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Μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι
Με αφορμή την ιστορία τριών γενεών της οικογένειας Φαίμελ, αρχιτεκτόνων σε μια πόλη της Ρηνανίας, ο Χάινριχ Μπελ βιογραφεί την ίδια τη Γερμανία. Το Μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι, που κυκλοφόρησε πρώτη φορά το 1959 γνωρίζοντας τεράστια επιτυχία, παρουσιάζει σε μια αριστοτεχνική σύνθεση τη μεγάλη εικόνα της γερμανικής «πραγματικότητας» κατά το πρώτο μισό του 20ού αιώνα, με ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στην περίοδο του ναζισμού και στις ύστερες επιβιώσεις του.
Οι Φαίμελ, δημιουργοί όσο και καταστροφείς, αντιπροσωπεύουν με τη διττή τους αυτή υπόσταση μια θεμελιώδη αντίθεση, που ο Μπελ την ερμηνεύει μέσω των συμβολισμών του «αμνού» και του «βούβαλου»: τη σύγκρουση ανάμεσα στο άτομο με την ακηδεμόνευτη και ελεύθερη σκέψη, από τη μια, και τους καιροσκόπους «πολλούς» που ασκούν ή έστω αποδέχονται τη βία, από την άλλη.
Οι Φαίμελ, δημιουργοί όσο και καταστροφείς, αντιπροσωπεύουν με τη διττή τους αυτή υπόσταση μια θεμελιώδη αντίθεση, που ο Μπελ την ερμηνεύει μέσω των συμβολισμών του «αμνού» και του «βούβαλου»: τη σύγκρουση ανάμεσα στο άτομο με την ακηδεμόνευτη και ελεύθερη σκέψη, από τη μια, και τους καιροσκόπους «πολλούς» που ασκούν ή έστω αποδέχονται τη βία, από την άλλη.
456 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
209 people are currently reading
7,238 people want to read
About the author
Heinrich Böll
608books1,602followersDer 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 332 reviews
November 11, 2022
Every day at half-past nine Dr. Robert Faehmel plays billiard in the Prince Heinrich Hotel and tells an adolescent bellhop the story of his life�
And his father, the old architect, recounts to his son’s secretary about his young years and his first professional success�
Two wars are behind� Some are born to build and some are born to destroy� And today is the old man’s eightieth birthday� All of his few relatives must be present at his birthday party� All those who managed to survive�
The huge and heavy wheels of history and ideology roll uncaringly over everybody and those who aren’t outright crushed are left behind crippled and traumatized.
Then take my word for it, just let young Faehmel play his billiards in peace. A fine family. Really is. Class. I knew his grandmother, his grandfather, his mother and his uncle. They used to play billiards here themselves, fifty years ago. You wouldn’t know, of course, but the Kilbs have lived on Modest Street for three hundred years. That is, they always did � there aren’t any left any more. His mother went off the beam, lost two brothers and three of her children died. Never got over it. Fine woman. The quiet kind, if you know what I mean.
And his father, the old architect, recounts to his son’s secretary about his young years and his first professional success�
Every day I walked four kilometers, in one hour, always the same way at the same time. I meant to be seen, and seen at the same place at the same time, always. Shopgirls, bankers and jewelers, whores and cab drivers, store clerks, waiters and housewives, I intended that they should see me, and they did, from five to six, cigar in my mouth. Impudent, I know, but I’m an artist, pledged to nonconformity. A man like me is permitted to stand and listen to the organ-grinder, and make capital of the melancholy of the hours when work lets out. Permitted to frequent dream streets in the city of dreams.
Two wars are behind� Some are born to build and some are born to destroy� And today is the old man’s eightieth birthday� All of his few relatives must be present at his birthday party� All those who managed to survive�
“Your Excellency, we’ve reserved Room 212 for you and your wife, pardon, for your wife and you. Any luggage at the station? No? Anything to be brought from your house? Nothing. Oh, only for two hours while the fireworks are on, and to watch the Veterans� parade. Of course there are seats for six people in the room, there’s a large balcony, and if you wish we can have the beds pushed together. Not necessary? Hugo, Hugo, show the ladies and gentlemen to Room 212, and take a wine list with you. I’ll send the young people up to your room.�
The huge and heavy wheels of history and ideology roll uncaringly over everybody and those who aren’t outright crushed are left behind crippled and traumatized.
May 21, 2022
(Book 466 from 1001 books) - Billard um halb zehn = Billiards At Half-Past Nine, Heinrich Böll
Billiards at Half-Past Nine is a 1959 novel by the German author Heinrich Böll. It reflects the opposition Böll, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, had to the period of Nazism as well as his aversion to war in general. The entirety of the narrative takes place on the day of September 6, 1958 but the story stretches back through the use of flashbacks and the retelling of memories of the characters. It focuses on the Faehmel family's history starting from the end of 19th century until the present day of 1958.
بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم - هاینریش بل (سروش) ادبیات آلمان؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و پنجم ماه فورریه سال2011میلادی
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: کیکاووس جهانداری؛ تهران� نشر سروش� (انتشارات� صد� و سیم�)، سال1377؛ در292ص؛ شابک9644353048؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان آلمان - سده20م
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: کیکاووس جهانداری؛ تهران� انتشارات ماهی، سال1389؛ در325ص؛ شابک9789642090549؛ چاپ دوم سال1391؛ چاپ سوم سال1392؛ چاپ چهارم سال1395؛ چاپ پنجم سال1397؛
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: مهدیه حیدری؛ تهران� نشر هنر پارینه، سال1395؛ در310ص؛ شابک9786005981803؛
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: سارنگ ملکوتی؛ تهران� نشر نگاه، سال1397؛ در328ص؛ شابک9786003763012؛ چاپ دوم سال1398؛
در این کتاب یازده راوی داستان، با فلش بکها� و یادآوری یادمانهای خود، داستان رمان را، به پیش میبرند� یادمانهای سه نسل از خانواده� ی «فهمل» است؛ پدربزرگی که با ساختن کلیسایی به شهرت میرسد� و پسر هموست که کلیسا را منفجر میکند� و نوه� ای که در حال بازسازی دوباره ی همان کلیساست؛ هر کدام از آنها� انگیزه� ی ویژه ی خود را داشته اند، انگیزه� ی فردی، در دوران پیش از جنگ، در دوران جنگ، و در دوران پس از جنگ...؛ نمادی از جنگ و مذهب در زندگی مردمان است؛ قهرمان داستان هر روز، از ساعت نه و نیم تا ساعت یازده، در هتل بیلیارد بازی میکند� هر چند هدف او بازی نیست؛ هدف او دنبال کردن حرکت توپها� و نظم و قانون، و یک روند منظم، و یادآوری رخدادهای بگذشته هاست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 11/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 30/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Billiards at Half-Past Nine is a 1959 novel by the German author Heinrich Böll. It reflects the opposition Böll, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, had to the period of Nazism as well as his aversion to war in general. The entirety of the narrative takes place on the day of September 6, 1958 but the story stretches back through the use of flashbacks and the retelling of memories of the characters. It focuses on the Faehmel family's history starting from the end of 19th century until the present day of 1958.
بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم - هاینریش بل (سروش) ادبیات آلمان؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و پنجم ماه فورریه سال2011میلادی
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: کیکاووس جهانداری؛ تهران� نشر سروش� (انتشارات� صد� و سیم�)، سال1377؛ در292ص؛ شابک9644353048؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان آلمان - سده20م
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: کیکاووس جهانداری؛ تهران� انتشارات ماهی، سال1389؛ در325ص؛ شابک9789642090549؛ چاپ دوم سال1391؛ چاپ سوم سال1392؛ چاپ چهارم سال1395؛ چاپ پنجم سال1397؛
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: مهدیه حیدری؛ تهران� نشر هنر پارینه، سال1395؛ در310ص؛ شابک9786005981803؛
عنوان: بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم؛ نویسنده: هاینریش بل؛ مترجم: سارنگ ملکوتی؛ تهران� نشر نگاه، سال1397؛ در328ص؛ شابک9786003763012؛ چاپ دوم سال1398؛
در این کتاب یازده راوی داستان، با فلش بکها� و یادآوری یادمانهای خود، داستان رمان را، به پیش میبرند� یادمانهای سه نسل از خانواده� ی «فهمل» است؛ پدربزرگی که با ساختن کلیسایی به شهرت میرسد� و پسر هموست که کلیسا را منفجر میکند� و نوه� ای که در حال بازسازی دوباره ی همان کلیساست؛ هر کدام از آنها� انگیزه� ی ویژه ی خود را داشته اند، انگیزه� ی فردی، در دوران پیش از جنگ، در دوران جنگ، و در دوران پس از جنگ...؛ نمادی از جنگ و مذهب در زندگی مردمان است؛ قهرمان داستان هر روز، از ساعت نه و نیم تا ساعت یازده، در هتل بیلیارد بازی میکند� هر چند هدف او بازی نیست؛ هدف او دنبال کردن حرکت توپها� و نظم و قانون، و یک روند منظم، و یادآوری رخدادهای بگذشته هاست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 11/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 30/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
June 14, 2024
Set in post-war Germany in the late 50's (although large parts of the narrative focuses on events from the past), Heinrich Böll has written a multi-layered and complex work of brilliance, that uses a free-form narrative, and, on a limited scale, a more structured recognizable one, which alternates around depending on whether in the past or present. And I have to say it's masterfully done. Böll starts out by giving nothing away, regarding names, where we are, or what's going on, landing the reader smack-bang in a scene that could have been plucked from the middle of a story rather than the beginning of one. Adept, and with a keen eye, he unravels the Faehmel family that lie at the heart of his novel. Covering three generations of the family, two world wars, thus spanning many decades. You might think a sweeping epic is on the cards, but it fact, it's quite the opposite. In real time, the novel plays out over only a single day.
One could believe the grass roots of the novel lies with father and son architects. Heinrich the elder, is selected post-WW1 to rebuild a local abbey suffering from neglect. The son, Robert (who plays billiards, with a cognac, without fail, from half-past nine to eleven), follows his father's footsteps into the building trade, but then averts away from development into demolition during WW2. And then we have Joseph, Robert's son, who likewise keeps with family tradition. But, actually the core theme of Böll's novel is that of the struggles of women, especially that of the mother, entrenched in the ideas of virtue, sacrifice, and honesty, and how greater the choices made can affect the wider scope. So, in essence, the manic confessions of Robert's mother, Joanna, really is the bread and butter of Böll's story. It is also, more importantly, a searing indictment of Nazi Germany.
The more I think about the level of depth Heinrich Böll depicts throughout the novel, the more passionate I will praise it. And I could write on and on about the many different underlying questions Böll has us locked into, but wouldn't want to serve everything up on a silver platter.
I simply found this immensely rewarding, more so, because it does require complete and utter attention. No, it's not one for the beach. It's a book I could have locked myself away with in a panic room. The key information to the novels interior is presented seemingly at random, and then given weight and context as the story slowly unfolds. For me, it was like wearing in a new pair of shoes that looked uncomfortable, expecting blisters, but then not getting any. How he approached the novel was intelligent, thought-provoking, tough when it needed to be, but also humane.
And it was great not to be spoon fed all the details, it made for a better read, and Böll absolutely knew this. It's in no way a book for the masses, but I couldn't care less. It's all the better for it.
January 20, 2019
The functioning of my memory could possibly be compared to my attempts at playing billiards.
Not really knowing the rules, not knowing the techniques, not understanding the meaning of the coloured balls spread out over the green cloth table, I take a queue and make a random decision to hit one ball. In the best of cases I succeed, but then a chain reaction of uncontrolled further action takes place, and under no circumstances do I ever manage to conclude what will be the effect of my initial trial.
The billiards game of my memory led me here today.
I was engaged in a discussion on human constructive and destructive behaviour, and like the white ball on a billiards table, the discussion kicked off a memory chain reaction leading me back to this novel, a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience not only for its important content in itself, but also because of the initiation rite into Böll's world that it constituted, after some school attempts at his shorter fiction.
It is Buddenbrooks all over again, and yet so much darker, and at the same time lighter. Families build close relationships only to know how to hurt each other best. They have ambitions in the name of the shared name, only to betray the most cherished ideals of the clan as soon as they get a chance. They are exclusive clubs, and yet each member brings the flavour of the outside world into the explosive Molotov cocktail.
Heinrich Böll loves to describe the Trümmerlandschaft that became his theme and his literary writing style as well. And nothing symbolises the architecture of German history better than the fate of the builders and buildings in a family that lives through the darkest times in German memory. And like a construction rising on the ruins of a destroyed culture, "Billiard um halb zehn" stands for the regenerative forces at work even in the most hopelessly lost civilisations.
If you manage to dig through the rubble and shards of this collapsed story, you will see that the puzzle makes sense, and that the billiards table is a cosmos full of life to be studied and cherished. There are rules, but it is hard to follow them even if you try!
Not really knowing the rules, not knowing the techniques, not understanding the meaning of the coloured balls spread out over the green cloth table, I take a queue and make a random decision to hit one ball. In the best of cases I succeed, but then a chain reaction of uncontrolled further action takes place, and under no circumstances do I ever manage to conclude what will be the effect of my initial trial.
The billiards game of my memory led me here today.
I was engaged in a discussion on human constructive and destructive behaviour, and like the white ball on a billiards table, the discussion kicked off a memory chain reaction leading me back to this novel, a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience not only for its important content in itself, but also because of the initiation rite into Böll's world that it constituted, after some school attempts at his shorter fiction.
It is Buddenbrooks all over again, and yet so much darker, and at the same time lighter. Families build close relationships only to know how to hurt each other best. They have ambitions in the name of the shared name, only to betray the most cherished ideals of the clan as soon as they get a chance. They are exclusive clubs, and yet each member brings the flavour of the outside world into the explosive Molotov cocktail.
Heinrich Böll loves to describe the Trümmerlandschaft that became his theme and his literary writing style as well. And nothing symbolises the architecture of German history better than the fate of the builders and buildings in a family that lives through the darkest times in German memory. And like a construction rising on the ruins of a destroyed culture, "Billiard um halb zehn" stands for the regenerative forces at work even in the most hopelessly lost civilisations.
If you manage to dig through the rubble and shards of this collapsed story, you will see that the puzzle makes sense, and that the billiards table is a cosmos full of life to be studied and cherished. There are rules, but it is hard to follow them even if you try!
July 23, 2021
Memento quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, as we are quite clearly told. Dust the mortar leaves behind, deeds of mortgage, houses and estates, a statue in a peaceful suburb where children as they play might ask, ' And who ' s that man?'
April 7, 2024
Heinrich Böll is my HERO! His books have their own bookshelf in my home and hold a special place in my heart.
Billiards at Half-Past Nine was the first book I read by him during my university years and its effect was instant and enormous. Afterwards I read his books in a row one after the other.
