that this book has something to say about irresponsible journalism, and that the book's observations have become much more obvious with time but, like any good novel, it also has a timeless quality.Fundamentally it is about real people and the absurd things they do and the absurd situations they get themselves into.There were many moments of laughter.The contrast between the real people and their carnival-mirror depictions in the press keeps the book lively.What I especially enjoyed was the voice Boll used in writing - the material is presented in the format of a formal report but there is so much humanity and humor in Boll's writing that the voice becomes something quite new and refreshing.This is my second Boll, after The Clown, and he certainly is a great 20th century writer.

An early attack on the power of tabloid journalism.
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 in many book summaries. 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's novel 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.Mary Whipple
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Boll at his best
This is an ok read. It's a somewhat feverish account about a german soldier on a train going to the east front in September 1944. The troops on the train are divided in two camps, those who says that of course Hitler will win the war and those who knows that the war is lost. The I persona of the account knows that he is soon going to die. And inside he prays for himeself and others, apparently he is christian. There is also a love story he has with a prositute, which somewhat reminded me about White Nights by Dostojevskij.

A short story- - - s t retched
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!

Der Zug war pünktlich
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
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
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

War Wounds
1958, and Germany undergoes political, social and economic reformation.Robert Faehmel looks back over the period of two world wars enabling Boll to explore themes of identity and what fashions identity.German culture led to aggressive militiarism-how to replace it or make it translate into something different;the past isn't easy to erase. Also, the people doing the rebuilding are all in some way linked to this past.
The story perhaps is a little allegorical for some tastes, and this dates the book as Germany and the world has moved on 50 years. Still, its an expertly crafted novel by a Nobel prize winner.

A remarkable novel that wears its age well
I first read BILLIARDS AT HALF PAST NINE over thirty years ago while in college.It made a strong impression on me then. Now, it does not strike me as one of the classics of twentieth-century literature, but still it is a remarkable novel which should not be forgotten in the passage of time.

In some ways, BILLIARDS AT HALF PAST NINE is a poorer (less rich), shorter, German version of Joyce's ULYSSES.In both, all the contemporary action takes place during one day (in the case of BILLIARDS, Sept. 6, 1958), but in both there are numerous flashbacks, some quite lengthy.In both, the story is told via numerous narrators, from multiple perspectives -- in BILLIARDS there are at least eight different narrative perspectives, providing the characters and events a multi-faceted depth and complexity.Finally, BILLIARDS, like ULYSSES, is rich in allusion and actual or potential symbolism.(BILLIARDS, however, is of ordinary length; it can be read over a weekend.)

For all of its narrative complexity, the basic story-line of BILLIARDS is relatively clear and comprehensible, and throughout there is an air of mystery and foreboding which helps propel the reader forward.Overall, the tone is calm and measured.

As for my interpretation of the novel, I really don't have that much to offer.It clearly contains a negative, judgmental assessment of Germany's turn in the 1930s to Hindenburg and then to the Nazis.There also is a clear, but by no means strident, endorsement of pacifism and non-violence, as well as a reminder or warning (primarily to the German people of the late 1950s, when the novel was written) that neither complete forgiveness nor forgetfulness would be possible.But beyond that, I don't know what Boll's "message" might be, other than, perhaps, that the political affairs of humankind are inevitably a muddle and that what's important in life are family, especially children.Nonetheless, over the years various commentators and reviewers (some no doubt much more knowledgeable and astute than I) have derived from BILLIARDS a wide array of meanings and messages -- similar, again, to ULYSSES.

I really don't mean to imply that BILLIARDS stands on the same plane as ULYSSES, but it is much more readable and, as I said at the start, it deserves continuing readership. I hope to be able to read it again in another thirty years.

