The life of Hans Schnier has stopped for the reader. In the absence of an introspection exercise of his own, the now disappeared Heinrich Boell offers us a glimpse into the detained life of this unique character Hans Schnier.
The truth is that the fact that we stop to think about what we have traveled and what we still have to go is rarely a good indication. Vital inertia is often the best decision as we try to put our transitory affairs in order.
Hans meets the loser profile. He works less and less as an actor, Marie, the woman who perhaps once loved him already loves another and the money is determined to escape from a home in ruins.
And there we have Hans, clinging to the landline of his house, looking for someone to call. The world is not that glorious advance either. We are in Bonn in the post-war era, after the second bleeding of Europe and the fall of the Nazi empire. Between his particular destiny that seems to be getting more and more muddy in the present, and the destiny of a Germany that seeks itself among the rubble and the dust of its moral and political misery, the truth is that Hans does not know very well where to move.
So at the moment it is not moving. Keep calling and calling contacts, looking for a clue of Marie, knowing that it does not matter, that nothing can be put back together because perhaps it was never composed. Love could be the tinsel with which he adorned his few nights of glory. But Hans needs to find some hope so he doesn't fall apart.
Going through a sorrowful present ties Hans to a slow, heavy, dying existence. The magic of this novel is the level of insight in the person sitting at the phone. His memories move us through the movie of his life to present the moments in which he was happy. Again and again we contemplate the man reduced to rubble and assault his imagination to fly over his existence again. A journey into Hans's interior that ends up being a history of the Europe of his time, straddling imperial germany and the annihilated empire.
You can now buy the novel Opinions of a clown, a great book by Heinrich Böll, here: