And Never Said a Word

And did not say a single word is a novel by the German writer Heinrich Böll 's 1953, which deals based on the relationship of a poor, with several children extremely cramped living couple deal with the post-war period in Germany.

The terms " marriage novel", " before critical novel" and " tenant novel" characterize different aspects of the action or the action of the representation of intention. With the drawing of single figures ( the uprooted returning soldier, the priest with the " peasant's face " ) and with various motifs and plot elements linked the book to the expatriate novel 1949-51 incurred but only in 1992 published The angel of silence. The final chapter of the novel is based on a radio play of Heinrich Böll ( Title: I meet my wife and one day as usual ).

Content and narrative style

The couple Fred and Kate Bogner lived for two months spatially separated, because Fred is an alcoholic and his aggression that arise due to the tightness of the apartment and the noise, can not control. From the bigoted landlady who has excellent relations with the local clergy, the couple receives little support, but rather a kind of counter player is emerging in it. The Catholic church hierarchy ensures compliance of bids and reception of sacraments on the physical and spiritual welfare of the people, for their hardships she has no sensorium. An exception is a simple priest ( with a peasant's face ), who, by seeking to sympathy and practiced charity, founded a sort of " counter- church ". Meeting place for the members of this " counter- church " is a snack bar in the next to the "peasant priest " also Kate and Fred Bogner run ( Boll was working title for the novel project: " The snack bar ").

The narrative action begins on Saturday, September 30 ( date after presumably 1950), and ends two days later, at noon of October 2. In the center of the story are preparing and performing a meeting of the spouse, which eventually leads to the decision of the pregnant again Kate, to end the relationship. However, a turn brings a 'meeting' on the street, Fred opens his eyes ( Boll used the biblical word "recognize" ) and him in the family home - can return - and in marriage. This is at the end of the novel - only hinted at - by Fred programmatic "home". Originally Böll had designed an additional fourteenth chapter, which represents the actual return Freds. The blurb of the 1953 edition formulated the novel concludes: " It shall be adopted no resolutions, and it is celebrated not a cheerful new beginning. Something else happens: the subjection to a higher law than that of the personal well-being. "

The book is designed as a double -person novel; the problems of a marriage in difficult times ( Housing ) reflects - are in the thirteen chapters - alternately from the man's and the woman's perspective. The criticism of the official church and civic Catholicism ( Mrs. Franke ) also manifests itself in satirical passages, one of which (in honor of Saint Jerome ) from the perspective of Fred represents the description of a procession a climax. Destination points for the satirical criticism in this scene, the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and its representation posturing. A satirical debunking intention pursued by the author, even if he parallelized the Catholic procession with the relocation of Druggists Association. In the drawing of the procession ends cited by Bishop (including its philological hobbies ) have contemporary artists want to recognize an allusion to the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings. In the military habit of the Bishop is probably an allusion to the fact that the Catholic church hierarchy and especially Cardinal Frings supported ideologically as chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, the remilitarisation the Adenauer government.

Reception

Böll was awarded for this novel several national and international awards, including Literature Prize of the Association of the German critics. Hans Werner Richter (Group 47) called And said not a single word in 1953 as " the best book that has been written in the postwar period ."

Karl Korn wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (4 April 1953): " The novel can be called an event because he is undoktrinär, staying away from literary experiments and directions, the immediate human suffering pronounce honest and truthful, do not be clever wants only true, not true, ruthlessly true. [ ... ] The future, when someone asks me, what the Germans had now boast of books of real power and truth, I'll call the Böll. "

Friedrich Sieburg said in the journal The presence (11 April 1953): "The power to come together again, is not drawn from the commandments of God. But the moment in which open the man's eyes, is a religious event, this alone can not bring about the power of the people. It is a great moment, as understood otherwise identify only a Graham Greene and to portray. "

Gottfried Benn commented in a letter, October 29, 1953: " All Good! (very Catholic) ".

The book was also a great success with the public. By the end of 1953 17.000 copies were put on the market in several editions. Lis Hofmann wrote in 1953 in the December issue of the monthly spirit and deed: "It is a strange thing happened: A book that has the outer and emotional landscape of ruins the subject, a great unexpected success book has become. "

The composer Gottfried von Einem planned in 1958, and did not say a single word of an opera to be based. - The composer György Sándor Ligeti held in 1961 a famous lecture on " ' The Future of Music ' - and did not say a word. "

Expenditure

The novel first appeared in 1953 in Kiepenheuer & Petrovich, Cologne. A first paperback edition published in 1957 Ullsteinhaus; the text of this edition is cut in many places. A reprint, the text has many errors and unwarranted intervention of publishing employees, brought Kiepenheuer & Petrovich 1962 out. On this edition based the pressure of the Romans in the first edition of the works (1977 ), the dtv paperback edition ( first 1980) and the edition in Volume 6 of the Cologne edition (edited by Árpád Bernáth, published in 2007 ), a procedure that has met with harsh criticism.