Pervasively amazing
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 ofthem 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.
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
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. ... Read more

Product Description
In IRISH JOURNAL, Heinrich Boll the celebrated novelist becomes Heinrich Boll the relatively obscure traveler, touring Ireland in the mid-1950s with his wife and children. While time may stand still in Irish pubs, Boll does not, and his descriptions of his various travels throughout Ireland are as vivid and compelling today as they were over 40 years ago. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Delightful Descriptions of Ireland by a Nobel Laureate
Heinrich Boll and his family visited Ireland about 50 years ago, and this book was a tangible result.It is beguiling and entrancing, with vivid descriptions -- the prose bordering on poetry at least in the German original.This may be Boll's most accessible work; it is a clear demonstration of why the Nobel Prize Committee honored him.

If you are from Ireland; if you have visited Ireland; if you want to visit Ireland; or if you just like to read the work of a master of prose, Irish Journal is extremely rewarding.

A QUIET & PEACEFUL JOURNEY
This book is like a sip of water which is neither cold nor so hot.And you just drink it without any complaint. It takes you to a long journey and you find yourself in a quiet misty evening in Ireland,the land of peacefulbeauties... The book doesn't tell you about the facts and statistics,but itmakes you walk and travel in Irelandwith magical steps.

Insightful, beautifully written
This is a very good read for someone who is about to travel to Ireland or has an interest in the country.Concise, insightful and wonderfully written, it really captures the essence of the people. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Soldier Come Home
Boll is the best writer to come out of the ruins of World War 2. In this short story he approaches the human side of war and contrasts it with the ruthless mudering lunancy that invades an SS officer's mind. This is haunting and delicate.

The vast bottomless black pit --an era before quagmires
Since the Korean War and especially since Vietnam, Americans have thought of foreign wars as a quagmire, the German equivalent now portrays the war on the Eastern Front as a vast bottomless black pit.

This book presents a good description of military service, with an emphasis on the excruciating boredom of life on the coast of occupied France, waiting for the Allied invasion.It was a dull quiet pettifogging life, with no hint of the so-called French "Resistance" and instead the accounts of various French farmers and tavern keepers who had the single goal of making an easy profit from the German soldiers.

The military life was familiar;part of a great campaign, filled with petty little rules and regulations and routines.The waiting was exhausting, not because it was strenuous, but with activities designed to fill time rather than any immediate need.Then comes the transfer to the Eastern Front, the sudden departure and the psychological spiral down into doom.

It's a very German book.Every element of military officialdom is condemned;if nothing else, the traditional German sense of automan obedience to military orders has een shattered.The story is told with a post-war resentment of officers who survived;based on a theme that only the decent and intelligent died.The opportunist bullies who pushed everyone into the vast bottomless black pit of the war against Russia are the real villains.

After World War I, 'All Quiet on the Western Front' condemned the futility of war, but not the leaders who sent millions to the slaughter.Since World War II, the Germans have resented leaders who sent millions into a hopeless crusade to "save" Europe, Christianity and Western Civilization from the menace of Godless Asiatic Communism.

It helps explain why Germany and France didn't support the American crusade to bring democracy, free enterprise and oil exports to Iraq.The Germans have been through it, and they are still haunted by thatvast bottomless black pit.

Wunderbar
This book, a required reading in school, had me doubtful at first, but upon reading further, I realized that this is truly one of the best books I have ever read, and one of the best World War II pieces I have read. An epic tale of corruption, human emotion, and the true meaning of friendship; this book is a masterpiece from all aspects.

Soldier Come Home
Boll is the best writer to come out of the ruins of World War 2. In this short story he approaches the human side of war and contrasts it with the ruthless muderinglunancy that invades an SS officer's mind.This is haunting and delicate. ... Read more

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Der Zug war Puenktlich
Dieses Buch war sehr kurzweilig zu lesen! Man muss es einfach lesen! Eine erbitterte Anklage gegen den Krieg, und auch eine Liebesgeschichte. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

wolf inside my stomach
Fascinating short novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1972. The protagonist is a young repairman in Germany just after WWII. Ayoung man driven by fear of failure and a hunger. Disconnected and somewhat disoriented, he goes through the motions of interpersonal relationships but seems more an observer outside himself who cannot accept the results of his choices.

