The Clown

This is one of those rare books I come back to again and again: beautifully and unpretentiously written, and honest to the core. It is a biting critique not only of postwar German society, but of hypocrisy in general (religious, romantic, and otherwise). It made me cry and it made me laugh; I can offer a book no higher praise.I am not normally a big believer in fate. But as it happens, I first read this book after finding it on top of an abandoned car during a rainstorm. I'd just been dumped by a longtime girlfriend under circumstances not too dissimilar to those of Hans Schnier. I won't say the book saved my life, but it made me feel a lot less alone in the world.

This is one of those rare books I come back to again and again: beautifully and unpretentiously written, and honest to the core. It is a biting critique not only of postwar German society, but of hypocrisy in general (religious, romantic, and otherwise). It made me cry and it made me laugh; I can offer a book no higher praise. I am not normally a big believer in fate. But as it happens, I first read this book after finding it on top of an abandoned car during a rainstorm. I'd just been dumped by a longtime girlfriend under circumstances not too dissimilar to those of Hans Schnier. I won't say the book saved my life, but it made me feel a lot less alone in the world.

This book captures magnificently the feeling of being down and out and rootless. It is set specifically in post World War II Germany and describes well what surely were the feelings of many. But the sense of loss, alienation, lack of love, religious doubt set forth in the book go much deeper than that.The book is told first person by its hero, a clown, Hans Schneir, who has enjoyed some success but has fallen to the state of pennilessness and drink after abanonment by his love, Marie, and an injury. The stuff of which romantic novels are made, but also the stuff of realism and symbolism too. Hans is from a wealthy but emotionally impoverished family who establishes a romantic liason with Marie, a young promising student who abandons her studies for him. She in turn ultimately leaves him based in part on her attachment to Catholicism. Schnier is an unbeliever but a"monogamous" unbeliever and can't adjust himself to the loss of Marie. He looks to friends, family, and others for comfort but finds none. Schneir says near the end of the book in an important passage "If our era deserves a name it would have to be called the era of prostitution. People are being accustomed to the vocabulary of whores." This theme is pervasive to the book together with hints about a way out. For example, in the course of a pivotal discussion between Schneir and his father Schneir alludes to and rejects the possibility that he must "lose [his] soul -- be totally empty, then I can afford to have one again."The book is full of flashbacks from the narrators part interspersed with his reflections on his current actitivies and situation. His thought center on his own spiritual and emotional poverty, on the loss of Marie, his ambivalence towards religion, and the attempted change among Germans following their defeat. In some ways, the book and its end remind me of Schubert's great song cycle, Die Winterreise. The translation seems to me not of the best but it serves to convey the book. This novel is thoughtful, moving and worth reading.

As "Billards at Half-Past Nine" is a brilliant social commentary in a personal setting, "The Clown" is a brilliant personal commentary and heart-wrenching lament in the context of a critical new German society. Hans Schnier is a pathetic, hearbroken clown, whose poverty consists of a bankrupt heart. By the end of the novel, his only choice is to sit on the curb and strum his guitar for change. Boell crafts an image of a man willing to do anything for love, and is suspicious and afraid of the world around him after his personal world collapses. In lines such as "Think of the clown who weeps in the bath, and whose coffee drips onto his slippers," Boell reveals his mastery of capturing the human spirit through poignant narrative, aided greatly by Leila Vennewitz' brilliant translation. This is a must-read for anyone who knows Boell or has any concept of love and the human spirit.

The Clown is a very fast-moving story told in the first person by Hans Schneir, who is a clown. Hans is a delighful character, incisively cynical about the "new" Germany and its transparently selfish citizens in a way that leaves you more amused than depressed. Boll's attention to the fine details of life make the book specially fascinating, because they make Hans (and the other characters) so believable it's as though you are right there, watching them. The book is a fantastic voyage into another person's despair, where humor, shameless honesty and hopelessness rub elbows as they do in reality. I have just finished The Clown, but I am not ready to shelve it. There's too much that I love about it.