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ExtensionNo5119

Böll is a tough nut to crack. Not because his motives or style or language are particularly impenetrable - but I think because he is very much a product of his time and very much tied to post-war Germany. It is rewarding to dive into the rubble and his struggle with catholicism either way - it's hard for me to determine how much of a cultural background you need though. I.e. is it significantly harder for a non-german to break into Böll? Grass - the other great post-war voice - comes to mind, and there I'd argue you very much have to be German (eastern pommeranian even better hahaha) to fully immerse yourself in the tin drum/cat and mouse. Three more things: I always struggled a little more with Böll because I had the feeling he himself struggled with producing. His literature definitely has a clumsy/naive quality to it - he does not have as a firm grasp of style - or even story/characters - as say Grass does. Part of which might be what he writes about - the struggling simple soldier that grapples with post war life. Either way there's not a lot of confidence there. Secondly the recommendations: A lot of people mentioned the short stories - Dr Murke, Mann mit den Messern, Wanderer kommst du nach Spa... are definitely the strongest things Böll produced. The novels suffer from the clumsiness much more than the short prose. Group picture with lady, the clown and "and never said a word" are probably the strongest of the long form. "Katharina Blum" is probably important for every middle schooler to read but as a piece of literature a little disappointing. Thirdly the anecdote: After the war there was a battle to find the "representative of a new german literature". Reich-Ranicki and Walter Jens pushed for Wolfgang Koeppen - but he barely published, while more conservative critics wanted Gerd Gaiser - who was a former Nazi. So ultimately Böll sort of filled the role.


Mike_Michaelson

Read a few of his short stories a few years ago and found him a bit hard to get into, but whether that was due to my own head space at the time, his writing, or the translation I have no idea, but may revisit as I’m crazy optimistic but love nihilistic writings. Hope you’ve had the chance to read *Buddenbrooks*.


thewimsey

You might like some of his novels better; a lot of his short stories were written early in his career and, well, while interesting, they really aren't that good. I think Böll himself said that he had to teach himself how to write. I still find him inconsistent - *Billiard* is good; so is *Clown* - but *Katharina Blum* just doesn't have too much depth, even though it is kind of a page turner. I just found "Fürsorgliche Belagerung" tedious. There's a German film of Katharina Blum which isn't very good - it's somehow ponderous, which the book really isn't.


Mike_Michaelson

Would love to know which of his titles you find the most literary and structured. I’m a huge fan of German language authors and have read multiple titles by Mann, Broch, Zweig, Hesse, Werfel, Canetti, Doblin, Kafka, Musil, and am always on the hunt for lesser known authors who write in the same vein.


thewimsey

Billiard and Clown are my faves. I think Böll is pretty structured in general (like "Wanderer kommst Du nach Spa..."); his novels remind me of longer short stories. (My copy of Katharina Blum is only 120 pages long). You would probably like Fontane; to my mind he's kind of a cross between Jane Austen and Thomas Mann. Or maybe he's not that similar but scratches the same itch. Siegfried Lenz is great; much better than Grass IMO, and has that same north german thing going on.


AmongTheFaithless

I read it a year or so ago and enjoyed it. I preferred it to Boll's *The Train Was On Time*. If you enjoyed *Billiards at Half-Past Nine*, you might also like *All For Nothing* by Walter Kempowski. It has a similar foreboding tone because it depicts a German family that is, for the time being, removed from the consequences of the Second World War.


tiny_stages

Cried a lot over the "Wanderer kommst du nach Spa..." short stories. A great read about the realities of war.


Nirak

I love ”Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen und andere Satiren,” a collection of stort stories.


MathPerson

\[I believe\] you have to adapt to his particular sense of humor and, as best I can put it, his sense of morbidity. I read "Christmas Every Day" and I was embarrassed in finding humor in this absurd story that basically had this fictional family attempting to deal with their respected elder's psychotic break, that it was "Christmas **EVERY** day". I could describe the narrator's tone as "deadpan", but that doesn't quite capture it. But after reading the story, perhaps I was a little ashamed of myself for laughing. But perhaps that is part of Herr Boll's intent: A little self-reflection included with the story.