Böll's strong sense of justice, his representation of Truth is shining through his works like the desert SUN. It is blinding, burning and merciless, there are no shadows to hide in. The TRUTH is there, very much in your face: you cannot conveniently close your eyes and ignore it.
I guess Böll's literary work -facing the truth, no matter how hard it gets- was essential and instrumental for a German society recovering after the devastating WW II. He was a widely read and acknowledged author, but also widely spurned for the same reasons, at the same time.
His literary technique is very "typical", easily recognizable. Reading his books is like putting together a puzzle. Pieces get offered from different people's perspectives, the story is getting deeper and more complex as flashbacks and memories of several characters are written in the first person, yet they all get filtered by an omniscient narrator.
Gradually, we get full access to characters and their stories by their own memories as well as through the perspectives of others, we can see them from all sides and it is intriguing as well as emotionally involving.
A highly recommended read.
Billiards at Half-Past Nine was the first book I read by him during my university years and its effect was instant and enormous. Afterwards I read his books in a row one after the other.
Böll's strong sense of justice, his representation of Truth is shining through his works like the desert SUN. It is blinding, burning and merciless, there are no shadows to hide in. The TRUTH is there, very much in your face: you cannot conveniently close your eyes and ignore it.
I guess Böll's literary work -facing the truth, no matter how hard it gets- was essential and instrumental for a German society recovering after the devastating WW II. He was a widely read and acknowledged author, but also widely spurned for the same reasons, at the same time.
His literary technique is very "typical", easily recognizable. Reading his books is like putting together a puzzle. Pieces get offered from different people's perspectives, the story is getting deeper and more complex as flashbacks and memories of several characters are written in the first person, yet they all get filtered by an omniscient narrator.
Gradually, we get full access to characters and their stories by their own memories as well as through the perspectives of others, we can see them from all sides and it is intriguing as well as emotionally involving.
A highly recommended read.
Read
March 6, 2015
Heinrich Böll with his eternal cigarette(*)
Sometimes the Swedish Academy does get things right, and one of these times was the award of the Nobel Prize in 1972 to Heinrich Böll (1917-1985), the year after he published the excellent Gruppenbild mit Dame (though probably my favorite is Ansichten eines Clowns, whence the above quote is taken). I have just re-read one of his better early novels, Billard um halbzehn (1959),(**) and am once again seduced by the many fine qualities of his prose.
Though those of my generation may roll their eyes at this truism, it could well be the case that members of more recent generations are unaware that, for completely understandable reasons, in the first decade after World War II the German people had no desire to dwell on what had occurred from 1933 to 1945. After all, they were hungry, their cities were in ruins, their country was divided in two and occupied by four foreign powers, just to mention a few things. In East Germany the Communist Party was able to blame the "other Germans" - a stance which the East German people were gratefully able to adopt - while in West Germany conservative capitalists had taken over the reins again after only a brief interruption and did not want anyone looking too closely at what they did during the war. This began to change a bit during the late 50's and early 60's after the "Economic Miracle" of the 50's had greatly improved the standard of living in the Federal Republic.
Böll was one of the first significant German authors to deal with WW2; already in 1949 he published Der Zug war pünktlich, set in 1943, in which he, among other things, displayed the inhumanity of the values of that time. But already in that early text he was no one-note-Charlie. Indeed, in another famous quote Böll said that the most important topics for him were religion and love.
So, though WW2 plays an important role in Billard um halbzehn, quite a bit more is going on in this tale of three generations of architects, the Fähmel family, leading up to the fateful 80th birthday of the eldest, Heinrich. Böll artfully eases into his story by introducing the Fähmel's through the eyes of the secretary of Fähmel #2, Robert, with humor and foreboding. Böll's third person narrator moves among the characters and follows their thoughts and, above all, their memories, jumping through time from as early as 1894 till the novel's present, 1958. The reader must piece together the story from this kaleidoscope, but Böll does not make this difficult. In fact, there is a hint of the pleasure of reading a well written detective story as the pieces slowly fall together. At the same time an ominous tension is established and increased until the final explosion.
Within this rich story of the intertwined lives of multiple generations, of joy and loss, of ambition and futility, betrayal and forgiveness, subservience and resistance, is mixed the many different ways people could and did choose to act during the period 1933-1945 and the price each had to pay for their choices. At the same time, Böll also addresses the ways in which Germans dealt with the consequences of these choices in the emerging postwar society. All the while, even when evoking the former Nazi who became an important figure in the postwar reconstruction or when Robert is being whipped with barbed wire, Böll's limpid prose flows smoothly and calmly, never psychologizing and occasionally revealing a wry humor that had me laughing aloud. The old hotel porter, Jochen, is priceless.
This is one of Böll's generous handful of outstanding books.
(*) The well-known quote by Böll means: Atheists bore me, they are always talking about God. Not actually relevant here, but I like the photo.
(**) Available in English translation under the title Billiards at Half-Past Nine.
Cologne - Heinrich Böll's hometown and the primary setting for Billard um halbzehn
Rating
March 28, 2023
Αργόσυρτος ρυθμός, πυκνή γραφή που σε παρασέρνει σχεδόν σε λήθαργο αλλά στην πραγματικότητα πετυχαίνει ακριβώς το αντίθετο: Την καταβύθιση στον κόσμο των πρωταγωνιστών του μυθιστορήματος που περιλαμβάνει αποξένωση, αμφιβολίες, ενοχές, πάθη, πληγές, όλα αυτά που δύο συνεχόμενοι παγκόσμιοι πόλεμοι και -κυρίως- το φάντασμα του ναζισμού άφησαν πάνω στη μεταπολεμική Γερμανία. Αναμφίβολα ένα βιβλίο σταθμός.
April 16, 2018
It is amazing how a prose can be so effortlessly beautiful and meaningful at the same time! It is also such a rarity�
The novel takes place during one day in 1958 in Cologne. It is focused on the 3 generation of the family of architects getting to grips with the trauma inflicted on them by their compatriots and by the defeat in the war. It reminds also that the spectre of Evil is never far away; it just reincarnates into different shapes and forms. But the novel refuses to be deductive and does not have any recipe how to fight it though. It asks the question what is better to build or to destroy? To destroy something which has been built earlier, which might have been a wrong symbol� Or the symbol which did not safe anything or anyone� Or is the act of creation and destruction are the part of the same process? Hegel with his unity and conflicts of the opposites comes to mind.
But apart from being cold and reflective, the novel possesses a great emotional power. It reminds us that there were many Germans who never supported the Nazis and they were the victims as well as everyone else. But we rare spare the thoughts for them. There is certainly the element of the universal truth in this for any war : we deserve all dignity for the winners. There were a few places in this novel that moved me close to tears, which is extremely rare for me.
And the style of the narrative is sophisticated, but not for a single moment feels laboured. Brilliant book.
The novel takes place during one day in 1958 in Cologne. It is focused on the 3 generation of the family of architects getting to grips with the trauma inflicted on them by their compatriots and by the defeat in the war. It reminds also that the spectre of Evil is never far away; it just reincarnates into different shapes and forms. But the novel refuses to be deductive and does not have any recipe how to fight it though. It asks the question what is better to build or to destroy? To destroy something which has been built earlier, which might have been a wrong symbol� Or the symbol which did not safe anything or anyone� Or is the act of creation and destruction are the part of the same process? Hegel with his unity and conflicts of the opposites comes to mind.
But apart from being cold and reflective, the novel possesses a great emotional power. It reminds us that there were many Germans who never supported the Nazis and they were the victims as well as everyone else. But we rare spare the thoughts for them. There is certainly the element of the universal truth in this for any war : we deserve all dignity for the winners. There were a few places in this novel that moved me close to tears, which is extremely rare for me.
And the style of the narrative is sophisticated, but not for a single moment feels laboured. Brilliant book.
September 15, 2020
Όσο διάβαζα αυτό το βιβλίο, μία φράση είχα στο μυαλό μου : "Στο Βερολίνο τίποτα δεν είναι περισσότερο ορατό από αυτό που προσπαθείς να εξαφανίσεις"
Δύσκολο βιβλίο λόγω της συνειρμικής γραφής και των διαφορετικών προσώπων που αφηγούνται χωρίς να είναι πάντα ξεκάθαρο αμέσως ποιος μιλάει εκείνη τη στιγμή. Θα έλεγα ότι έχει και μία δόση θεατρικότητας σε κάποια σημεία.
Δεν το διαβάζεις για να περάσεις λίγες χαλαρές ώρες. Το διαβάζεις γιατί οφείλεις να θυμάσαι τις φωνές των ανθρώπων που έζησαν τη φρίκη ή απότελεσαν μέρος της φρίκης. Το να μην ξεχνάμε είναι το λιγότερο που μπορούμε να κάνουμε.
Δύσκολο βιβλίο λόγω της συνειρμικής γραφής και των διαφορετικών προσώπων που αφηγούνται χωρίς να είναι πάντα ξεκάθαρο αμέσως ποιος μιλάει εκείνη τη στιγμή. Θα έλεγα ότι έχει και μία δόση θεατρικότητας σε κάποια σημεία.
Δεν το διαβάζεις για να περάσεις λίγες χαλαρές ώρες. Το διαβάζεις γιατί οφείλεις να θυμάσαι τις φωνές των ανθρώπων που έζησαν τη φρίκη ή απότελεσαν μέρος της φρίκης. Το να μην ξεχνάμε είναι το λιγότερο που μπορούμε να κάνουμε.
June 12, 2020
Μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι, κι όλα αρχίζουν και τελειώνουν στην διάρκεια μιας μέρας,
στο ημερολογιακό πρόγραμμα της σελήνης
για κάποιο, ένα και μοναδικό μερονύχτι.
Κι ήταν όλοι εκεί, όλοι, δεν έλειπε κανείς,
είχαν όλοι παλέψει την μοίρα για να βρεθούν
στην τραγική συνάντηση των αλησμόνητων
αναμνήσεων κόντρα στη μεθυστική δίνη της λήθης.
Ο πρωταγωνιστής, ένας, μέσα στην ψυχή όλων.
Ασκείται στην τέχνη του «υπάρχω» και τίποτε άλλο.
Μια μαύρη ρουφήχτρα έγιναν όλα που παρασέρνει σε άγνωστα μέρη.
Μια δίνη ύπαρξης που ρουφάει με λαιμαργία
την συνύπαρξη με μυρωδιά απο αρχαία πικρία.
Μία μελωδία που ακούγεται σαν πανάρχαιη ματαιότητα, για όσα θα γίνουν, για όσα θα χαθούν στον χρόνο
που καταδιώκει πάντα άγρια την απλή χαρά και
της τραγουδάει με φωνές γλυκές και τρομακτικές τον επιτάφιο θρήνο.
Όλα, τα ανείπωτα τελειώνουν μπροστά στην εξουσία που κάποιοι έχουν πάντα και το δικαίωμα του αμνού για απολύτρωση γίνεται φέρετρο, και η μεταλαβιά του βούβαλου θα βρίσκεται στη θάλασσα του χρόνου,
με την ώρα που χτυπάει ακριβώς όταν ξυπνάει ο πόλεμος. Μα τότε είναι που τα φαράγγια των κυμάτων σε παρασύρουν να διασχίσεις ωκεανούς απο παρελθόν και μέλλον.
Τότε είναι που η μοναξιά που σ’αγάπησε σε σώζει
απο τον πνιγμό και πρέπει, πρέπει, οπωσδήποτε να βουτήξεις στο ψύχος του μέλλοντος όσο κι αν τρέμεις, όσο κι αν παραληρείς απο την εικόνα του θανάτου,
έχεις το γέλιο ως μοναδικό μέσο επιβίωσης, μαθητεύομενος την τρέλα.
Απαγορεύεται να ξεχάσεις. Αποκλείεται να τρελαθείς.
Στο πλαίσιο της ομάδας, της οικογένειας γίνεται η μεταφορά των «ανομολόγητων πραγμάτων» απο την μικρή σε ισχύ οικογενειακή ενθύμηση στον δημόσιο λόγο, ώστε να γίνει μέρος της συλλογικής μνήμης.
Η μεταβίβαση αυτή δεν γίνεται πάντα συνδυαστικά με τις κακουχίες των θυμάτων καθώς υπεισέρχεται και ο ανασταλτικός παράγοντας που ορίζεται ως η μνήμη
του θύτη, βαίνοντας σε μια ομαδική συνειδιασιακή καταγραφή τεκμηριωμένης μεταμέλειας.
Το «μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι» δεν είναι καθόλου εύκολο ανάγνωσμα. Ο μοντερνισμός εδώ επηρεάζει διπολικά
και αμφίσημα τον αναγνώστη, μπορεί να δρέψει δάφνες ως πνοή ανανέωσης της γερμανικής λογοτεχνίας ή να εξαπολυθούν μύδροι σχετικά με τη δυσκολία πρόσβασης στον βυθό του μυθιστορήματος.
Εκεί, όπου κρύβονται, μυστικά εξαγνισμού
και θησαυροί, απο τη μοναχική κατακερματισμένη μνήμη των οικείων θυμάτων,των
«αμνών και των βοσκών» που σπάραξαν μέσα
και πάνω σε τάφους αγαπημένων τους παράλληλα
με την τελική νίκη όλων όσων δέχτηκαν την
«μετάληψη των βουβάλων»,ασπάστηκαν τον ναζισμό, έμειναν άδεια, βρομερά κελύφη της συνειδησιακής και συναισθηματικης τους νοημοσύνης.
Ετσι, επεξεργάζονται υλικά με συμβολικά και σημαίνοντα δίπολα. Μνημεία, κτίσματα υπό κατασκευή, κτίσματα κατεστραμμένα, θρησκευτικές παραδοχές στην εξουσία του ναζισμού, σκόνη, κονίαμα,
πέτρες απο γκρεμισμένες ζωές, ανατινάξεις εκδικητικού συμβιβασμού, αναστηλώσεις με ημιτελείς προδιαγραφές χρόνου και χρήσης, γέφυρες, κατακόμβες, παιδικοί κενοί τάφοι, μνημεία πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς και νεκρολογίες εκατομυρίων θυμάτων πολέμου.
Στο βιβλίο τούτο με αριστουργηματικό τρόπο
και αβανγκαρντιστικές τεχνικές συγγραφής
ο μαιτρ της λογοτεχνίας των ερειπίων, των γενεών,
της μνήμης και της υπέρβασης της κοινωνικής πραγματιμοτητας παραθέτει τη ροή συνείδησης
και συναισθημάτων, εμπειριών και πράξεων, πολλών προσώπων, που εκφέρονται σε μία μόνο μέρα.
Την 6η Σεπτεμβρίου του 1958, τον σύντομο παρελθοντικό- παροντικό και μελλοντικό χρόνο
που συμπυκνώνει την δράση του τώρα παράλληλα με εκτεταμένες αναδρομές.
