When Heinrich Böll won the Nobel Prize, this novel was singled out as his crowning achievement, even though writers win for a body of work rather than an individual book. The novel is a marvelous panoramic look at German society during and after WWII, conducted as a kind of investigation into the li...
What a marvelous, marvelous book...! If you've never read Böll at the height of his powers, you've a treat in store. Humane, funny, rich, poignant, full of irony and love and compassion.... A great book, not to put too fine a point on it.