I discovered him through his short stories. "Es wird etwas geschehen" was one of the first texts I read in my undergraduate German course and among the ones I most enjoyed. He and Hildesheimer, with their brilliantly satirical bent, were a welcome change from the dreary seriousness of most of the writers we read.hwhatting wrote:That's one of two Böll novels I read, and the one I liked more (the other one was Ansichten eines Clowns). I can also recommend his short stories.linguoboy wrote:German: A little over halfway through Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame and still enjoying it immensely. I'd kind of sworn off WWII books, but his humour makes reading about that era much more tolerable. I also find the unconventional structure (i.e. a series of fictional interviews) very appealing. Bolaño is looking a little less groundbreaking now.
I've since gone out and read a couple volumes of Hildesheimer's short stories, but I haven't done the same with Böll. I should rectify that.