Η προοπτικότητα της ενθύμησης ( Νίτσε) μας οδηγεί
σε μια πολυπρισματική θέαση προσληπτικής ικανότητας για τα παρελθοντικά γεγονότα σχετικά με το αν θα γίνει ποτέ συμβατή η θέση του θύτη και η θέση του θύματος. Φυσικά τα ψυχικά τραύματα και η εγκληματικών εμπειριών επενεργούν στο τώρα και επηρεάζουν σαρωτικά την όχι πάντα αγαστή συνεργασία μεταξύ μνήμης και ιστοριογραφίας.
Έχουμε μέσω μιας γερμανικής οικογένειας και πολλών δορυφορικών ρόλων μία παρελθοντική διερεύνηση ώστε να ανακαλείται η ιστορία της Γερμανίας απο την αρχή του αιώνα μέχρι και το μυθοπλαστικό μερίδιο της τρίτης γενιάς σαν μια στρωματογραφία αναμνήσεων
που ως αναδρομή χρησιμοποιείται με πολύ ουσιαστικό τροπο και δεν υπολείπεται ούτε επουλώνει ψυχικά τραύματα στις γενιές του μπιλιάρδου, οι οποίες και
είναι άρρηκτα συνδεδεμένες μεταξύ τους όπως και
με κάθε αντικατάσταση διαζευκτικού ή συμπλεγματικού φαινομένου.
Κάπως έτσι, γίνεται απο τον Μπελ ένας αριστουργηματικός συνδυασμός ειδών.
Η λογοτεχνία των «χαλασμάτων και των καταστροφών» που γεννάει ένα μυθιστόρημα «υπαρξιακού γενεαλογικού» ορίζοντα.
Το μυστικό εργαλείο της νόησης για να διαχειριστεί
��ε επιτυχία τις κουλτούρες μνήμης είναι η σωστή συναισθηματική επεξεργασία του παρελθόντος,
η οποία έχει τελετουργικά αρνηθεί την παραμόρφωση που γεννάται όταν εφορμά ανάμεσα σε παρόν και παρελθόν η πλημμελής διαλεκτική και συνδέει με ικανότητα λήθης - α-λήθειας τον αποσπασματικό χρόνο, τα επεισόδια της ύπαρξης σε ένα συνειδητό όλον.
Το μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι είναι
ένα έργο που δίνει εναύσματα για να γραφτούν πολλά σχετικά, ουσιαστικά, μεταφορικά, μπρος, πίσω
και γύρω απο αυτό.
Είναι οικουμενική προσέγγιση της
ατομικής- επικοινωνιακής μνήμης, ένα δυνατό επίπεδο ψηλά στην ιεραρχία ανάκλησης του παρελθόντος ως προς το κοινωνικό εύρος.
Το κύριο χαρακτηριστικό του έγκειται στην βιωματική μνημονική κοινότητα τριών γενεών της οικογένειας Φαίμελ, με χρονική διάρκεια 80 - 100 χρόνια.
Ο υπαρξιακός χωροχρονικός ορίζοντας που υπογραμμίζει την οικογενειακή σάγκα συμπίπτει με πολύ σπουδαία ιστορικά τμήματα της Γερμανίας:
Εθνικισμός του Βιλχελμινισμού, Α’Π�, δημοκρατία της Βαϊμάρης, (ονομασία του πολιτεύματος της Γερμανίας από το 1919 έως την άνοδο στην εξουσία της Ναζιστικής Γερμανίας του Χίτλερ το 1933) εθνικοσοσιαλισμός, Β’Π�, κατάρρευση της Γερμανίας, μεταπολεμική περίοδος.
Οι ερμηνείες τέτοιων λογοτεχνικών έργων προϋποθέτουν κοινωνική συνειδητότητα απέναντι
στην ιστορική μοίρα και ως εκ τούτου μπορεί να προκύψει ατομικό ερμηνευτικό αμάλγαμα συνδυαστικά με τους ορίζοντες του αναγνώστη ή παραδοχή τραγικών καταστάσεων και εποχών που σταμπάρουν με καυτό σίδερο χρόνια σύνδρομα μετατραυματικά,
με τα αποτυπώματα του θύτη να ορίζουν ανθρώπους θύματα μιας σκληρής μοίρας, μιας ανελέητης μνήμης και ενός παρελθοντικού ολοκαυτώματος που αποτελεί βασικό ορόσημα στα σαθρά θεμέλια της ιστορίας.
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς
στο ημερολογιακό πρόγραμμα της σελήνης
για κάποιο, ένα και μοναδικό μερονύχτι.
Κι ήταν όλοι εκεί, όλοι, δεν έλειπε κανείς,
είχαν όλοι παλέψει την μοίρα για να βρεθούν
στην τραγική συνάντηση των αλησμόνητων
αναμνήσεων κόντρα στη μεθυστική δίνη της λήθης.
Ο πρωταγωνιστής, ένας, μέσα στην ψυχή όλων.
Ασκείται στην τέχνη του «υπάρχω» και τίποτε άλλο.
Μια μαύρη ρουφήχτρα έγιναν όλα που παρασέρνει σε άγνωστα μέρη.
Μια δίνη ύπαρξης που ρουφάει με λαιμαργία
την συνύπαρξη με μυρωδιά απο αρχαία πικρία.
Μία μελωδία που ακούγεται σαν πανάρχαιη ματαιότητα, για όσα θα γίνουν, για όσα θα χαθούν στον χρόνο
που καταδιώκει πάντα άγρια την απλή χαρά και
της τραγουδάει με φωνές γλυκές και τρομακτικές τον επιτάφιο θρήνο.
Όλα, τα ανείπωτα τελειώνουν μπροστά στην εξουσία που κάποιοι έχουν πάντα και το δικαίωμα του αμνού για απολύτρωση γίνεται φέρετρο, και η μεταλαβιά του βούβαλου θα βρίσκεται στη θάλασσα του χρόνου,
με την ώρα που χτυπάει ακριβώς όταν ξυπνάει ο πόλεμος. Μα τότε είναι που τα φαράγγια των κυμάτων σε παρασύρουν να διασχίσεις ωκεανούς απο παρελθόν και μέλλον.
Τότε είναι που η μοναξιά που σ’αγάπησε σε σώζει
απο τον πνιγμό και πρέπει, πρέπει, οπωσδήποτε να βουτήξεις στο ψύχος του μέλλοντος όσο κι αν τρέμεις, όσο κι αν παραληρείς απο την εικόνα του θανάτου,
έχεις το γέλιο ως μοναδικό μέσο επιβίωσης, μαθητεύομενος την τρέλα.
Απαγορεύεται να ξεχάσεις. Αποκλείεται να τρελαθείς.
Στο πλαίσιο της ομάδας, της οικογένειας γίνεται η μεταφορά των «ανομολόγητων πραγμάτων» απο την μικρή σε ισχύ οικογενειακή ενθύμηση στον δημόσιο λόγο, ώστε να γίνει μέρος της συλλογικής μνήμης.
Η μεταβίβαση αυτή δεν γίνεται πάντα συνδυαστικά με τις κακουχίες των θυμάτων καθώς υπεισέρχεται και ο ανασταλτικός παράγοντας που ορίζεται ως η μνήμη
του θύτη, βαίνοντας σε μια ομαδική συνειδιασιακή καταγραφή τεκμηριωμένης μεταμέλειας.
Το «μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι» δεν είναι καθόλου εύκολο ανάγνωσμα. Ο μοντερνισμός εδώ επηρεάζει διπολικά
και αμφίσημα τον αναγνώστη, μπορεί να δρέψει δάφνες ως πνοή ανανέωσης της γερμανικής λογοτεχνίας ή να εξαπολυθούν μύδροι σχετικά με τη δυσκολία πρόσβασης στον βυθό του μυθιστορήματος.
Εκεί, όπου κρύβονται, μυστικά εξαγνισμού
και θησαυροί, απο τη μοναχική κατακερματισμένη μνήμη των οικείων θυμάτων,των
«αμνών και των βοσκών» που σπάραξαν μέσα
και πάνω σε τάφους αγαπημένων τους παράλληλα
με την τελική νίκη όλων όσων δέχτηκαν την
«μετάληψη των βουβάλων»,ασπάστηκαν τον ναζισμό, έμειναν άδεια, βρομερά κελύφη της συνειδησιακής και συναισθηματικης τους νοημοσύνης.
Ετσι, επεξεργάζονται υλικά με συμβολικά και σημαίνοντα δίπολα. Μνημεία, κτίσματα υπό κατασκευή, κτίσματα κατεστραμμένα, θρησκευτικές παραδοχές στην εξουσία του ναζισμού, σκόνη, κονίαμα,
πέτρες απο γκρεμισμένες ζωές, ανατινάξεις εκδικητικού συμβιβασμού, αναστηλώσεις με ημιτελείς προδιαγραφές χρόνου και χρήσης, γέφυρες, κατακόμβες, παιδικοί κενοί τάφοι, μνημεία πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς και νεκρολογίες εκατομυρίων θυμάτων πολέμου.
Στο βιβλίο τούτο με αριστουργηματικό τρόπο
και αβανγκαρντιστικές τεχνικές συγγραφής
ο μαιτρ της λογοτεχνίας των ερειπίων, των γενεών,
της μνήμης και της υπέρβασης της κοινωνικής πραγματιμοτητας παραθέτει τη ροή συνείδησης
και συναισθημάτων, εμπειριών και πράξεων, πολλών προσώπων, που εκφέρονται σε μία μόνο μέρα.
Την 6η Σεπτεμβρίου του 1958, τον σύντομο παρελθοντικό- παροντικό και μελλοντικό χρόνο
που συμπυκνώνει την δράση του τώρα παράλληλα με εκτεταμένες αναδρομές.
Η προοπτικότητα της ενθύμησης ( Νίτσε) μας οδηγεί
σε μια πολυπρισματική θέαση προσληπτικής ικανότητας για τα παρελθοντικά γεγονότα σχετικά με το αν θα γίνει ποτέ συμβατή η θέση του θύτη και η θέση του θύματος. Φυσικά τα ψυχικά τραύματα και η εγκληματικών εμπειριών επενεργούν στο τώρα και επηρεάζουν σαρωτικά την όχι πάντα αγαστή συνεργασία μεταξύ μνήμης και ιστοριογραφίας.
Έχουμε μέσω μιας γερμανικής οικογένειας και πολλών δορυφορικών ρόλων μία παρελθοντική διερεύνηση ώστε να ανακαλείται η ιστορία της Γερμανίας απο την αρχή του αιώνα μέχρι και το μυθοπλαστικό μερίδιο της τρίτης γενιάς σαν μια στρωματογραφία αναμνήσεων
που ως αναδρομή χρησιμοποιείται με πολύ ουσιαστικό τροπο και δεν υπολείπεται ούτε επουλώνει ψυχικά τραύματα στις γενιές του μπιλιάρδου, οι οποίες και
είναι άρρηκτα συνδεδεμένες μεταξύ τους όπως και
με κάθε αντικατάσταση διαζευκτικού ή συμπλεγματικού φαινομένου.
Κάπως έτσι, γίνεται απο τον Μπελ ένας αριστουργηματικός συνδυασμός ειδών.
Η λογοτεχνία των «χαλασμάτων και των καταστροφών» που γεννάει ένα μυθιστόρημα «υπαρξιακού γενεαλογικού» ορίζοντα.
Το μυστικό εργαλείο της νόησης για να διαχειριστεί
��ε επιτυχία τις κουλτούρες μνήμης είναι η σωστή συναισθηματική επεξεργασία του παρελθόντος,
η οποία έχει τελετουργικά αρνηθεί την παραμόρφωση που γεννάται όταν εφορμά ανάμεσα σε παρόν και παρελθόν η πλημμελής διαλεκτική και συνδέει με ικανότητα λήθης - α-λήθειας τον αποσπασματικό χρόνο, τα επεισόδια της ύπαρξης σε ένα συνειδητό όλον.
Το μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι είναι
ένα έργο που δίνει εναύσματα για να γραφτούν πολλά σχετικά, ουσιαστικά, μεταφορικά, μπρος, πίσω
και γύρω απο αυτό.
Είναι οικουμενική προσέγγιση της
ατομικής- επικοινωνιακής μνήμης, ένα δυνατό επίπεδο ψηλά στην ιεραρχία ανάκλησης του παρελθόντος ως προς το κοινωνικό εύρος.
Το κύριο χαρακτηριστικό του έγκειται στην βιωματική μνημονική κοινότητα τριών γενεών της οικογένειας Φαίμελ, με χρονική διάρκεια 80 - 100 χρόνια.
Ο υπαρξιακός χωροχρονικός ορίζοντας που υπογραμμίζει την οικογενειακή σάγκα συμπίπτει με πολύ σπουδαία ιστορικά τμήματα της Γερμανίας:
Εθνικισμός του Βιλχελμινισμού, Α’Π�, δημοκρατία της Βαϊμάρης, (ονομασία του πολιτεύματος της Γερμανίας από το 1919 έως την άνοδο στην εξουσία της Ναζιστικής Γερμανίας του Χίτλερ το 1933) εθνικοσοσιαλισμός, Β’Π�, κατάρρευση της Γερμανίας, μεταπολεμική περίοδος.
Οι ερμηνείες τέτοιων λογοτεχνικών έργων προϋποθέτουν κοινωνική συνειδητότητα απέναντι
στην ιστορική μοίρα και ως εκ τούτου μπορεί να προκύψει ατομικό ερμηνευτικό αμάλγαμα συνδυαστικά με τους ορίζοντες του αναγνώστη ή παραδοχή τραγικών καταστάσεων και εποχών που σταμπάρουν με καυτό σίδερο χρόνια σύνδρομα μετατραυματικά,
με τα αποτυπώματα του θύτη να ορίζουν ανθρώπους θύματα μιας σκληρής μοίρας, μιας ανελέητης μνήμης και ενός παρελθοντικού ολοκαυτώματος που αποτελεί βασικό ορόσημα στα σαθρά θεμέλια της ιστορίας.
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς
January 10, 2022
Αναμφίβολα ένα βιβλίο σταθμός με πολλούς παράγοντες, του πότε γράφτηκε, με ποιόν τρόπο γράφτηκε και το πόσο επίκαιρο μοιάζει τώρα αλλά και τις προηγούμενες δεκαετίες. Θα το απολαύσω περισσότερο όταν το διαβάσω ξανά για δεύτερης φορά. Αγαπημένη η αφήγηση της Γιοχάνα Φαίμελ.
July 19, 2016
Some of the most beautiful writing ever in this book: "Don't encourage the frozen memory to thaw; such frost flowers would only turn into dull dirty water and run down the pane. Evoke nothing, never expect to bring back childhood's austerity of feeling in adult souls grown soft..."
