And Never Said a Word

by Heinrich Böll

Book Overview

Includes the full German text, accompanied by German-English vocabulary. Notes and a detailed introduction in English put the work in its social and historical context. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070064210
• ISBN13: 9780070064218
• Release Date: December 1979
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 197 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good depiction of marital love in the face of various crises

"The lucky ones were those who did not love each other when they got married." Lucky because there was nothing to stand in the way of the dissolution of their marriage when that marriage became stressful. The husband and wife in this story, assailed by the stresses of poverty, cramped living spaces, and the prospect of another child they can't afford, react with an awkward attempt at separation. This separation, rather than bringing either of them a dreamt-of liberation, takes them from frustration to the brink of despair. The husband and wife alternate, each chapter, telling the story of this separation. The husband's pathetic urban peregrinations occur within the gravitational field of the wife. The wife cannot relate the story of her harsh home-life with the children without reference to the husband. Boll, though critical, as usual, of Catholic culture, here creates a few positive Catholic characters and depicts, with hope rather than sentimentality, the power of a genuine marital love.