Describe Books To The Train Was on Time

Original Title: Der Zug war pünktlich
ISBN: 0810111233 (ISBN13: 9780810111233)
Edition Language: English
Characters: Andreas (The Train Was on Time), Willi (The Train Was on Time), Olina (The Train Was on Time)
Setting: Germany,1943 Poland,1943
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The Train Was on Time Paperback | Pages: 110 pages
Rating: 3.84 | 2234 Users | 194 Reviews

Details Containing Books The Train Was on Time

Title:The Train Was on Time
Author:Heinrich Böll
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Special Edition
Pages:Pages: 110 pages
Published:April 27th 1994 by Northwestern University Press (first published 1949)
Categories:Fiction. European Literature. German Literature. Cultural. Germany. Classics. War. Novels

Relation Conducive To Books The Train Was on Time

Heinrich Böll's taut and haunting first novel tells the story of twenty-four-year-old Private Andreas as he journeys on a troop train across the German countryside to the battle on the Eastern front. Trapped, he knows that Hitler has already lost the war ... yet he is suddenly galvanised by the thought that he is on the way to his death. As the train hurtles on, he riffs through prayers and memories, talks with other soldiers about what they've been through, and gazes desperately out the window at his country racing away. With mounting suspense, Andreas is gripped by one thought over all: Is there a way to defy his fate?

Rating Containing Books The Train Was on Time
Ratings: 3.84 From 2234 Users | 194 Reviews

Commentary Containing Books The Train Was on Time
Right up until the end of this book, I viewed the story within the context of a German soldier during WWII fearing his death. I was wrong. The Train Was On Time uses the structure of the war to hang the real story: each man's unstoppable march to his death.The writing in this slim novel is exquisite. This is the second book I've read by Boll, having read The Clown back in the summer. He is a very gifted writer. The Train Was On Time is an uncomfortable book to read. We can all relate to Andreas'

It's 1943 and 23-year old German soldier Andreas is returning from Paris to his military unit in eastern Poland (an area that is now Ukraine), via several trains. He is convinced the war is already lost, and even more convinced that in the next few days, somewhere at the end of his journey, he will die. This thought obsesses him. He seems to be having memory lapses; he needs to look at a map to recognize the names of towns he will pass through, and it isn't until near the end of the book that he

Actual rating 2.5/5 stars.Before picking this book up I had never heard of Heinrich Boll before. Upon reading the introduction I discovered that he was an extraordinary man who also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He lived through the turbulence of WWII, losing one child during it, and originally refused to join the Hitler Youth. He was later conscripted to the infantry before deserting after receiving four bullet wounds. Many aspects of this book, especially the thoughts and actions

Deathly IroniesImpending death certainly concentrates the mind. In 1943 a German soldier returning to his unit on the collapsing Eastern front, has good reason to anticipate death. His thoughts are not about the past or of loved ones or a life he has left. Rather, he thinks about his war experiences and the present as it streaks by outside his railway carriage. He believes that what he sees and smells is the last time he will see and smell these things - the cities, the girl-volunteers serving

Now and again what appears to be a casually spoken word will suddenly acquire a cabalistic significance. It becomes charged and strangely swift, races ahead of the speaker, is destined to throw open a chamber in the uncertain confines of the future and to return to him with the deadly accuracy of a boomerang. Out of the smalltalk of unreflecting speech, usually from among those halting, colorless goodbyes exchanged beside trains on their way to death, it falls back on the speaker like a leaden

This book might well be the written equivalent of Salvador Dali's Surrealistic expression of his Spanish Civil War paintings. The human suffering transcends all which is imaginable and crushes all understanding of life or rather an individual's life. The future is truly just a vision of death in ones mind as all else in hope of living ceases to exist.

The Train Was on Time was down to a tee. Heinrich Boll won the Nobel Prize for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature... Ditto.What I found very interesting is that, as well as in The Clown there is that guy- an unheroic hero who seems powerless to resist to his own fate... Although, the novella seldom loses its tension, I did find myself reminiscing Hans, displaced