Memory can be messy. What a father remembers may look completely different from how a son remembers it. This is especially true with a war thrown into the mix because suddenly the world stands on it's head and spins backwards - especially if that war took place in Germany. Billiards is about one German family, specifically three generations of men in the family- all architects- who build, demolish, and rebuild over the course of the war. However, don't be fooled by simple explanations. this book is SO much more than the actual events that took place because the story unravels as each of the characters take their turn to detail the inner ramblings of their mind's past. Each point of view tells part of the past which becomes relevant on one present day and centers around St. Anthony Abbey.
Billiards is one of the most stylistically brilliant books I have ever read. Read this book like you would eat an expensive fillet. Boll's sentences must be chewed thoroughly and savored. Throughout this book I was slightly confused trying to piece the names, places and events together. Do not read this book if you enjoy being told EXACTLY what to think by an author. Instead, this book does an excellent job making you feel like a confused outsider- much like the characters felt surviving in Nazi Germany. The story starts to make sense a little more than halfway through. Read this book if you enjoyed Memento.
Memory can be messy. What a father remembers may look completely different from how a son remembers it. This is especially true with a war thrown into the mix because suddenly the world stands on it's head and spins backwards - especially if that war took place in Germany. Billiards is about one German family, specifically three generations of men in the family- all architects- who build, demolish, and rebuild over the course of the war. However, don't be fooled by simple explanations. this book is SO much more than the actual events that took place because the story unravels as each of the characters take their turn to detail the inner ramblings of their mind's past. Each point of view tells part of the past which becomes relevant on one present day and centers around St. Anthony Abbey.
Billiards is one of the most stylistically brilliant books I have ever read. Read this book like you would eat an expensive fillet. Boll's sentences must be chewed thoroughly and savored. Throughout this book I was slightly confused trying to piece the names, places and events together. Do not read this book if you enjoy being told EXACTLY what to think by an author. Instead, this book does an excellent job making you feel like a confused outsider- much like the characters felt surviving in Nazi Germany. The story starts to make sense a little more than halfway through. Read this book if you enjoyed Memento.
October 8, 2020
به نام او
🔹️اگ� از من بپرسند که آیا بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم برای ورود به دنیای هاینریش بل -این نویسنده بزرگ معاصر- مناسب است؟ میگوی�: به هیچوج�
🔸️بیلیار� در ساعت نه و نیم رمان خوبیس� ولی معرّف خوبی برای هاینریش بُل نیست. تجربه متفاوتی در کارنامه این داستانگویِ آلمانیس� و از لحاظ فرمی با دیگر آثاراش تفاوت دارد، البته بُل در کُل تجربهگراس� و تقریباً در هر اثرش فرم و ژانرِ متفاوتی را تجربه میکند� فیالمث� به سختی میتوا� پذیرفت که نویسنده عقاید یک دلقک و سیمای زنی در میان جمع یک نفر است. یکی با ضرباهنگی ُکند و تا حدود زیادی ملالآو� (که البته در فرم جواب داده و جزو هنرنماییها� بُل به حساب میآی�) و با شخصیتهایی کم و داستانی ابزورد و دیگری با ضرباهنگی سریع و رویدادهایی متوالی، شخصیتهای فراوان که با طنزی هنرمندانه روایت میشو�. با این وجود "بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم" متفاوتتری� اثر در بین شاهکارهای اوست
🔸️داستا� از لحاظ تعدد شخصیتها و ضرباهنگ سریع به سیمای زنی ... شباهت دارد ولی از لحاظ روایی به کل متفاوت است و میتوا� در گونه رمان پست مدرن که به شیوه غیرخطی و سیال ذهن روایت میشود� جایش داد. در بسیاری از جاها به سختی میتوا� سرنخ روایی داستان را گم نکرد و با آن همراه شد خصوصا در نیمه اوّل داستان که چه بسا برای ذوقها� تربیت نیافته خستهکنند� است�. و چنین کسانی به احتمال زیاد از این نیمه نگذشته و کتاب را رها میکنن�. به همین خاطر است که میگوی� بیلیارد ... کتاب خوبی برای ورود به دنیای بُل نیست.
این کتاب را که زودتر از تمامی آثار مطرح این نویسنده، نوشته شده است به نوعی میتوا� پنجه در پنجه افکندن بُل با فُرم دانست. و به نظر من چنین تجربها� باعث شده که او کتابهای بعدیش به توفیق برسد و شاهکارهایش را خلق کند.
🔸️القص� اگر آثار مهم بُل مثلِ عقاید یک دلقک، سیمای زنی در میان جمع و آبروی از دست رفته کاترینا بلوم را خواندهاید� این کتاب را از دست ندهید. تا با تصویرسازیها� یک نابغه آلمانی از سالهای پس از جنگ جهانی روبرو شوید.
در آخر اینکه ترجمه مرحوم کیکاوس جهانداری نیز بسیار دلنشین و خواندنیس�.
🔹️اگ� از من بپرسند که آیا بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم برای ورود به دنیای هاینریش بل -این نویسنده بزرگ معاصر- مناسب است؟ میگوی�: به هیچوج�
🔸️بیلیار� در ساعت نه و نیم رمان خوبیس� ولی معرّف خوبی برای هاینریش بُل نیست. تجربه متفاوتی در کارنامه این داستانگویِ آلمانیس� و از لحاظ فرمی با دیگر آثاراش تفاوت دارد، البته بُل در کُل تجربهگراس� و تقریباً در هر اثرش فرم و ژانرِ متفاوتی را تجربه میکند� فیالمث� به سختی میتوا� پذیرفت که نویسنده عقاید یک دلقک و سیمای زنی در میان جمع یک نفر است. یکی با ضرباهنگی ُکند و تا حدود زیادی ملالآو� (که البته در فرم جواب داده و جزو هنرنماییها� بُل به حساب میآی�) و با شخصیتهایی کم و داستانی ابزورد و دیگری با ضرباهنگی سریع و رویدادهایی متوالی، شخصیتهای فراوان که با طنزی هنرمندانه روایت میشو�. با این وجود "بیلیارد در ساعت نه و نیم" متفاوتتری� اثر در بین شاهکارهای اوست
🔸️داستا� از لحاظ تعدد شخصیتها و ضرباهنگ سریع به سیمای زنی ... شباهت دارد ولی از لحاظ روایی به کل متفاوت است و میتوا� در گونه رمان پست مدرن که به شیوه غیرخطی و سیال ذهن روایت میشود� جایش داد. در بسیاری از جاها به سختی میتوا� سرنخ روایی داستان را گم نکرد و با آن همراه شد خصوصا در نیمه اوّل داستان که چه بسا برای ذوقها� تربیت نیافته خستهکنند� است�. و چنین کسانی به احتمال زیاد از این نیمه نگذشته و کتاب را رها میکنن�. به همین خاطر است که میگوی� بیلیارد ... کتاب خوبی برای ورود به دنیای بُل نیست.
این کتاب را که زودتر از تمامی آثار مطرح این نویسنده، نوشته شده است به نوعی میتوا� پنجه در پنجه افکندن بُل با فُرم دانست. و به نظر من چنین تجربها� باعث شده که او کتابهای بعدیش به توفیق برسد و شاهکارهایش را خلق کند.
🔸️القص� اگر آثار مهم بُل مثلِ عقاید یک دلقک، سیمای زنی در میان جمع و آبروی از دست رفته کاترینا بلوم را خواندهاید� این کتاب را از دست ندهید. تا با تصویرسازیها� یک نابغه آلمانی از سالهای پس از جنگ جهانی روبرو شوید.
در آخر اینکه ترجمه مرحوم کیکاوس جهانداری نیز بسیار دلنشین و خواندنیس�.
February 15, 2021
TL;DR: It's a family reunion for Grandpa's birthday party despite the trauma of Nazi Germany.
I think it's best we start with my copy of the book itself.
I read the 1961 First Edition translation of this book, on library loan. You'll see from the image above, a set of pages at the end have been torn out, very cleanly. This is very odd. I've read about a hundred, much older First edition books from McGill University library and this has never happened before. If pages are torn, it is not directly from the spine, and someone usually tapes them back in.
There's a funny and sad explanation to these torn pages. Those pages happen to be the only action scene in this book. Right at the end, a bullet is fired. The funny explanation is that the reader, much like I did, read those pages so frantically they accidentally tore the pages out! The sad explanation is that because the Nazis were on one side of that bullet (I shan't say which side), this was of outrage.
�
It's clear to me that Heinrich Böll deserved the Nobel Prize in 1972. This is a 4* book to me as it's not accessible, innovative or varied enough � but as a historical book it is a 5*. Even the Nobel committee agree with me that Böll isn't doing anything spectacular in terms of writing style.
The renewal of German literature, to which Heinrich Böll’s achievements witness, and of which they are a significant part, is not an experiment with form � a drowning man scorns the butterfly stroke. Instead it is a rebirth out of annihilation, a resurrection, a culture which, ravaged by icy nights and condemned to extinction, sends up new shoots, blossoms, and matures to the joy and benefit of us all. Such was the kind of work Alfred Nobel wished his Prize to reward.
But it's just the fact that he's so boldly and directly calling out Nazis and their remnants for the ruin of German culture in 1957. This is his only work in Harold Bloom's Western Canon, so I guess Bloom would suggest that whatever worth the Nobel committee saw in him, it was in this book.
I immediately drew parallels between this book and other Nobel prize winners I'd read � Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Gabriel García Marquez's The General In His Labyrinth (his less romantic, political novels...). To be explicit here, much like Beloved, this book continuously is told through the memories of its characters and keeps switching narrator � and much like Marquez in general, it explores a family's development through time. So together this means the narrative of this book is quite disorientating, but I think it's to show the effect of war and to make the structure so complex so that the story can be as slow as it wants to be (the length of a day). So, like these other books, Billiards at Half-Past Nine is exploring the history of a nation through the traumatic past of its common people. It's attempting to formalize a time period, it's historical fiction written close to the time it depicts and so is a historical record as far as I'm concerned. And like these other works, it calls for compassion and humanity against an oppressive sociocultural setting.
As other reviews have pointed out, Hitler and the Jews aren't called by name, but certain people are being attacked by those in command. The commander is Hindenburg, who is often referred to as 'the Host of the Beast', who this book is damning as the cause of Nazi Germany. In one of the quotes I've kept, it is late in the story suggested that people either take from God or the Host of the Beast, which is the only explicit suggestion (in addition to continuous implicit suggestions) by Böll that Nazism and German Christianity were at odds were one another.
And similarly, a theme here is 'building' for 'building a community' out of the wreckage of postwar Germany, and the Church here represents what the Cathedral represents in Raymond Carver's 'Cathedral' � a great famous short story calling for a sincerity similarly lost in postwar America. The living find community in buildings � the Church, the café, the hotel, even the asylum � and the streets are where the soldiers walk. The inside and the outside of Germany are metaphors for the civilians and the soldiers. And the romance of war in Germany reminds me of that of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement', except here we're seeing that even the civilians who stayed home had their love or lovers thwarted.
Billiards at Half-Past Nine is less about billiards, and more about Half-Past Nine. Resistance to totalitarian authority is a militantly benign routine. A rigid routine, as we might call 'Aspergers-like', a lifestyle of eating paprika cheese at a café every day at the same time, or playing billiards at the same hotel every day at the same time, is how you avoid being consumed by a society that wants to destroy your sense of humanity. This is a story of passive and covert resistance against Nazis by disenfranchised German civilians. As a neurobiologist it does make me wonder whether the evolutionary root of compulsive behaviours is a byproduct of societies, to oppose tyrannical social systems.
In my current series looking at Nazi Germany we see here that, from my GoodReads quotes, 'subjective reason' is operating at the level of who the Nazis would attack, and how it related to the physical and spiritual loss of Christianity. The very end of this novel tells us that effort is required for a peaceful, loving community � that family and God requires toils and sacrifice � but it suggests to us that it is worth the cost. It impels us not to be cynical about love, trust and death.
What makes me think that it's main theme is religion vs. war are the repeated italic statements throughout the book. There are four repeated, italicized (sic) phrases found in this book about those that did not resist the Nazis. Three of which have religious or Biblical origins, all of which I've put in []s.
Firm in compassion the eternal heart [Holderlein's Hymns]
Their right hands have bribes [Psalm 26:10]
The Host of the Beast [Revelation 13:5�8]
How weary, weary these old bones. [Es zittern die morschen Knochen; Nazi song about destruction]
That said I don't think it's arguing strictly against disestablishmentarianism. It's more clearly arguing against the hypocrisy of a Christian nation waging war, or the extreme hypocrisy of a Christian nation that would destroy a Church for the sake of a war. There are mixed feelings about the Church throughout the family, but it is more a matter of forgiveness, vengeance and atonement � perhaps these are the feelings of the Grandfather, the father and son of this German family, embodied. That may even be a reference to the Holy Trinity in some way but the meaning is too abstract and escapes me and I can't bring it into meaning right now...
And so while this story is a very slow, disorientating burn, very much like Toni Morrison's Beloved, while reading it, one becomes aware that it is trying to make an open and strong morale about how to be. Isn't it strange how there are so few stories which historically document the public condemnation of social atrocities? Books which try capture how 'the people' felt, rather than one naval-gazing protagonist?
Why have we not, through fiction or otherwise, explored and reflected on the root causes of historical eras of radical discrimination? Why is it still a blur that hatred exists, and villains are so contrived in fiction and alien from, say, the Nazi soldier just following orders. Why do we read so many stories of sheltered contemporary Western lifestyles � are we afraid or unwilling to learn about why and how things like this happen? These are more questions for me than for you, but it's odd to me that they aren't questions I hear or see very often. This book makes me realize fiction can do this, and I don't know why that which does, is not popular now or then.
So yes, it's a no-thrills, slow book about surviving in a country where nobody trusts its rulers. If historical fiction doesn't interest you, or a book with no central character and continuous changes between time and narrator, then avoid this. But the sentences are rich, there is great passion and thought behind it. The ending does get intense with the bullet, but it's not the point. And the ending, now that I think about it, is quite splendid.
December 14, 2015
فرم کتاب را میپسند�. تغییر زاویه دید و جابهجای� مُدام آن میان یک عالمه شخصیت که همهشا� زندگی پر فراز و نشیبی هم داشتهان�. در واقع مشکلا� با داستان است. درست که دارد به جنگ میپرداز� اما خط داستانی مشخصی وجود ندارد و کُنشی اتفاق نمیافت�. همهچی� در گذشته اتفاق افتاده و تمام شده. شخصیته� زندگیشا� را برای مُنشی یا پادوی هتل تعریف میکنن� اما خواننده که منشی و پادوی هتل نیست که مجبور باشد به وراجی آنه� گوش دهد بی آنک� بداند قرار است این خاطرات به کجا برسند! انرژی داستان در صد صفحه� ابتدایی فروکش میکن� و انگار احساس میکن� قرار نیست جز بازشنویی وقایع زندگی آدمها� این خاندانِ درگیر جنگ، چیز دیگری دستت را بگیرد.
