Acclaimed entertainer Hans Schneir collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won't marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life--the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to "save" Germany from the Jews, then worked for "reconciliation" afterwards. Heinrich B???ll's gripping consideration of how to overcome guilt and live up to idealism--how to find something to believe ...
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Acclaimed entertainer Hans Schneir collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won't marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life--the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to "save" Germany from the Jews, then worked for "reconciliation" afterwards. Heinrich B???ll's gripping consideration of how to overcome guilt and live up to idealism--how to find something to believe in--gives stirring evidence of why he was such an unwelcome presence in post-War German consciousness . . . and why he was such a necessary one.
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This book captures magnificently the feeling of being down and out and rootless. It is set specifically in post World War II Germany and describes well what surely were the feelings of many. But the sense of loss, alienation, lack of love, religious doubt set forth in the book go much deeper than that.
The book is told first person by its hero, a clown, Hans Schneir, who has enjoyed some success but has fallen to the state of pennilessness and drink after abandonment by his love, Marie, and an injury. The stuff of which romantic novels are made but the stuff of realism and symbolism too. Hans, from a wealthy but emotionally impoverished family, establishes a romantic liaison with Marie, a young promising student who abandons her studies for him. She in turn ultimately leaves him based in part on her attachment to Catholicism. Schnier is an unbeliever but a"monogamous" unbeliever and can't adjust himself to the loss of Marie. He looks to friends, family, and others for comfort but finds none.
Schneir says near the end of the book in an important passage "If our era deserves a name it would have to be called the era of prostitution. People are being accustomed to the vocabulary of whores." This theme is pervasive to the book together with hints about a way out. For example, in the course of a pivotal discussion between Schneir and his father Schneir alludes to and rejects the possibility that he must "lose [his] soul -- be totally empty, then I can afford to have one again."
The book is full of flashbacks from the narrator's part interspersed with his reflections on his current activities and situation. His thought centers on his own spiritual and emotional poverty, on the loss of Marie, his ambivalence towards religion, and the attempted change among Germans following their defeat. In some ways, the book and its end remind me of Schubert's great song cycle, "Winterreise". The translation seems to me not of the best but it serves to convey the book. This novel is thoughtful, moving and worth reading.
Robin Friedman
InTransit
Jan 17, 2008
Angst Recaptured
Excellent existential novel about Germany after World War II, contains rich symbolism.
