Heinrich Böll - The Clown

[Clovis]

I'd read this book when I was 19yrs of age which is almost 15 years ago. I just finish rereading it about a week ago, there's much I've forgotten. It is far more depressing a work than I'd remembered, I guess it might've takes some maturity to understand, at least for me. Schnier seems brilliant at spotting peoples superficialities, materialisms, useless illogical traditions, and wicked behaviors. It is a very entertaining read though heavy with anticatholic sentiments which seem to dominate the book even more than his broken relationship. There is something about this author way of telling a story I find very appealing, and especially his way with humor.

[Idril]

I really like Heinrich Böll. The Clown was the first of his books I read and I thought it was great, depressing like you said, but very well written and definitely thought provoking. I have since read a few more Böll works and am still making my way through his catalogue.

[Clovis]

I'd misspoken earlier. I guess it's more outright hypocrisies between people during and then after the war, as opposed to superficialities or materialism, his mother for example.

I'd just finished Katharina Blum.

Same with me, it was my first work of his to have read, though I'm glad I'd reread it. I need to reread Group Portrait and Billiards also. I want to read Safety Net and his collected short stories also atleast.

[Idril]

I'd just finished Katharina Blum.

Same with me, it was my first work of his to have read, though I'm glad I'd reread it. I need to reread Group Portrait and Billiards also. I want to read Safety Net and his collected short stories also atleast.

Group Portrait was my favorite. I love seeing the war through the eyes of the German people. I was really struck by the scenes in Berlin at the end of the war and how they were waiting for the Americans to liberate them. It's such a different perspective and one I think is vital. I love that about Grass as well. Whenever you have the opportunity to look at something so familiar from a different view, a different set of eyes, it's an incredibly valuable experience. The German experience from WWI to post WWII is so complex, the whole Eastern European experience is complex and fascinating to me. Have you ever read any Joseph Roth? He's an Austrian writer who focuses mainly on that period between the two wars. He has a very different style than Böll, it's much more melancholy and poetic as opposed to Böll's hard, analytical style but I love him and highly recommend him.

I have The Safety Net on my to-read pile and I'm anxious to get to it.

[Clovis]

I still remember a great deal from Group Portrait even though it was way back when I'd read it. Even that funny bit near the end, the lady writing her dying words in ketchup on the mirror :-) then again the humor of this is as that in relation to The Tin Drum, Catch-22 and so on; What else can you do but laugh in the face of such tragedy?

The Tin Drum really had me hooked. I'd like to maybe one day finish the whole of the Danzig Trilogy.

Might also read Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, written before the author became all, 'what is the word'?

I'll check out that author you'd mentioned also.