June 20, 2019
Jedan dan (6. septembar 1958) u životu tri generacije Femela, arhitektonske porodice, sa flešbekovima na bitna dešavanja u različite godine od 1907 nadalje. Dva rata, građenja i razaranja, pola veka nemačke istorije prepričane kroz oči prosečne porodice iz prosečnog nemačkog gradića. Prvi svetski rat, gomila smrti povezanih i nepoivezanih ratovima, izgradnja, uspon nacizma (Bel doduše ne koristi reč "nacizam", kao ni "Hitler") te ponovna izgradnja, napredak, ali i hipokrizija nemačkog društva nakon rata (čuveni posleratni "Gde su odjednom svi nacisti?!").
Bilijar u pola deset je ispričan u 13 poglavlja i kao takav relativno kratak, ali se ne čita lako. Bel menja pripovedače iz poglavlja u poglavlje, i to zbunjuje. Ponekad ti treba nekoliko strana da pohvataš ko sada priča. Prepričavajući opšta istorijska dešavanja, koristi i čudne metafore, koje su možda jasne nemačkom čitaocu iz 60-ih, ali meni ne uvek. Poštovaoci "sakramenta bivola" (nacisti) protiv "jaganjca božjih" (pacifisti, borci za mir), slavljenje Hindenburga umesto Hitlera, ponavljanje o "crvenom na zelenom i belom na zelenom" i metafore vezane na igru bilijara... Neke stvari ostaju nejasne do kraja, a priča je fragmentarna i ne fokusira se na bitna dešavanja, već na epizode iz života naših "jaganjaca".
Sve u svemu, Bilijar me je poprilično nervirao i zakleo bih se da ne zaslužuje više od 3/5. Međutim, većina stvari nekako sedne na svoje mesto. Mozaik se popunjava, i iako priča ostaje puna rupa, na kraju su likovi potpuno jasni, kao i (barem u grubim crtama) poruka koju Bel želi da pošalje. A ima tu i rečenica koje je vredelo posebno označiti.
Skoro sam pročitao i , poznatije delo slične tematike Gintera Grasa. Bilijar mi se više dopao, ali ipak i dalje čekam svoj veliki nemački roman na tematiku drugog svetskog rata.
Bilijar u pola deset je ispričan u 13 poglavlja i kao takav relativno kratak, ali se ne čita lako. Bel menja pripovedače iz poglavlja u poglavlje, i to zbunjuje. Ponekad ti treba nekoliko strana da pohvataš ko sada priča. Prepričavajući opšta istorijska dešavanja, koristi i čudne metafore, koje su možda jasne nemačkom čitaocu iz 60-ih, ali meni ne uvek. Poštovaoci "sakramenta bivola" (nacisti) protiv "jaganjca božjih" (pacifisti, borci za mir), slavljenje Hindenburga umesto Hitlera, ponavljanje o "crvenom na zelenom i belom na zelenom" i metafore vezane na igru bilijara... Neke stvari ostaju nejasne do kraja, a priča je fragmentarna i ne fokusira se na bitna dešavanja, već na epizode iz života naših "jaganjaca".
Sve u svemu, Bilijar me je poprilično nervirao i zakleo bih se da ne zaslužuje više od 3/5. Međutim, većina stvari nekako sedne na svoje mesto. Mozaik se popunjava, i iako priča ostaje puna rupa, na kraju su likovi potpuno jasni, kao i (barem u grubim crtama) poruka koju Bel želi da pošalje. A ima tu i rečenica koje je vredelo posebno označiti.
Skoro sam pročitao i , poznatije delo slične tematike Gintera Grasa. Bilijar mi se više dopao, ali ipak i dalje čekam svoj veliki nemački roman na tematiku drugog svetskog rata.
August 6, 2022
“Haven’t you left your hotel room yet?�
“No.�, “Don’t you want to live with us?�
“I don’t know yet,� said Schrella. “I’m afraid of houses you move into, then let yourself be convinced of the banal fact that life goes on and that you get used to anything in time. Ferdi would only be a memory, and my father only a dream. And yet they killed Ferdi, and his father vanished from here without a trace. They’re not even remembered in the lists of any political organization, since they never belonged to any. They aren’t even remembered in the Jewish memorial services, since they weren’t Jews. Ferdi, perhaps, lives on at least in the court records. Only we two think of him, Robert, your parents and that old desk clerk down there—not even your children, any longer. I can’t live in this city because it isn’t alien enough for me. I was born here and went to school here. I tried to free Gruffel Street from their spell. I carried within me the word I never uttered, Robert, never even when I talked to you, the only one that I expect to do anything for this world -I won’t even say it now. Perhaps I’ll be able to say it to you at the station, when you take me to the train.�
“No.�, “Don’t you want to live with us?�
“I don’t know yet,� said Schrella. “I’m afraid of houses you move into, then let yourself be convinced of the banal fact that life goes on and that you get used to anything in time. Ferdi would only be a memory, and my father only a dream. And yet they killed Ferdi, and his father vanished from here without a trace. They’re not even remembered in the lists of any political organization, since they never belonged to any. They aren’t even remembered in the Jewish memorial services, since they weren’t Jews. Ferdi, perhaps, lives on at least in the court records. Only we two think of him, Robert, your parents and that old desk clerk down there—not even your children, any longer. I can’t live in this city because it isn’t alien enough for me. I was born here and went to school here. I tried to free Gruffel Street from their spell. I carried within me the word I never uttered, Robert, never even when I talked to you, the only one that I expect to do anything for this world -I won’t even say it now. Perhaps I’ll be able to say it to you at the station, when you take me to the train.�
December 6, 2018
Είχα από μικρή αδυναμία στον Χάινριχ Μπελ, για χρόνια «Οι απόψεις ενός κλόουν» περιλαμβάνονταν στις λίστες με τα αγαπημένα μου βιβλία, "Η χαμένη τιμή της Καταρίνα Μπλουμ" είναι από τα λίγα βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει και στο πρωτότυπο. Όμως μετά την ανάγνωση του "Ομαδικού πορτρέτου για μία κυρία" και τώρα του "Μπιλιάρδου στις εννιάμισι" νομίζω πως καταλαβαίνω τη σημασία του σε όλο της το αντιπολεμικό μεγαλείο.
Ο Χάινριχ Μπελ ήταν στη Γερμανία από τις σταθερά αντιναζιστικές φωνές, αν και δεν γλίτωσε τη στράτευση στον Β� Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, όπου έχασε και τα δάχτυλα των ποδιών του από κρυοπαγήματα. Δεν σταμάτησε ποτέ να υποστηρίζει πως υπήρχε και μια άλλη Γερμανία που δεν υποτάχτηκε στο Ναζισμό, κι έβλεπε πάντοτε ύποπτα την ευκολία με την οποία μεταπολεμικά η χώρα του μετατράπηκε σε ένα κράτος «Δημοκρατών». Ήθελε οι συμπατριώτες του να θυμούνται, να ξέρουν τι έγινε, να μπορούν να ξεχωρίσουν ποιος είναι ποιος. Στις δεκαετίες του '50 και του '60 οι Γερμανοί βάλθηκαν να ξεχάσουν, όμως η επόμενη γενιά επανέφερε τη μνήμη, έδωσε φωνή στα φάντασματα κι έδωσε το έναυσμα για να το ξορκίσουν. Αυτά τα χρόνια της λήθης και της σιωπής, ο Μπελ δεν σταμάτησε να μιλά για αυτό που συνέβη, δεν έπαψε ποτέ να θυμάται.
Η πλοκή στο «Μπιλιάρδο» εκτυλίσσεται όλη μέσα σε μία μέρα, την 6η Σεπτεμβρίου 1958, μέρα των γενεθλίων του Χάινριχ Φαίμελ, ογδοντάχρονου περιώνυμου αρχιτέκτονα που έκτισε με μανία ένα σωρό κτήρια. Ο Φαίμελ είναι ένας άνθρωπος που έχασε τα δύο πρώτα παιδιά του νωρίς, ενώ το τέταρτο και τελευταίο, ο Όττο, πήρε «τη μετάληψη του βούβαλου» κι είχε πεθάνει για κείνον πολύ πριν σκοτωθεί στον πόλεμο. Εν ζωή είναι μόνο το τρίτο του παιδί, ο Ρόμπερτ, εξαιρετικός Στατικός, που στον Πόλεμο ανατίναζε κτήρια. Ένας άντρας που δεν έλαβε ποτέ τη μετάληψη του βούβαλου, παρέμεινε για πάντα «αμνός», κι είδε τη ζωή του να καταστρέφεται. Παίζει μπιλιάρδο κάθε πρωί στις εννιάμισι στο ξενοδοχείο «Πρίγκηψ Χάινριχ», μιλά μόνον στον νεαρό γκρουμ Χιούγκο, και ζει τόσο αποξενωμένος από τον ίδιο του τον εαυτό, που μοιάζει παγωμένος. Ο γιος του Ρόμπερτ, και εγγονός του Χάινριχ, είναι κι αυτός αρχιτέκτονας, αλλά κάτι τον εμποδίζει να χτίσει ξανά το αβαείο του Αγίου Αντωνίου που έχτισε ο παππούς κι ανατίναξε ο πατέρας του.
Ο Χίτλερ και ο Ναζισμός δεν αναφέρονται ποτέ ονομαστικά στο βιβλίο, όμως κυριαρχούν στο μυαλό όλων, ορίζουν τη ζωή τους στο σήμερα, ακόμα και των νεότερων, των εγγονών. Αυτοί που ήταν Ναζιστές τότε, αυτοί που κυνήγησαν, κατέδωσαν, βασάνισαν, παρέμειναν ατιμώρητοι. Κάποιοι μάλιστα νομίζουν πως μπορούν να γίνουν και φίλοι με αυτούς που κάποτε κατεδίωξαν και τους τσάκισαν τη ζωή. Το Μπιλιάρδο είναι ένα μυθιστόρημα για τη μνήμη, για την ευκολία των ανθρώπων να ξεχνούν, τουλάχιστον σε ένα πρώτο επίπεδο. Για τον τρόπο που έχει η ζωή να εκδικείται και να θυμάται, για τη λογική, την τρέλα, τα σχέδια των ανθρώπων που γκρεμίζονται και μετά δύσκολα ανοικοδομούνται. Οι Φαίμελ, αρχιτέκτονες, στατικοί και ανατιναχτές, συμβολίζουν όλη την Γερμανία, κάθε γενιά στη σειρά της.
Αφηγηματικά, το βιβλίο μοιάζει κατακερματισμένο, με συνεχή φλας μπακ σε μνήμες, πότε του πατέρα, πότε του παππού, πότε του εγγονού. Ο συγγραφέας παίζει με τον χρόνο, τον κατακρεουργεί για να μπορέσει να κατανοήσει τι είναι αυτό που συνέβη, και πώς μπορεί να το ξορκίσει. Οι πρωτοπρόσωπες αφηγήσεις εναλλάσσονται η μία μετά την άλλη, ο αναγνώστης χρειάζεται ανά πάσα στιγμή να προσαρμοστεί, να καταλάβει ποιος μιλάει και για ποια εποχή. Αυτό δίνει υπεροχή στο κείμενο, και βάθος στους χαρακτήρες, μπορούμε να τους δούμε ταυτόχρονα και στο παρόν και στο παρελθόν κι από πολλές οπτικές γωνίες- μέσα και έξω τους. Ταυτόχρονα αυξάνει τον δείκτη δυσκολίας της ανάγνωσης, και καθιστά το "Μπιλιάρδο" ένα αφηγηματικό επίτευγμα που λίγοι συγγραφείς έχουν κατορθώσει.
Ο Χάινριχ Μπελ, εν αντιθέσει με πολλούς Γερμανούς συγγραφείς ούτε υποτάχτηκε στο Ναζιστικό καθεστώς, ούτε αυτοεξορίστηκε. Δεν ξέχασε, δεν ξέφυγε, τον όρισε ο πόλεμος. Αντίθετα, δημιούργησε έργα Τέχνης, μίλησε για τη ζωή του, για το πως είναι να είσαι «αμνός», ανοιχτόμυαλος, ανεκτικός, δημοκρατικός, σε ένα μέρος και σε μια εποχή που κυριαρχεί το Κακό, και παρέδωσε στην επόμενη γενιά μια σοβαρή παρακαταθήκη. Χρέος μας είναι να τον διαβάσουμε, να τον καταλάβουμε και να μην επαναλάβουμε τη φάρσα της Ιστορίας.
May 26, 2021
Μια οικογένεια, τρεις γενιές, μια μέρα αφηγήσεων, τρεις πορείες ζωής.
Βρισκόμαστε σε μια πόλη της Γερμανίας στις 6 Σεπτεμβρίου 1958, ημέρα γενεθλίων του ογδοντάχρονου πατριάρχη της οικογένειας Φαίμελ. Τη μέρα αυτή διαδραματίζεται η εξιστόρηση της πορείας αυτής της οικογένειας κατά το πρώτο μισό του εικοστού αιώνα.
Μέσα από τις 13 ενότητες του, τα πρόσωπα του μυθιστορήματος, ��ιαδοχικά, καταθέτουν τις μνήμες τους.
Κοινό σημείο αναφοράς το αββαείο του Αγίου Αντωνίου, το οποίο ήταν το πρώτο έργο που ανέλαβε ο αρχιτέκτονας πατριάρχης Φαίμελ το 1908. Αυτό καθόρισε την επαγγελματική του σταδιοδρομία και την εξέλιξη της οικογένειας.
Ο υιός "Δρ. Ρόμπερτ Φαίμελ, γραφείο Στατικών μελετών ", είναι ειδικός στις κατεδαφίσεις και ανατινάξεις κτισμάτων. Η ζωή του απόλυτα οργανωμένη με συγκεκριμένο πρόγραμμα και ιεροτελεστίες. Μια εξ αυτών, η επίσκεψη του στο ξενοδοχείο Πρίγκιψ Χάινριχ όπου παίζει μπιλιάρδο καθημερινά από τις εννιάμισι έως τις έντεκα. Κάθε πρωί για μιάμιση ώρα έρχεται αντιμέτωπος με τις μνήμες των ζοφερών χρόνων.
Ο εγγονός Γιόζεφ, ακολουθεί τα βήματα του παππού, γίνεται αρχιτέκτονας και αναλαμβάνει την ανοικοδόμηση του αββαείου μετά την καταστροφή του το 1945. Εκεί στα ερείπια του αββαείου ανακαλύπτει την ταυτότητα του υπεύθυνου για την ανατίναξή του.
