Friday, 16 January 2015

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Since I really enjoyed reading Max Frisch, I decided to pursue some other German authors. My friend (the same one who recommended Frisch to me in the first place) suggested I read something by Heinrich Boll. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is a really short novel (about 115 pages) but so much happens in such a short space of time. I found the narration to be rather different from other books I’ve read. The whole thing is written like a police report, stating the facts and providing the transcripts of suspect interviews after the events have occurred. I thought this was a really cool way of setting out the narrative because it enabled me to solve the crime (so to speak) along with the police officers.

The book is about Katharina Blum (I bet you guessed that right?) and the injustice she faces at the hands of the media after she has an encounter with a man wanted by the police. The newspapers ruin her life by besmirching her reputation. Because of this she gets a little crazy (which might be an understatement) and ends up killing a reporter. Readers learn of this murder from the get go. The narrative then goes on to explain why the murder occurred in the first place, why Katharina's name was dragged through the mud and how she ended up committing this crime.

The book was so short and the narrative so compelling that it didn’t take me long to get through. The prose was addictive and I found myself reading it rather greedily. That, for me, is the mark of a great story. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some more of Boll's work!

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