Bread and Love
Hunger is not an experience the modern West has much experience of. In this short and very intense novella, written in 1955, Heinrich Boll describes the desperate circumstances of post-war German society in appalling detail: the father who sells his prized first editions to send money to his son to buy bread; the widowed husband who arrives in hospital to retrieve his wife's belongings only to go berserk when he can't find a tin of corned beef he is convinced she couldn't have eaten. In a final, mean act, she has.
Walter, the narrator, is a young apprentice in a ruined German city, most likely Boll's home city of Cologne. With the fierce moral gaze typical of Boll, Walter judges everyone he comes into contact with in terms of their willingness to give up some of their bread, a universally prized commodity in a country on the edge of starvation. Meanness is the norm, especially among those who are already beginning to thrive, such as Walter's employer, Wickweber.
Into this life of increasing opportunities and base motivations comes Hedwig, a girl from Walter's home town who has travelled to the city to train as a teacher. Walter's father has asked him to meet her at the station and find her a room. She is nothing like his childhood memory of her. In prose which powerfully conveys his sense of being thunderstruck, Walter describes falling suddenly in love as something fateful and terrifying, which makes him see clearly the counterfeit life he would otherwise have gone on leading. Like bread, love is the mark of a person's humanity, and for Boll, those few who are willing to give it are at least still redeemable.
In a mere 80 pages, a portrait of extraordinary detail is drawn of a desperate society already giving way to a complacency that will become perhaps the overriding civic emotion in the contemporary West. As a love story, this novella's lack of sentimentality, its emotional urgency, suggests that, for all the verbiage that is printed about modern relationships, our public discourse is able to shed about as much light on love as it can on hunger. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (12)

From the rubbles of Nazi-Germany
This is an unfinished novel from Heinrich Böll, as usual he is writing about social differences, religion and love. The thing I liked most about the novel is that it takes place in a totally destructed German city in May 1945. There is something very interesting when a war ends and, an otherwise civilized country and people, return to civilization. (In undeveloped countries this is not so interesting because the culture that exisited before and after the war is so barbaric anyway. (like Somalia or Iraq)). But the scene in Germany and Japan just after WW2 was kind of interesting because it was highly developed countries, especially nazi Germany. Anyway the book is unfinished so the plot is a little confusing.

A rather sad love story...
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
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
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
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. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a comprehensive study of the narrative fiction of Heinrich Böll (1917-1985). Böll's first published stories date from 1947, and his was one of the first original voices to emerge from the physical and moral devastation left by the collapse of Hitler's Germany. Twenty-five years later he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and at his death in 1985 he was the best-known and most controversial writer of his generation. Attacked and admired in equal measure, he was widely acknowledged as the uncomfortable and uncompromising 'conscience of the nation'. This new study assesses Böll's creative achievement in the context of the society which helped to shape it, referring frequently to his essays, speeches and interviews where these throw light on his moral, aesthetic and political preoccupations. The analysis reveals the work of a conservative moralist and constantly embattled intellectual, who developed into a writer of European stature. ... Read more

Product Description
Includes the full German text, accompanied by German-English vocabulary. Notesand a detailed introduction in English put the work in its social and historicalcontext. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Poignant Post WWII German Stories
This collection of 26 of Heinrich Boll's short stories is a great buy through Amazon's used book feature, since it's not for sale otherwise.Most of the stories involve German citizens reeling in post-war Germany, trying to find meaning in and sense of their lives.Of them, "On the Hook", is the best; and "Business is Business" and "Black Sheep" are also terrific.The rest of them are good, and you know you're reading prose by a master.It was no accident that Boll was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972. ... Read more

Product Description
These stories, written between 1946 and 1952 are stunning accounts of German soldiers in a war they did not want and the bleak aftermath of Germany in ruins. This Nobel Prize-winner's other works include Billiards at Half-Past Nine, The Clown, Group Portrait with Lady, and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A striking and terrifying view of war and its aftermath
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 descriptionof the passing of time, and is a tense, atmospheric story. "Beside theRiver" is also especially good, the despair and hopelessness of thestory is almost tangible, and the switching of narrators is well done. Allin all, I was very impressed with these stories, and am surprised that theyare not more widely read. ... Read more