Before Caroline and Lizzy's German Literature Month Heinrich Böll was an author I was aware of but hadn't really considered trying. When it comes to German Literature I have to admit my reading has been somewhat patchy tending as I do to pick up mostly American or British writers. So last month was a great way for me to get a little taste of a few German language authors and expand my horizons a bit. Böll's Silent Angel (Der Engel schwieg) was also the choice for Caroline's Literature and War Readalong, so it served two purposes. While I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, it is a grim story (albeit with what you could consider a happy ending), I'm very happy to have read it and been exposed to Böll's writing. I never see reading a book by an author of Böll's caliber as a waste of time, though this is one I think I might say I really appreciated and 'liked' rather than necessarily 'loved'. I think it is perhaps not his best work, though it was an interesting story, so I look forward to reading something else by him at some point knowing I have even better books to look forward to.
Since prior to reading The Silent Angel I didn't know much about Böll I did do a little investigating to see what I could find out about him. This novella is a post-WWII story set in Cologne (rather an unnamed city that bears remarkable likeness to Cologne) right at the very end of the war. I shared a little teaser recently, and the book is indeed full of very dark, despairing imagery. It was this in part that set me off on a little quest to see what meaning I could tease from the story. I think I found out more about and Böll's writing in general than any sort of interpretation, but it all helps build a picture of him. Yet again, this slim story does pack a punch and calls out for a reread someday.
Let me start by sharing an interesting quote by German author, Ursula Hegi.
"When I was growing up as a girl in the silence of postwar Germany, Heinrich Böll wrote about what other adults wouldn't speak about. From him--not from my family or teachers--I began to learn about German soldiers, about war widows and war orphans, about the impact of the war on the survivors. It was a time when most Germans were using their energies to forget about the war, to push forward into a clean and tidy future by rebuilding bombed out buildings, by creating a history for their children that would make it impossible for them to ask questions about the war. I took Böll's books with me to a Catholic boarding school as an adolescent, packed them into my suitcase when I immigrated to America as an 18-year-old."
It's not surprising then that Böll earned the reputation as the "conscience of his nation" and would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1972. Böll was himself born in Cologne to a Catholic family with strong Pacifist leanings. He was virulently opposed to the war and refused to join the Hitler Youth organization. However he was eventually conscripted into the Wehrmacht, sent off to fight, was wounded several times and taken prisoner by the American army at the end of the war. After the war he began writing and published his first novel in 1949. I've seen his work categorized in a couple of different ways--as Heimkehrer, which describes the experiences of soldiers returning home and trying to make sense of their lives as they reintegrate into society. More interestingly I've seen the term Trümmerliteratur to describe his books as well, which means something along the lines of "literature of the rubble". Given that Cologne was heavily bombed during the war and literally left in piles of rubble, and The Silent Angel is filled with just such images, it seems fitting.
The Silent Angel was the second book Böll wrote but it remained unpublished throughout his lifetime. Although he assured his publisher that the book was not about the war, didn't even have any war scenes in it, it was never published as the reading public had no taste for books about the grim realities of post-war life. As Hegi notes they were ready to move on to a brighter future. He apparently mined the manuscript for other books and reworked sections that would appear in later works. It would seem then that this is a story that many read when they've read Böll's other books and want to see where his greatness began. But I'm very contented to have started here.
In the opening pages of the story Hans Schnitzler has returned to Cologne in search of the wife of a soldier who switched uniforms with him and was shot as a deserter in Hans's place. He begins his search for her in a bombed out hospital where he borrows a raincoat that he takes for warmth but later will return to its owner, the woman with whom he'll fall in love. The chance encounters with these two women is what both moves the story along and ties the various characters together. Inside the lining of the uniform jacket is a will that is needed by the widow in order to prove her inheritance. It's through these episodes that Böll will be able to explore many different themes and ideas such as love and commitment, and moral decay and greed. There are lots of interesting juxtapositions in the story--loads of images of light and dark, of angels both upright and mired in the mud (on which at the end of the story characters stand), goodness and evil. Böll also uses quite a few Catholic symbols like bread and wine and the sacrament of confession.
There's a lot to take in really, and reading the book I feel as though I only skimmed the surface. I've just shared bits and pieces of my reading, impressions of the book rather than anything concrete, so you'll have to forgive my meandering post. This was both an easy (stylistically) and difficult (content and descriptions) read. I like to think of it as a hopeful sort of story--that out of such a bleak landscape can come a tender love. I've read a few nonfiction books about post-WWII Germany but I think this must be the first literary work (in recent memory anyway), so it was interesting reading about the period from such a different perspective. I need to do it more often.
A number of people read this book, but to keep it simple I'll link to Caroline's post as she has linked to a comprehensive list of reviews. Do check them out.