Η μητέρα-γιαγιά της οικογένειας, έγκλειστη σε ψυχιατρική κλινική, έχοντας λυγίσει από τις απώλειες, διατηρώντας καθαρές μνήμες πόνου, ντροπής, ενοχής, αποζητά την τιμωρία του "βούβαλου", κατευθυνόμενη από ένα ασίγαστο αίσθημα απόδοσης δικαιοσύνης.
Τρεις φάσεις της πολιτικοκοινωνικής ζωής στη Γερμανία περιγράφονται μέσα από την πορεία αυτών των τριών γενεών.
Δύο παγκόσμιοι πόλεμοι και η μεταπολεμική περίοδος.
Μια Γερμανία ρημαγμένη από τον Α'ΠΠ προσπαθεί να αναστυλωθεί. Ακολουθούν ο ναζισμός στην εξουσία και ο καταστροφικός Β'ΠΠ που θα αφήσει τη χώρα πληγωμένη, κατεστραμμένη οικονομικά και ηθικά.
Η επόμενη γενιά που στέκεται στα ερείπια, αναμετράται με το παρελθόν και παλεύει να ονειρευτεί και να χτίσει το μέλλον.
Βασικά στοιχεία που θίγει ο συγγραφέας είναι οι ευθύνες, οι πληγές, οι μνήμες, η λήθη.
Ένας λαός που τον βαραίνουν εγκλήματα κατά της ανθρωπότητας, μια προσπάθεια επούλωσης και λήθης ώστε να υπάρξουν. Όσα έζησε ο Γερμανός πολίτης, αυτός που κλήθηκε να επιλέξει κάτω από δύσκολες συνθήκες, να παρασυρθεί, να μετατραπεί σε μη ον,να θέσει εαυτόν υπό τον έλεγχο του Γ' Ράιχ.
Οι ενοχές όσων έμειναν αδρανείς, συναινώντας σιωπηλά.
Το δυσβάσταχτο φορτίο που επωμίστηκαν όσοι αντιστάθηκαν, όσοι αρνήθηκαν να συμμετέχουν στο "όραμα" του ηγέτη.
Οι άνθρωποι που ασπάστηκαν τον ναζισμό, έλαβαν τη "μετάληψη του βούβαλου", και αυτοί που αντιστάθηκαν, "οι αμνοί" , όπως χαρακτηριστικά τους ονομάζει ο συγγραφέας.
Οι λέξεις είναι μνήμες και ο Μπελ σκοπίμως δεν αναφέρει τον ναζισμό και τον Χίτλερ επιδιώκοντας τη λήθη.
Βρισκόμαστε σε μια πόλη της Γερμανίας στις 6 Σεπτεμβρίου 1958, ημέρα γενεθλίων του ογδοντάχρονου πατριάρχη της οικογένειας Φαίμελ. Τη μέρα αυτή διαδραματίζεται η εξιστόρηση της πορείας αυτής της οικογένειας κατά το πρώτο μισό του εικοστού αιώνα.
Μέσα από τις 13 ενότητες του, τα πρόσωπα του μυθιστορήματος, ��ιαδοχικά, καταθέτουν τις μνήμες τους.
Κοινό σημείο αναφοράς το αββαείο του Αγίου Αντωνίου, το οποίο ήταν το πρώτο έργο που ανέλαβε ο αρχιτέκτονας πατριάρχης Φαίμελ το 1908. Αυτό καθόρισε την επαγγελματική του σταδιοδρομία και την εξέλιξη της οικογένειας.
Ο υιός "Δρ. Ρόμπερτ Φαίμελ, γραφείο Στατικών μελετών ", είναι ειδικός στις κατεδαφίσεις και ανατινάξεις κτισμάτων. Η ζωή του απόλυτα οργανωμένη με συγκεκριμένο πρόγραμμα και ιεροτελεστίες. Μια εξ αυτών, η επίσκεψη του στο ξενοδοχείο Πρίγκιψ Χάινριχ όπου παίζει μπιλιάρδο καθημερινά από τις εννιάμισι έως τις έντεκα. Κάθε πρωί για μιάμιση ώρα έρχεται αντιμέτωπος με τις μνήμες των ζοφερών χρόνων.
Ο εγγονός Γιόζεφ, ακολουθεί τα βήματα του παππού, γίνεται αρχιτέκτονας και αναλαμβάνει την ανοικοδόμηση του αββαείου μετά την καταστροφή του το 1945. Εκεί στα ερείπια του αββαείου ανακαλύπτει την ταυτότητα του υπεύθυνου για την ανατίναξή του.
Η μητέρα-γιαγιά της οικογένειας, έγκλειστη σε ψυχιατρική κλινική, έχοντας λυγίσει από τις απώλειες, διατηρώντας καθαρές μνήμες πόνου, ντροπής, ενοχής, αποζητά την τιμωρία του "βούβαλου", κατευθυνόμενη από ένα ασίγαστο αίσθημα απόδοσης δικαιοσύνης.
Τρεις φάσεις της πολιτικοκοινωνικής ζωής στη Γερμανία περιγράφονται μέσα από την πορεία αυτών των τριών γενεών.
Δύο παγκόσμιοι πόλεμοι και η μεταπολεμική περίοδος.
Μια Γερμανία ρημαγμένη από τον Α'ΠΠ προσπαθεί να αναστυλωθεί. Ακολουθούν ο ναζισμός στην εξουσία και ο καταστροφικός Β'ΠΠ που θα αφήσει τη χώρα πληγωμένη, κατεστραμμένη οικονομικά και ηθικά.
Η επόμενη γενιά που στέκεται στα ερείπια, αναμετράται με το παρελθόν και παλεύει να ονειρευτεί και να χτίσει το μέλλον.
Βασικά στοιχεία που θίγει ο συγγραφέας είναι οι ευθύνες, οι πληγές, οι μνήμες, η λήθη.
Ένας λαός που τον βαραίνουν εγκλήματα κατά της ανθρωπότητας, μια προσπάθεια επούλωσης και λήθης ώστε να υπάρξουν. Όσα έζησε ο Γερμανός πολίτης, αυτός που κλήθηκε να επιλέξει κάτω από δύσκολες συνθήκες, να παρασυρθεί, να μετατραπεί σε μη ον,να θέσει εαυτόν υπό τον έλεγχο του Γ' Ράιχ.
Οι ενοχές όσων έμειναν αδρανείς, συναινώντας σιωπηλά.
Το δυσβάσταχτο φορτίο που επωμίστηκαν όσοι αντιστάθηκαν, όσοι αρνήθηκαν να συμμετέχουν στο "όραμα" του ηγέτη.
Οι άνθρωποι που ασπάστηκαν τον ναζισμό, έλαβαν τη "μετάληψη του βούβαλου", και αυτοί που αντιστάθηκαν, "οι αμνοί" , όπως χαρακτηριστικά τους ονομάζει ο συγγραφέας.
Οι λέξεις είναι μνήμες και ο Μπελ σκοπίμως δεν αναφέρει τον ναζισμό και τον Χίτλερ επιδιώκοντας τη λήθη.
October 16, 2018
4,5. Κορυφαίο έργο.
December 29, 2021
«Μπιλιάρδο στις εννιάμισι»
Η χρονιά κλείνει με Μπελ, έναν απαιτητικό συγγραφέα που παίζει με την υπομονή σου κ το μυαλό σου.
Η ιστορία κινείται στο παρόν, παρελθόν και μέλλον.
Η λήθη κατατρύχει τους ήρωες. Άλλοι ζουν μέσα από τις αναμνήσεις, άλλοι ζουν παθητικά στο παρόν. Πρόσωπα που παίζουν μεταβατικό ρόλο από το παρελθόν στο παρόν.
Επίσης, κάποια διαδραματίζουν το ρόλο του εκδικητή. Εναντιώνονται μπροστά στην αδικία.
Παιδιά συντάσσονται στο ναζισμό, γίνονται «βούβαλοι» σπέρνοντας τη φρίκη.
Ένα ανάγνωσμα που χρήζει προσοχής. Υπάρχουν στιγμές που χάνεσαι. Είναι όμως, τόσο μεθυστική η γραφή του που αδυνατείς να το αφήσεις.
Η χρονιά κλείνει με Μπελ, έναν απαιτητικό συγγραφέα που παίζει με την υπομονή σου κ το μυαλό σου.
Η ιστορία κινείται στο παρόν, παρελθόν και μέλλον.
Η λήθη κατατρύχει τους ήρωες. Άλλοι ζουν μέσα από τις αναμνήσεις, άλλοι ζουν παθητικά στο παρόν. Πρόσωπα που παίζουν μεταβατικό ρόλο από το παρελθόν στο παρόν.
Επίσης, κάποια διαδραματίζουν το ρόλο του εκδικητή. Εναντιώνονται μπροστά στην αδικία.
Παιδιά συντάσσονται στο ναζισμό, γίνονται «βούβαλοι» σπέρνοντας τη φρίκη.
Ένα ανάγνωσμα που χρήζει προσοχής. Υπάρχουν στιγμές που χάνεσαι. Είναι όμως, τόσο μεθυστική η γραφή του που αδυνατείς να το αφήσεις.
June 23, 2022
Vermutlich ließ sich daraus ein sehr guter Film drehen, der in klare Bilder fasste, was Böll im Dienste einer mir nicht ersichtlichen Ästhetik oder Aussageabsicht in ein formales Dickicht tunkte. Immer wieder werden schöne und ganz genaue Szenen aufgelöst in lauten Leitmotiven und assoziativen Satz-Blitzen, denen ich schwer folgen konnte.
Es geht übrigens um eine Familien in Zeiten der Nazis und zweier Kriege, um das "Sakrament der Büffel", wie es hier heißt. Ich mag mehr Büffel, weniger Sakrament.
Es geht übrigens um eine Familien in Zeiten der Nazis und zweier Kriege, um das "Sakrament der Büffel", wie es hier heißt. Ich mag mehr Büffel, weniger Sakrament.
March 10, 2024
به نظرم هاینریش بل با نوشتن این کتاب ریسک بزرگی کرد که خب به نظر منتقدین خیلی خوب در اومده ولی برای من که از بل کارهایی دیگری هم خونده و اتفاقا «کتاب عقاید یک دلقک»، «نان سالها� جوانی» و «آبروی از دست رفته کاترینا بلوم» رو دوست داشتم، بیش از حد زیادهگوی� و درهم و برهم بود (به نظرم این کتاب نباید به عنوان معرف هاینریش بل شناخته بشه).
اگر بخوام طوری بنویسم که داستان کتاب لو نره باید بگم که داستان به یک دوره زمانی حدود ۶۰ ساله در تاریخ آلمان مربوط میشه و روایت سه نسل از یک خانواده (پدربزرگ، پدر و پسر) رو شامل میشه. اصل داستان خیلی خوب هست و ایده قشنگی پشتش هست مخصوصا اینکه یکی از افراد مربوط به نسلی هست که میخواد پیشرفت و بزرگی آلمان رو ببینه (بسازن و بسازن و بسازن)، نسلی که یه جورایی باعث شدن هیتلر به قدرت برسه، نسل بعدی در جنگ و آتشافروز� این رویا سوختن (ترجیه میدن این رویا رو خراب کنن و بکوبن و له کنن) و نسل بعدی که دوباره میخوان از خاکسترها، کشور جدیدی رو بسازن.
مجدد میگم خود داستان جذابه، عقب جلو رفتنها� زمانی هم تاحدی خوبه، مشکل از جایی شروع میشه که یخورده در همه چیز زیادهرو� و اغراق میشه، راویه� زیاد هستن و خیلی جاها از دست خواننده خارج میشه که در ذهن روای است یا صحبتی ازش نقل میشه، جملات و پاراگرافه� بعضا طولانی میشن، رفت و برگشتها� زمانی خیلی زیاد میشن، از سمبله� و نشانهه� به صورت اغراق گونه استفاده میشه (برهها� گرگها� سفید، قرمز) و با توجه به شخصیت بل، از متون مذهبی هم رفرنس آورده میشه. قطعا همه اینها از روی عمد بوده و بل میخواسته این حس عدم قطعیت و تلاقی خیال و واقعیت و گذشته و آینده و گیجی و منگی رو به خواننده القا کنه، همزمان هم نقدی به مذهب، فرهنگ و شرایط اون دوره داشته باشه، که در این صورت به نظر من موفق بوده. شاید من ترجیح میدادم تعدادی از راویها� فرعی کمتر میشد بدون اینکه هیچ آسیبی به داستان وارد بشه.
در کل یک بار خوندنش رو پیشنهاد میکنم ولی صد صفحه اول نباید دلسردتون کنه، شاید تازه از اواسط کتاب هست که جون میگیره و داستانه� به هم نزدیک میشن و شخصیته� ملموست� میشن. پس اگر شروع کردید صبر داشته باشید، قطعا شرایط بهتر میشه.
در مورد ترجمه آقای جهانداری هم به نظر من کارشون شاهکار بوده.
اگر بخوام طوری بنویسم که داستان کتاب لو نره باید بگم که داستان به یک دوره زمانی حدود ۶۰ ساله در تاریخ آلمان مربوط میشه و روایت سه نسل از یک خانواده (پدربزرگ، پدر و پسر) رو شامل میشه. اصل داستان خیلی خوب هست و ایده قشنگی پشتش هست مخصوصا اینکه یکی از افراد مربوط به نسلی هست که میخواد پیشرفت و بزرگی آلمان رو ببینه (بسازن و بسازن و بسازن)، نسلی که یه جورایی باعث شدن هیتلر به قدرت برسه، نسل بعدی در جنگ و آتشافروز� این رویا سوختن (ترجیه میدن این رویا رو خراب کنن و بکوبن و له کنن) و نسل بعدی که دوباره میخوان از خاکسترها، کشور جدیدی رو بسازن.
مجدد میگم خود داستان جذابه، عقب جلو رفتنها� زمانی هم تاحدی خوبه، مشکل از جایی شروع میشه که یخورده در همه چیز زیادهرو� و اغراق میشه، راویه� زیاد هستن و خیلی جاها از دست خواننده خارج میشه که در ذهن روای است یا صحبتی ازش نقل میشه، جملات و پاراگرافه� بعضا طولانی میشن، رفت و برگشتها� زمانی خیلی زیاد میشن، از سمبله� و نشانهه� به صورت اغراق گونه استفاده میشه (برهها� گرگها� سفید، قرمز) و با توجه به شخصیت بل، از متون مذهبی هم رفرنس آورده میشه. قطعا همه اینها از روی عمد بوده و بل میخواسته این حس عدم قطعیت و تلاقی خیال و واقعیت و گذشته و آینده و گیجی و منگی رو به خواننده القا کنه، همزمان هم نقدی به مذهب، فرهنگ و شرایط اون دوره داشته باشه، که در این صورت به نظر من موفق بوده. شاید من ترجیح میدادم تعدادی از راویها� فرعی کمتر میشد بدون اینکه هیچ آسیبی به داستان وارد بشه.
