18 Stories by Heinrich Böll

I can't remember when exactly I found this book at the library's used book store, but it must be sometime after the library's used book store opened a couple of years ago. Obviously. The fact that it was translated from the German and that Böll is a Nobel prize winner were both selling points for me. I'm an easy sell. And the fact that there's an umlaut in his name.

I started reading these stories last summer, I think it was, but don't quote me on that. Anyway I had read about half of them and was sort of between books at some point recently and decided to hit some short stories for a while, despite having Jean-Paul Sartre and the Sagas of Icelanders very high up in the queue (no I am not British). So I dusted off the Heinrich Böll and the Vladimir Nabokov (whose name is pronounced nah-BAH-kof, not NAH-bah-kof, it turns out). (I've gotta stop using parentheses for everything; I feel like Joseph Heller in Something Happened.) I still have a long way to go on the Nabokov short stories, which I find superior. But Böll I was able to polish off.

This is one of the worst book covers I have ever seen. There's an "18" in the middle of some algebraic horizon with perspective and all, in olive green and royal blue and yuck yuck yuck. Paperback.

The stories were okay though. Some I remember being quite entertaining at the time, but right now of course I can't think of any examples that really made an impression on me. But then, I have a few ounces of scotch in me and probably couldn't remember my wife's middle name if I really had to right now.

I've read worse. They can't all be Vladimir Nabokov, who, ironically, did not win a Nobel prize. Too controversial, you understand, old chap. Lolita and all. I would have thought that the sheer genius of Pale Fire would have cancelled out the controversy with the Lolita for the Nobel Prize people up there in beautiful Stockholm, but then, what do I know? I'm a blue collar labeling machine assembler in the American Middle-west. I have no credentials, and I have more than my share of alcohol points for today.

I do think that I will pursue more Heinrich Böll in the future. But novels. That The Clown that he has written is supposed to be good.

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