Absent without Leave

by Heinrich Böll, Leila Vennewitz (Translation)

In these two novellas, Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll uses strikingly different narrative techniques to portray World War II's impact on the German people.

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Germany, Short Stories

148 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Der deutsche Schriftsteller und Übersetzer gilt als einer der bedeutendsten deutschen Autoren der Nachkriegszeit. Er schrieb Gedichte, Kurzgeschichten und Romane, von denen auch einige verfilmt wurden. Dabei setzte er sich kritisch mit der jungen Bundesrepublik auseinander. Zu seinen erfolgreichsten Werken zählen "Billard um halbzehn", "Ansichten eines Clowns" und "Gruppenbild mit Dame". Den Nobelpreis für Literatur bekam Heinrich Böll 1972; er war nach 43 Jahren der erste deutsche Schriftsteller, dem diese Auszeichnung zuteil wurde. 1974 erschien sein wohl populärstes Werk, "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum". Durch sein politisches Engagement wirkte er, gemeinsam mit seinem Freund Lew Kopelew, auf die europäische Literatur der Nachkriegszeit. Darüber hinaus arbeitete Böll gemeinsam mit seiner Frau Annemarie als Herausgeber und Übersetzer englischsprachiger Werke ins Deutsche...

Heinrich Böll became a full-time writer at the age of 30. His first novel, Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), was published in 1949. Many other novels, short stories, radio plays, and essay collections followed. In 1972 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature." He was the first German-born author to receive the Nobel Prize since Hermann Hesse in 1946. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he is one of Germany's most widely read authors.

Reviews

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most unusual books by Böll I've ever read. He allows his protagonist to relate details of everyone else's story but his own, and thus leaves it up to the reader to understand what he has done: he has deserted. Böll neither condemns his hero nor praises him. That, too, is up to the reader to decide. It also shows that Böll was capable of humour!

[Kris McCracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narrated in the voice of is a ageing widower (war granted him about 22-days of actual married life, primarily spent while absent without leave; who is also a grandfather, devoted son-in-law, who identifies himself as neurotic, romantic, and (most of all) resigned.

Like a lot of Germans in the post war period, he is profoundly alienated from his national identity, indeed allies with the Jews against the Nazis in his mind; he seeks sanctuary and sanity in a playful retelling of his past.

Böll is a fantastic storyteller, and this is indeed a fascinating exercise with a lovely reward. As a master of painting mood, even this apparently 'minor' work carries great weight, and is filled with a delicate sense of irony. Brilliant stuff.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novella by Heinrich Böll that focuses on a central narrator who tells how he lived the beginning of the (Second World) war, and then its end. Depressingly for the fellow concerned, these two moments in history feel much the same. The desolation rings true and a real gloom hangs over the entire story.

Well worth seeking out.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straight-forward thought provoking prose. Excellent.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entfernung von dem Truppe is a short novel which is totally unlike anything Böll had previously written, far more experimental in form and style. The first chapter, about a fifth of the book, is simply telling us to make whatever we like of the story, that the characters could be other than how he describes them, e.g. that the priests could be evangelical ministers or rabbis, that he is just giving an outline which the reader is expected to complete. He uses the metaphor of a coloring book and suggests that we can color the figures however we want.

Then the story begins, but it is a collection of disconnected events in no particular order, moving back and forth from just before the beginning to just after the end of World War II, and to a present which is some twenty years later. Frequently it comes back to Sept. 22, 1938, the day he meets his future wife. The self-deprecating first person narrator gives us more meta-narrative than narrative, commenting on his own narration, and we ultimately have to piece together the story as best we can. The last sentence of the book: "The narrator is hiding something. What?"

The title, which can be translated as distance or absence from the troop, the German expression for "going AWOL", literally refers to the narrator's failure to return to his unit after his marriage, but is also a metaphor for his desertion from a society from which he is completely alienated. This is a novel which could have been a very bleak and tragic one, if it weren't treated in such a humorous manner.

[Shaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Andy Spooner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't get through this book, I think it just isn't for me.

[Tom]

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