در کل یک بار خوندنش رو پیشنهاد میکنم ولی صد صفحه اول نباید دلسردتون کنه، شاید تازه از اواسط کتاب هست که جون میگیره و داستانه� به هم نزدیک میشن و شخصیته� ملموست� میشن. پس اگر شروع کردید صبر داشته باشید، قطعا شرایط بهتر میشه.
در مورد ترجمه آقای جهانداری هم به نظر من کارشون شاهکار بوده.
September 28, 2015
A very hard book to rate (and at times read), but in the end I felt that Billiards at Half-Past Nine promised, or suggested, more than it could ever deliver. I have no idea whether Boll had admired or read Faulkner, but “Billiards,� both structurally, with its constantly changing voices, and thematically (National Sin), certainly reminded me of Absalom, Abasalom. But Faulkner hit a home run with his novel (one the greatest in American Literature), and Boll, with his attempt to reconcile the past with the present, blinked. Nothing could better capture the difference than Faulkner’s ending image of a rotting mansion, and Boll’s abbey shaped like a cake. Boll’s attempt to signal Hope doesn’t seem yet earned. In fact, far from it. Don’t get me wrong, there are soaring passages in Boll’s novel that rival anything I’ve read in literature. But he has set up some interesting and inhibiting filters, the primary one being German Catholicism, which operates culturally as well as religiously throughout the novel. Both are reflected in the multi-generation fortunes of the Faehmel family. Faith, death, suicide, Nazism, madness, and, well, architecture (Romanesque or Gothic?), it’s all there. That said, the Faemels are generally good people who have had to negotiate through the dark historical waters of Germany’s militaristic past. Boll throws his net wide, covering the pre-World War I period. Interestingly, the name Hitler (as far as I can recall) is never mentioned, and the Jews only once. Instead, it’s Hindenburg, who is constantly referred to as the Beast. I’m assuming Boll sees Hindenburg as the fatal, militaristic choice of many Germans. (Boll numbingly reminds us throughout the novel of those who took the Host of the Beast.) And Hindenburg, of course, opened the political path for Hitler. It’s implicit, but perhaps too much so, given the shadows Hitler � and the Holocaust still cast.
December 29, 2024
"Billiards at Half-Past Nine" by Heinrich Böll is a novel that unfurls its complex tapestry over a single autumn day in 1958, deftly weaving together the present with a series of flashbacks and recollections. This remarkable narrative structure offers readers a profound exploration of the struggle between good and evil, a theme that runs like a dark undercurrent through the lives of richly drawn characters.
What makes the book truly extraordinary is its rotating first-person perspective. Eleven different characters take turns as narrators, each providing a distinct voice and viewpoint that shifts the narrative focus with every chapter. This multiplicity of perspectives offers a kaleidoscopic view of the novel's central characters and their relationships—between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends, and even ideological adversaries. Each narrative voice brings with it a unique emotional filter shaped by personal history and experiences, making the reader acutely aware of how the past continues to shape and haunt the present.
Böll's use of flashbacks is not merely a storytelling device but an essential means of revealing the intricacies of his character's inner lives. As they recount their past experiences and memories, we see how deeply these recollections are influenced by their emotions, casting long shadows over their present actions and decisions.
The novel's structure is akin to assembling a puzzle, with each piece—a memory, a conversation, a revelation—adding depth and complexity to the overall picture. This narrative technique demands the reader's full engagement, rewarding those who approach the text with patience and attention. It is not a book for casual reading; rather, it is a profoundly rewarding literary journey that immerses the reader in its world.
Böll masterfully explores the relentless forces of history and ideology that impact his characters, leaving many of them either crushed under their weight or deeply scarred by their experiences. These forces are portrayed not just as external pressures but as insidious elements that infiltrate personal relationships and individual psyches.
The narrative's elegant, arcane turns of phrase only serve to heighten the intensity of these themes, with Böll's beautiful, humane writing shining through every page. His prose is marked by a spirit of dignity and an acute awareness of the human condition, making the reader feel both the burdens and the fleeting moments of grace that his characters experience.
Reading "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" is a unique experience, akin to looking through a multifaceted prism. The interplay of perspectives enriches the narrative, providing a textured portrayal of a post-war society grappling with its collective guilt and seeking redemption.
This novel is a tour de force that showcases Heinrich Böll at the height of his literary powers. It is an immensely rewarding read, not only for its complex narrative structure and rich characterisation but also for its profound philosophical insights. For those willing to give it the attention it demands, "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" offers a deeply satisfying experience, blending a compelling narrative with an exploration of humanity's most enduring conflicts.
This novel is in the running for my favourite novel.
� � � � �
What makes the book truly extraordinary is its rotating first-person perspective. Eleven different characters take turns as narrators, each providing a distinct voice and viewpoint that shifts the narrative focus with every chapter. This multiplicity of perspectives offers a kaleidoscopic view of the novel's central characters and their relationships—between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends, and even ideological adversaries. Each narrative voice brings with it a unique emotional filter shaped by personal history and experiences, making the reader acutely aware of how the past continues to shape and haunt the present.
Böll's use of flashbacks is not merely a storytelling device but an essential means of revealing the intricacies of his character's inner lives. As they recount their past experiences and memories, we see how deeply these recollections are influenced by their emotions, casting long shadows over their present actions and decisions.
The novel's structure is akin to assembling a puzzle, with each piece—a memory, a conversation, a revelation—adding depth and complexity to the overall picture. This narrative technique demands the reader's full engagement, rewarding those who approach the text with patience and attention. It is not a book for casual reading; rather, it is a profoundly rewarding literary journey that immerses the reader in its world.
Böll masterfully explores the relentless forces of history and ideology that impact his characters, leaving many of them either crushed under their weight or deeply scarred by their experiences. These forces are portrayed not just as external pressures but as insidious elements that infiltrate personal relationships and individual psyches.
The narrative's elegant, arcane turns of phrase only serve to heighten the intensity of these themes, with Böll's beautiful, humane writing shining through every page. His prose is marked by a spirit of dignity and an acute awareness of the human condition, making the reader feel both the burdens and the fleeting moments of grace that his characters experience.
Reading "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" is a unique experience, akin to looking through a multifaceted prism. The interplay of perspectives enriches the narrative, providing a textured portrayal of a post-war society grappling with its collective guilt and seeking redemption.
This novel is a tour de force that showcases Heinrich Böll at the height of his literary powers. It is an immensely rewarding read, not only for its complex narrative structure and rich characterisation but also for its profound philosophical insights. For those willing to give it the attention it demands, "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" offers a deeply satisfying experience, blending a compelling narrative with an exploration of humanity's most enduring conflicts.
This novel is in the running for my favourite novel.
� � � � �
June 12, 2020
Δύσκολο βιβλίο (ίσως να μη βοήθησε και η μετάφραση), αλλά σπουδαίο. Ο Μπελ μέσα από μια κατακερματισμένη αφήγηση, με πολλές φωνές, πολλές αναδρομές και έναν σκοτεινό ελεύθερο πλάγιο λόγο, διηγείται θραυσματικά την ιστορία τριών γενιών μιας οικογένειας αρχιτεκτόνων στη Γερμανία. Μια ιστορία η οποία ξεκινά στις αρχές του αιώνα και φτάνει μέχρι το 1958. Ο ναζισμός και οι δύο παγκόσμιοι πόλεμοι, ιδίως ο δεύτερος, δεν κατονομάζονται πουθενά, αλλά είναι πανταχού παρόντες, έχοντας καθορίσει με όλους τους πιθανούς τρόπους τη ζωή (και τον θάνατο σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις) όλων των χαρακτήρων του βιβλίου. Οι ήρωες προσπαθούν ταυτόχρονα να ξεχάσουν για να μπορέσουν να ζήσουν, αλλά και να θυμηθούν (ή να καταλάβουν), πάλι για να μπορέσουν να ζήσουν. Αντιπολεμικό και υπαρξιακό, αποτελεί μια από τις πρώτες λογοτεχνικές απόπειρες να αντιμετωπιστεί το τραύμα που άφησαν τα γεγονότα αυτά στη γερμανική κοινωνία.
ΥΓ. Ένα από τα πρόσωπα του βιβλίου, ο Σρέλα, που είχε φυγαδευτεί από τη Γερμανία κυνηγημένος από τους ναζί, επιστρέφει στην πόλη του 22 χρόνια μετά. Στην ερώτηση γιατί δεν γύρισε νωρίτερα απαντά: «Γιατί φοβόμουν ότι η πόλη δε θα μου ήταν αρκετά ξένη.» θυμίζοντας εκείνο το τραγούδι που έλεγαν οι Τρύπες: «πατρίδα μου είναι εκεί που μίσησα και με μισήσαν περισσότερο από οπουδήποτε αλλού».
ΥΓ. Ένα από τα πρόσωπα του βιβλίου, ο Σρέλα, που είχε φυγαδευτεί από τη Γερμανία κυνηγημένος από τους ναζί, επιστρέφει στην πόλη του 22 χρόνια μετά. Στην ερώτηση γιατί δεν γύρισε νωρίτερα απαντά: «Γιατί φοβόμουν ότι η πόλη δε θα μου ήταν αρκετά ξένη.» θυμίζοντας εκείνο το τραγούδι που έλεγαν οι Τρύπες: «πατρίδα μου είναι εκεί που μίσησα και με μισήσαν περισσότερο από οπουδήποτε αλλού».
November 29, 2009
It has been almost a month (and seems much longer) since i finished reading this book. It has been sitting next to this keyboard ever since. I haven't discussed it with friends. I haven't been tempted to share my thoughts in any way. That's about as tepid a 4-star assessment as possible.
#1 of all #1s: completely disregard any blurbs to the effect of "The interruption of this routine by an old schoolmate and former Nazi who has become a power in German reconstruction triggers a conflict both absorbing and profound." This blurb would have you believe that's "just the beginning" and that there's a lot of "story" that follows. Completely misleading.
If possible, read the book having forgotten everything i wrote in the previous paragraph except for the part about ignoring blurbs.
Embarrassing personal revelation #1: i horribly misread Chapter 4 in which the sometimes-focused-omniscient and sometimes-1st-person narrator's perspective becomes that of papa Faehmel (aka Heinrich, aka the architect, aka the self- made man). I, however, continued to read as if in the mind of Robert, his surviving son (aka the robot, aka the destroyer, aka the ruin ed man), whose perspective held sway in Ch 3.
Embarrassing personal revelation #2: Sadly, the point-of-view in Ch 5 befuddled me even more than Ch 4's. 1st page note: "Took me forever to get that the perspective is Edith's" (Robert's wife). Bottom of 3rd page i noted, "3rd try {reading the first 3 pp} and still—NOT Edith? Robert's {perspective, still}?" Top of 4th page i wrote that maybe it's Heinrich "but i must be misreading something." On the 8th page i thought it might be Robert's mom, "in hospital (& demented)?" And finally, funniest of all, at the top of the 9th page i wrote, "Okay, no, the 'narrator' in this chapter is Johanna, Robert's wife" {emphasis mine}. I was almost halfway through the novel and i still didn't know the names, family, relationships (Johanna is Robert's mother, in the hospital, and Heinrich's wife). Combine that with failing to catch that the narrative point of view shifted from Robert in Ch 3 to his father Heinrich in Ch 4, and you get an annoying confusion about the narrator in Ch 5. (Shame on me.)
After identifying Ch 5's narrator, i finally figured out this scheisse (in which i am the scheissekopf) of changing narrators with little-to-no changes in voice.
Therefore, (a) even though it's gotta be more fun to make these realizations for yourselves, (b) because it's much less fun to feel lost than it is to feel challenged (and that's what i was—almost hopelessly lost), and (c) perhaps out of sympathy, i offer the following summary of narrators.
Ch 1: Leonore, the family architectural firm's secretary gives her view of her boss and her boss's father on the day of the boss's father's 80th birthday.
Ch 2: Strangely, told from the perspective of Jochen, an old desk clerk at the hotel where Faehmel the Younger plays billiards in strict privacy every day at the same time.
Ch 3: At last, the mysterious boss Robert Faehmel going about his secret life. Ho-fugging-hum! Sorry, folks, it's nothing scandalous or interesting. He's a regular guy except that he's a nutter for sameness and consistency.
Ch 4: Robert's father's life story. The book is "set" on his 80th birthday, so why not a little autobiography from a guy who almost literally created himself.
Ch 5: Johanna, Robert's mother, narrates from inside the sanatorium leading up to and following a visit from her son and/or husband, but not during?
Ch 6: Back to Robert.
Ch 7: Pingponging between Schrella (Robert's childhood friend finally returned from exile) and Nettlinger (the alleged "catalyst" mentioned in the blurbs that you should ignore).
Ch 8: Joseph, Robert's son, narrates—an architect in training (his father & grandfather are also architects, but of very different stripes)—as does his fiancée Marianne.
Ch 9: Schrella again.
Ch 10: Robert again + his daughter Ruth.
Ch 11: More from Johanna, this time she's "talking to" the general under whom her son served in World War II and narrating her plan for her husband's birthday party.
Ch 12 & 13: Narrative orgy.
Character & Plotishness Notes:
Robert Faehmel is Mr. Rigid. He does the same thing at the same place at the same time every day. He's a lot like his dad Heinrich, actually. They're both architects. They both served in World Wars. They both lost (figuratively and/or literally) children & spouses to/during/as a result of those wars. Allegedly "everything" is thrown off balance because a couple characters from his past show up today on his father's 80th birthday. One of them is Schrella, a friend he's been hoping to see ever since the Nazi era. The other is one of his childhood/adolescence's tormentors who turned into a full-blown Nazi scumbag. Robert's mom is in the nuthouse (embarrassing personal revelation #3: i didn't notice/remember why, but all the blurbs i've read say she either tried to save some Jews being forced onto trains or she tried to get on). Joseph isn't sure if he wants to be an architect and coincidentally (today) discovers a dark family secret—will he tell his father? his mother? his grandfather? anybody? Maybe he shouldn't go to the big birthday party for grampa tonight. Maybe nobody should. Gramma's gonna be there, though, and the rest of the family. Did i mention there also happens to be a political rally right outside the very hotel where Robert plays billiards every day on the very night that the Faehmels are having a pre-birthday party at the hotel? Imagine that!
Other randumb thoughts:
Though the novel takes place in one day, there are so many flashbacks that that assessment is overly simple. It's no Seinfeld episode, let's just put it that way.
The billiards metaphor and the Naturalism color stuff (red green white white green red green red red white white green ... ad nauseam) didn't do nothin for me neither. I'll need to read what others had to say about it and rethink.
