The Train Was on Time
Author | Heinrich Böll |
---|---|
Original title | Der Zug war pünktlich |
Translator | Leila Vennewitz |
Publisher | Friedrich Middelhauve Verlag |
Publication date | 1949 |
The Train Was on Time (German: Der Zug war pünktlich) is a novella by German author Heinrich Böll. It was published by Friedrich Middelhauve Verlag in Cologne in 1949.[1] The book is about a German soldier, Andreas, taking a train to Przemyśl in Poland. It was translated into English by Leila Vennewitz.
The story addresses the experience of German soldiers during the
Synopsis
"Why don't you get on?" a chaplain asked him when the train arrived. "Get on?" asked the soldier, amazed. "Why, I might want to hurl myself under the wheels, I might want to desert ... eh? What's the hurry? I might go crazy, I've a perfect right to, I've a perfect right to go crazy. I don't want to die, that's what's so horrible—that I don't want to die."[3]
On his way to the war front, he meets two other Germans with whom he starts a dialogue and a short-term friendship. He also meets Olina, a Polish prostitute, who has been working for the anti-fascist partisans but who has become disillusioned with such activity, seeing it as begetting yet further cycles of violence and aggression rather than leading to a proper way out of the bellicosity of the situation.
In this short novel Böll attempted to follow the development of battle-induced
There is also a religious dimension to the novel, given Andreas's friendship with a priest called Paul. Just before the fateful ending, Andreas muses "O God, my time has passed and what have I done with it? I have never done anything worth doing. I must pray, pray for all."[6]
The book was translated into English by Leila Vennewitz.
See also
References
- ISBN 9780810111233.
- doi:10.2307/40114768
- ^ Böll 1994, p. 1.
- ISBN 978-1845451585.
- ISBN 978-0872497795. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
- ^ Boll, Heinrich (1967). The train was on time. Sphere Books. p. 123.