And Never Said a Word

Fülszöveg

AND NEVER SAID A WORD by Heinrich Boll Translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz Fred and Kate Bogner have been married for fifteen years, have three children, and are now living apart, although they nevertheless continue to "date," meeting in hotel rooms for brief, joyless sexual encounters. Fred is a forty-four-year-old returned prisoner of war, mired in a meaningless job and unable to face up to the emptiness of his life. What seems a familiar fictional situation is transformed in this novel into a startling experience of literature. For And Never Said a Word, first published in German a quarter century ago, is one of Heinrich Boll's finest works, a novel that explores the extremities of marriage with depth and compassion Boll masterfully evokes an entire emotional world in the space of a day and a half as husband and wife alternately relate this story of love and isolation, poverty and injustice. Fred is apathetic, a spirit ravaged by war, obsessed by death; Kate is one of... Tovább

Fülszöveg

AND NEVER SAID A WORD by Heinrich Boll Translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz Fred and Kate Bogner have been married for fifteen years, have three children, and are now living apart, although they nevertheless continue to "date," meeting in hotel rooms for brief, joyless sexual encounters. Fred is a forty-four-year-old returned prisoner of war, mired in a meaningless job and unable to face up to the emptiness of his life. What seems a familiar fictional situation is transformed in this novel into a startling experience of literature. For And Never Said a Word, first published in German a quarter century ago, is one of Heinrich Boll's finest works, a novel that explores the extremities of marriage with depth and compassion Boll masterfully evokes an entire emotional world in the space of a day and a half as husband and wife alternately relate this story of love and isolation, poverty and injustice. Fred is apathetic, a spirit ravaged by war, obsessed by death; Kate is one of the meek who have somehow failed to inherit the earth. Weakness, as well as strength, provides the subtle emotional threads that form the bonds of their love. Married life, they discover, takes a far greater toll on all who truly love than on those whose hearts are empty For this couple, the past has left an indelible (continued on back flap)
(continued from front flap) mark on their lives, haunted by memories of the past and living among its physical ruins. And finally, in their struggle to live and to survive, they are forced to take the measure of their love and learn its meaning. Heinrich Boll writes'with a moral resonance that extracts significance from the most commonplace lives, and forces each of us to examine the small corners of the heart. Originally published in German in 1953 (and issued in the United States as Acquainted with the Night), the novel has been newly translated by Leila Vennewitz as And Never Said a Word. Heinrich Boll, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, is one of the most prolific and most popular of postwar German writers. A master storyteller, his host of previous books includes The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Group Portrait with Lady, Billiards at Half-Past Nine, The Clown, and Missing Persons. Boll is past President of International P.E.N, and has been an eloquent defender of the intellectual freedom of writers throughout the world. He and his wife live in Cologne at their farmhouse in a tiny hamlet in the foothills of the Eifel range. jacket photo ©1976 by Jill Krementz jacket design by Bob Mitchell jacket lettering by Richard Nebiolo McGraw-Hill Book Company 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10020 Vissza