And what's with this whole The Host of the Beast thing? It really annoyed me. In German, it's probably one really cool smooshedtogetherword, but the English phrase is clunky and annoying and its "implication" leads me to utter spontaneously "Bah! Humbug!" I finally bothered to look up the phrase and found this quote from Reading with Feeling that is ironically appropriate to my reaction. "...communion, as well as background knowledge about a contrasting phrase also provided in the text, 'the lamb of God,' will likely affect how one responds to the phrase, 'the host of the beast,' and whether one responds to it at all"! Author Susan L. Feagin goes on: "These associations link the phrase 'the host of the beast' {*sigh*} with a sense of ritual, mystery, and horror, and its repetition encourages mantralike and mystical allusions that are reinforced every time the phrase is used." For me, exasperation is not ritualistic, mysterious, or horrifying. Maybe the reader must be a staunch Roman Catholic, or anybody else who's likely to revere The Host as being The Actual Christ. As a not-Lutheran, the metaphor is a dud.
The translation. Strange. Felt very slangy, very 70s (guess it would be 60s cuz it was © 1962), especially at the beginning. Possibly limited almost exclusively to Jochen's voice as narrator/POV in Ch 2. That, too, put me off a bit. I didn't expect the language to be so time-bound. The perfect example from Jochen's chapter is "I can tell if they're out for a shack job even before they step out of the taxi." OK, maybe that's not the perfect example because it's the working-class guy's inner monologue.
I feel concerned about translations though when i come across inscrutable sentences such as, "They had had none of the bravado of peace too long diked up." WTF is that supposed to mean, "None of the bravado of peace had been diked up in them TOO LONG"?! I honestly can't parse that sentence into something intelligible without ignoring some of its words. I won't doubt the integrity of the entire translation, but doubt crept in and made itself heard occasionally from there almost to the end.
Maybe this book deserves another reading, but i doubt i ever will bother. Maybe it would touch me more upon rereading. Maybe i would finally feel the psychological damage of being a middle-aged (or older) German in the late 1940s, cuz i think that's what he's going for. The form pushed me away from it, though. Was that the point? Was he trying to shield me from his revelation? "Psst, hey buddy, i have something incredibly important in this briefcase that you might wanna see," he says as he squirts me with mace & fits me with the world's darkest blue-blocker shades.
CONCLUSION: i wasn't man enough to think myself big enough to give this book�written by a Nobel laureate!�"only" 3 stars at first. I still don't feel big enough, but i'm doing it anyway. I don't think you'll hate it, but i don't want to recommend it either.
That was my original CONCLUSION, but then i leafed through the entire book looking for all my marginal notes and was reminded how redeemed everything felt by the end. I felt connected to the characters eventually. I could begin to wonder if i'd glimpsed a hint of why Böll wrote this novel and why he wrote it this way. And now i'm torn between 3 and 4 stars, which is a crucial distinction for me, obviously. :-)
I found in the last 25-33%(?) a semblance of understanding why these folks were so crazy and how Böll's saying this craziness was caused by {*sigh*} The Host of the Beast's tainting of their entire society. I almost feel willing to say 4 stars but i just don't dig me no moralist/political fiction and i can't get past either of those aspects of this novel.
Final verdict: guilty of 3 starsworthy novelty.
#1 of all #1s: completely disregard any blurbs to the effect of "The interruption of this routine by an old schoolmate and former Nazi who has become a power in German reconstruction triggers a conflict both absorbing and profound." This blurb would have you believe that's "just the beginning" and that there's a lot of "story" that follows. Completely misleading.
If possible, read the book having forgotten everything i wrote in the previous paragraph except for the part about ignoring blurbs.
Embarrassing personal revelation #1: i horribly misread Chapter 4 in which the sometimes-focused-omniscient and sometimes-1st-person narrator's perspective becomes that of papa Faehmel (aka Heinrich, aka the architect, aka the self- made man). I, however, continued to read as if in the mind of Robert, his surviving son (aka the robot, aka the destroyer, aka the ruin ed man), whose perspective held sway in Ch 3.
Embarrassing personal revelation #2: Sadly, the point-of-view in Ch 5 befuddled me even more than Ch 4's. 1st page note: "Took me forever to get that the perspective is Edith's" (Robert's wife). Bottom of 3rd page i noted, "3rd try {reading the first 3 pp} and still—NOT Edith? Robert's {perspective, still}?" Top of 4th page i wrote that maybe it's Heinrich "but i must be misreading something." On the 8th page i thought it might be Robert's mom, "in hospital (& demented)?" And finally, funniest of all, at the top of the 9th page i wrote, "Okay, no, the 'narrator' in this chapter is Johanna, Robert's wife" {emphasis mine}. I was almost halfway through the novel and i still didn't know the names, family, relationships (Johanna is Robert's mother, in the hospital, and Heinrich's wife). Combine that with failing to catch that the narrative point of view shifted from Robert in Ch 3 to his father Heinrich in Ch 4, and you get an annoying confusion about the narrator in Ch 5. (Shame on me.)
After identifying Ch 5's narrator, i finally figured out this scheisse (in which i am the scheissekopf) of changing narrators with little-to-no changes in voice.
Therefore, (a) even though it's gotta be more fun to make these realizations for yourselves, (b) because it's much less fun to feel lost than it is to feel challenged (and that's what i was—almost hopelessly lost), and (c) perhaps out of sympathy, i offer the following summary of narrators.
Ch 1: Leonore, the family architectural firm's secretary gives her view of her boss and her boss's father on the day of the boss's father's 80th birthday.
Ch 2: Strangely, told from the perspective of Jochen, an old desk clerk at the hotel where Faehmel the Younger plays billiards in strict privacy every day at the same time.
Ch 3: At last, the mysterious boss Robert Faehmel going about his secret life. Ho-fugging-hum! Sorry, folks, it's nothing scandalous or interesting. He's a regular guy except that he's a nutter for sameness and consistency.
Ch 4: Robert's father's life story. The book is "set" on his 80th birthday, so why not a little autobiography from a guy who almost literally created himself.
Ch 5: Johanna, Robert's mother, narrates from inside the sanatorium leading up to and following a visit from her son and/or husband, but not during?
Ch 6: Back to Robert.
Ch 7: Pingponging between Schrella (Robert's childhood friend finally returned from exile) and Nettlinger (the alleged "catalyst" mentioned in the blurbs that you should ignore).
Ch 8: Joseph, Robert's son, narrates—an architect in training (his father & grandfather are also architects, but of very different stripes)—as does his fiancée Marianne.
Ch 9: Schrella again.
Ch 10: Robert again + his daughter Ruth.
Ch 11: More from Johanna, this time she's "talking to" the general under whom her son served in World War II and narrating her plan for her husband's birthday party.
Ch 12 & 13: Narrative orgy.
Character & Plotishness Notes:
Robert Faehmel is Mr. Rigid. He does the same thing at the same place at the same time every day. He's a lot like his dad Heinrich, actually. They're both architects. They both served in World Wars. They both lost (figuratively and/or literally) children & spouses to/during/as a result of those wars. Allegedly "everything" is thrown off balance because a couple characters from his past show up today on his father's 80th birthday. One of them is Schrella, a friend he's been hoping to see ever since the Nazi era. The other is one of his childhood/adolescence's tormentors who turned into a full-blown Nazi scumbag. Robert's mom is in the nuthouse (embarrassing personal revelation #3: i didn't notice/remember why, but all the blurbs i've read say she either tried to save some Jews being forced onto trains or she tried to get on). Joseph isn't sure if he wants to be an architect and coincidentally (today) discovers a dark family secret—will he tell his father? his mother? his grandfather? anybody? Maybe he shouldn't go to the big birthday party for grampa tonight. Maybe nobody should. Gramma's gonna be there, though, and the rest of the family. Did i mention there also happens to be a political rally right outside the very hotel where Robert plays billiards every day on the very night that the Faehmels are having a pre-birthday party at the hotel? Imagine that!
Other randumb thoughts:
Though the novel takes place in one day, there are so many flashbacks that that assessment is overly simple. It's no Seinfeld episode, let's just put it that way.
The billiards metaphor and the Naturalism color stuff (red green white white green red green red red white white green ... ad nauseam) didn't do nothin for me neither. I'll need to read what others had to say about it and rethink.
And what's with this whole The Host of the Beast thing? It really annoyed me. In German, it's probably one really cool smooshedtogetherword, but the English phrase is clunky and annoying and its "implication" leads me to utter spontaneously "Bah! Humbug!" I finally bothered to look up the phrase and found this quote from Reading with Feeling that is ironically appropriate to my reaction. "...communion, as well as background knowledge about a contrasting phrase also provided in the text, 'the lamb of God,' will likely affect how one responds to the phrase, 'the host of the beast,' and whether one responds to it at all"! Author Susan L. Feagin goes on: "These associations link the phrase 'the host of the beast' {*sigh*} with a sense of ritual, mystery, and horror, and its repetition encourages mantralike and mystical allusions that are reinforced every time the phrase is used." For me, exasperation is not ritualistic, mysterious, or horrifying. Maybe the reader must be a staunch Roman Catholic, or anybody else who's likely to revere The Host as being The Actual Christ. As a not-Lutheran, the metaphor is a dud.
The translation. Strange. Felt very slangy, very 70s (guess it would be 60s cuz it was © 1962), especially at the beginning. Possibly limited almost exclusively to Jochen's voice as narrator/POV in Ch 2. That, too, put me off a bit. I didn't expect the language to be so time-bound. The perfect example from Jochen's chapter is "I can tell if they're out for a shack job even before they step out of the taxi." OK, maybe that's not the perfect example because it's the working-class guy's inner monologue.
I feel concerned about translations though when i come across inscrutable sentences such as, "They had had none of the bravado of peace too long diked up." WTF is that supposed to mean, "None of the bravado of peace had been diked up in them TOO LONG"?! I honestly can't parse that sentence into something intelligible without ignoring some of its words. I won't doubt the integrity of the entire translation, but doubt crept in and made itself heard occasionally from there almost to the end.
Maybe this book deserves another reading, but i doubt i ever will bother. Maybe it would touch me more upon rereading. Maybe i would finally feel the psychological damage of being a middle-aged (or older) German in the late 1940s, cuz i think that's what he's going for. The form pushed me away from it, though. Was that the point? Was he trying to shield me from his revelation? "Psst, hey buddy, i have something incredibly important in this briefcase that you might wanna see," he says as he squirts me with mace & fits me with the world's darkest blue-blocker shades.
CONCLUSION: i wasn't man enough to think myself big enough to give this book�written by a Nobel laureate!�"only" 3 stars at first. I still don't feel big enough, but i'm doing it anyway. I don't think you'll hate it, but i don't want to recommend it either.
That was my original CONCLUSION, but then i leafed through the entire book looking for all my marginal notes and was reminded how redeemed everything felt by the end. I felt connected to the characters eventually. I could begin to wonder if i'd glimpsed a hint of why Böll wrote this novel and why he wrote it this way. And now i'm torn between 3 and 4 stars, which is a crucial distinction for me, obviously. :-)
I found in the last 25-33%(?) a semblance of understanding why these folks were so crazy and how Böll's saying this craziness was caused by {*sigh*} The Host of the Beast's tainting of their entire society. I almost feel willing to say 4 stars but i just don't dig me no moralist/political fiction and i can't get past either of those aspects of this novel.
Final verdict: guilty of 3 starsworthy novelty.
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May 12, 2019Hajnriha Bela danas iz nekog razloga često otpisuju kao prevaziđenog, da li zbog religioznosti ili zbog levičarstva ili zbog (uslovne i povremene) vere u ljude, ne znam, ali sigurno ne zbog manjka književnih kvaliteta.
Bilijar u pola deset, dakle, sadrži sve ovo gore nabrojano a pritom je sjajno napisan i vođen roman u više glasova koji se smenjuju i dopunjuju* tako da nam jednu klasično budenbrokovsku priču o usponu i padu (da li?) građanske porodice prikazuje na dvadesetovekovni subjektivni i fragmentisan način. Takođe uz solidnu dozu simbolike (pre svega opozicija bivo-jagnje koja iskrsava dovoljno često da je svi utuvimo, ali i mnogo diskretnijih stvari), uz Belovu tipičnu zajedljivost prema ćiftama i licemerima (koji su za njega takoreći veće zlo od ubeđenih nacista, jer ih podstiču iz koristi a ne iz ubeđenja) i svako malo stvarno predivno razobručene opise.
Ovo ipak nije baš najbolji Bel kog sam čitala jer kraj deluje istovremeno zbrzano i malo isforsirano, ipak sam pre za Grupni portret s damom ili Gledišta jednog klauna, ali i dalje je jedna lepa, kvalitetna knjiga srednje teške kategorije.
* Recepcioner Johen je klasičan primer lika koji je potpuno sporedan i nebitan ali se otrgne kontroli i progovori svojim glasom i na kraju njegovih desetak strana budu daleko najzabavnije u celom romanu <3
Bilijar u pola deset, dakle, sadrži sve ovo gore nabrojano a pritom je sjajno napisan i vođen roman u više glasova koji se smenjuju i dopunjuju* tako da nam jednu klasično budenbrokovsku priču o usponu i padu (da li?) građanske porodice prikazuje na dvadesetovekovni subjektivni i fragmentisan način. Takođe uz solidnu dozu simbolike (pre svega opozicija bivo-jagnje koja iskrsava dovoljno često da je svi utuvimo, ali i mnogo diskretnijih stvari), uz Belovu tipičnu zajedljivost prema ćiftama i licemerima (koji su za njega takoreći veće zlo od ubeđenih nacista, jer ih podstiču iz koristi a ne iz ubeđenja) i svako malo stvarno predivno razobručene opise.
Ovo ipak nije baš najbolji Bel kog sam čitala jer kraj deluje istovremeno zbrzano i malo isforsirano, ipak sam pre za Grupni portret s damom ili Gledišta jednog klauna, ali i dalje je jedna lepa, kvalitetna knjiga srednje teške kategorije.
* Recepcioner Johen je klasičan primer lika koji je potpuno sporedan i nebitan ali se otrgne kontroli i progovori svojim glasom i na kraju njegovih desetak strana budu daleko najzabavnije u celom romanu <3
July 21, 2020
Some scenes - such as Robert explaining to his Nazi persecutor, when he comes to see him many years later, why it's OK to ask the waiter to pack up your remaining food to take away - as a metaphor for concerns about status and pride - have stayed with me.
I was so overwhelmed by the different themes and ideas that I ended up drawing a mind map of them to be able to get it straight in my head. Böll wants to get a very strong moral message across - that is very upfront. At times it can feel like you are being lectured to. But in the end, the force of that message, the story and the characters prevail. One of the few books I've gone back to re-read.
I was so overwhelmed by the different themes and ideas that I ended up drawing a mind map of them to be able to get it straight in my head. Böll wants to get a very strong moral message across - that is very upfront. At times it can feel like you are being lectured to. But in the end, the force of that message, the story and the characters prevail. One of the few books I've gone back to re-read.
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