The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

Information manipulation, secrets and lies and cover-ups all in the name of providing a service of keeping the public in the "loop" of day-to-day current events are the backdrops of Heinrich Boll's terse and relevant novel, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: Or How Violence Developes and Where It Can Lead. What happens when a person is pushed to the brink of insanity? Do they become a submissive doormat and allow themselves to be completely consumed or do they push back by whatever means necessary in order to obtain the caliber of liberty they once posessed? In this novel-the protagonist-Katharina Blum is placed in just such a scenario where a battle ensues between her and her nemesis, Totges, a hungry reporter who works for a tabloid news outfit appropriately called the "News," an unyielding and unflinching information organization that will stop at nothing-even slander and character assassination-to promote itself as being the ultimate "truth-seeker" despite their limited knowledge and understaning of that which they are seeking. Getting the story and fabricating it in order to remain first is the end-all and be-all, and truth and innocence takes a back seat. In the novel, Katharina is associated with Gotten, a "criminal". And because of that innocent connection, she is placed on par with him as a mastermind of evil, deviancy and debauchery; her life is firmly hybridized with his, and no matter how innocent her actions, she cannot escape the glued-on innuendo solidly attached to her reputation, and as the multi-layered cool and collected Katharina gradually gets stripped away to the bone, she lashes out and evolves into a real criminal, whereby before she was only a fabricated one, fodder for the news media in order to reach to the pinnacles of journalistic success. An example of print media manipulation is best shown on page 105 when Kathharina's mother-Mrs. Blum-is interviewed regarding the goings-on of her daughter: "Why did it have to end like this, why did it have to come to this?" out of which the News made: "It was bound to come to this, it was bound to end like this." Totges accounted for the slight change in Mrs. Blum's statement by saying that as a reporter he was used to "helping simple people to express themselves more clearly." The duality of truth and lies play a game with each other, and in this case, truth finished last. A powerful book that speaks volumes.

I have to admit, I saw the film before reading the book, and I recommend them both. In today's climate in America, - when the police profession is considered one of the noblest by liberals and conservatives alike, and the so-called "liberal" press, which crossed the line into tabloid journalism awhile ago, and which still hides behind the myth/lie of "objectivity," - this book is as timely and relevant today as it ever was, and should be mandatory viewing/reading.

Böll has several enemies he seeks to attack: the press, the police, and the German government's secret service. He describes the mud which the tabloid "News" throws at people, mud which sticks. He shows the incompetence and unruthfulness of senior police officers. He also shows how tax payer's money is squandered on tapping people's 'phones for very little useful information. In all Böll shows that Big Brother was really watching West Germans and that the state could make things really nasty. He also showed how all this was supposedly done in the name of anti-communism (a noble cause of course!)

This novel characterizes Boll's disdain for the development of an unscrupulous, powerful press who let nothing stand in the way of their 'scoop', people, truth ...... and who are accountable to no one. It also identifies some of the key issues of the time with which many people were preoccupied, for example, anti-communist feelings amongst West Germans as a result of the cold war. It is entertaining if not a little heavy to read.

A minor incident in Katrina Blum's life, turned into news by needy papers, sets in motion a series of destructive events which make the incident a horribly defining one. Boll leads the reader into an evaluation of the so-called "disintrested" and "unbiased" media, who make their living from revealing the darker side of human nature. A good book to read in the aftermath of any media "discovery" or "controversy".