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By Kristel · 32 posts · 26 views
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What Members Thought
This was a struggle to read, but very rewarding in the way it showed life for random ordinary Germans during and just after the Second World War. It's experimental in style, written as if it were a report on or study of the main character, Leni Pfeiffer, who rarely appears. Instead we have the results of a series of interviews that the character called "the Author" undertakes with all the traceable people who have known Leni at different times in her life.
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Rather elaborately- constructed and with an unusual POV, somewhere between 1st and 3rd person. The author/narrator structure seems as though it wouldn't work very well, but Boll pulled it off pretty well. We only get to know Leni, the more-or-less main character through the other characters, and this seems as though it will be boring, but it's actually very well-done and I enjoyed it. This is evidently the primary work that brought Boll the Nobel Prize.
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This is the third Boll I have read and I have loved them all, but I think The Safety Net and The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum were more accessible. This book had the author researching what the protagonist was like by interviewing a wide variety of people who knew her. It was unclear to me what motivated the author, who was paying him and why he just didn't interview Leni himself. But the differing viewpoints, only some of which agreed, built up an intriguing portrait of an individual. Along th
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Jul 02, 2021
Kristel
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-challenge,
1001-books,
historical-fiction,
2021-botm,
german-literature,
wwii,
nobel-prize
Story told as an investigation of the person of Leni. The narrator (Au) interviews and researches the life of Leni for unknown reasons. It is an interesting way to tell the story of what the German people went through during and after the war. While I really liked it and think it is Nobel prize worthy, I found it hard to engage and it was quite easy to fall asleep.
Worth the read for the history alone, but very detailed and hard to push through at times. Many German words to translate.
Jun 08, 2021
Diane
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
2021-reads,
translated,
20th-century,
1001-done,
nobel-laureates,
1001,
german,
unreliable-narrator
Sep 26, 2015
Elizabeth
marked it as to-read
Jan 13, 2018
Sorobai
marked it as to-read
Jun 01, 2019
Yvonne
marked it as to-read
Jan 07, 2021
Kayla Tocco
marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2021
Christoffer Jacobsen
marked it as to-read
