Through the Eyes of a Clown. Billiards at Half Past Nine

Through the Eyes of a Clown 1963 I am a clown and I collect moments, — says Hans Schnier about himself, a destitute artist, a stranger among strangers, a stranger among his own, the prodigal son of a wealthy society of big bourgeois, the hero of one of the best, most poignant and bitter European books of the 20th century. The action of the novel, first published in 1963, by Böll, which critics called the German Catcher in the Rye, takes place over the course of just one day in Hans' life, but this day, in which events of the present are intertwined with memories of the past, summarizes not only the life of the saddest clown but also the fate of all Germany — at first glance happy and prosperous, but in reality deeply experiencing the drama of being complicit in the defeated, yet not forgotten, ordinary fascism. Billiards at Half Past Nine 1959 Architect Heinrich Femel turns eighty years old. An anniversary is a good reason to take stock of one's lived life. His victory — the victory of an unknown outsider in the competition to build the Abbey of Saint Anthony — promised a full and happy life… And in the end — deceived expectations… Heinrich's wife is kept in a privileged mental health facility, his younger son Otto, who in his youth sided with the executioners ready to drown the world in blood, has become a stranger in his own family… On this day, which became pivotal in the fate of the heroes of the novel, is focused the entire tragic history of Germany in the second half of the 20th century…