The Clown (original 1963; edition 1971)

I first read this in my early 20s, and again in my late 30s, and I recommend it. It’s a funny book about Hans Schnier, a melancholy unbeliever who clowns for a living in postwar Germany. His home is Bonn, the baby capital of what was then West Germany, and it’s the awkward period around 1950 (after the war but before the “economic miracle”) when it was hard to see the point of being German. On top of that, his true love Marie has left him, and Hans blames the Catholic Church. Sidelined by an injured knee and bad press, with only one deutschmark left in his pocket, he starts phoning all the relatives, friends, Catholics, and “repentant” Nazis he knows, partly to pass the time, but also to hit them up for cash.

Uno dei libri della mia vita. Una pietra miliare della letteratura del 900.

ספר מצוין של הינריך בול.כתב אישום חריף נגד החברה ה​גרמנית של אחרי ובזמן מלחמת העולם ובמיוחד נגד הקטול​ים הגרמנים. לו במקום על הקטולים היו בספר יהודים, ה​ספר היה נחשב ללא ספק אנטישמי. עם זאת, לספר יש גם מ​גרעות, הוא קצת ארוך מדי ומנדנד מדי, והגיבור קצת קד​וש מדי ויותר טוב מכולם מכדי לעורר אליו אהדה.​ ( )

The first time I read this book I was in high school and focused on the social satire of post-war Germany and in particular the hypocrisy of religion and politics. This time around, with the perspective of many many years, what caught me was more the question of love vs. religion and social mores and the role of an artist as social critic - can an artist really function when, like Hans, he pisses off everybody? Still an excellent and thought-provoking book. ( )

Just my kind of book. Sad, witty, caustic, disgruntled… but scarifyingly honest. First and foremost it is a book delving into the character and characteristics of Hans Schnier, a professional clown, absolutely flat broke and confined to his apartment by (among other things) a knee injury From here he forces himself to phone acquaintances to see if he can drum up a loan. I say ‘acquaintances’ because by now he has fallen out with practically everyone he’s ever met. The circumstances of these ‘fallings-out’ as retailed by Hans are simultaneously both hilarious and sad.

Except for a few opening pages (his arrival at his apartment) and some at the end (when he goes busking) the apartment is where the ‘action’ stays for the rest of the novel. But don’t be put off. I usually find this kind of introspective, one-scene-only type of book hard to read and I don’t continue beyond the 50 pages or so I always allow before I fold. However, Boll’s book is different. ‘Captivating’, I’d say, without the usual twee associations that usually go with that word. The downside to this ‘captivation’ of the reader is that it gives him/her a feeling of claustrophobia, though this may be intended by the writer. And I never knew there was such a range of religious groupings in Eastern Germany (the book was first published in 1963): both Catholics and Protestants get short shrift from Hans. Also the Communists, so you see what I mean about him having fallen out with everybody.

Two women dominate the book, though absent from it. Hans’s former partner Marie, who has left him for someone else, and his sister Henrietta who was killed in the last days of the war. Marie is particulary an obsession and in this the book remeinds me of that iconic novel ’The Catcher in the Rye’ (by JD Salinger) where the main character is similarly troubled by an absence. The self-confessional style also reminds me of Salinger’s hero, Holden Caulfield, with his very personal angst-filled narrative of events.

Absolutely recommended. ( )