520
PARTISAN REVIEW
1m Sperrkreis.
Hartlaub might well have been the man to write the
German novel about the war. The diary which was obviously kept for
later literary utilization contains impressions and sketches from various
theaters of war, although not from actual combat. We are inclined to
say that here was the sharpest eye and richest gift for language in the
younger generation. Toward the end of the war, Hartlaub as a historian
was assigned to Hitler's headquarters (this is what the title of the book
refers to), and from there we get the most fascinating of the notes; the
frozen calm around the center of the storm is superbly sketched. But
in spite of their superb writing qualities, these notes are only the raw
material of a book which ought to have been written. Morally and
aesthetically they are still in limbo, and in their transmitted form lack
the clarification of a point of view.
A better book is Gert Ledig's first novel
Stalinorgel.
Together with
the copyright notice it bears a note saying that the author refuses to
use his war experience for commercial purposes and has ceded his
royalties to an orphanage. This is a noble attitude and it implies a
cathartic intention. But at the same time it indicates that the author is
not primarily thinking of himself as a writer, and we assume that, unlike
Hartlaub, he was not jotting down his notes when the war
~s
still on.
Nevertheless he has written a powerful small book, the best German
war account yet. The novel relates two days of fighting on both the
German and the Russian side of the Leningrad front, the futile slaughter
on either side and the lonely, absolute desolation of the individual
soldier. I t is in an undogmatic wayan existentialist book of the war. The
book reminds one of the scouting expedition in Mailer's
Naked and the
Dead,
and like much other German war writing, it is probably vaguely
modeled after Mailer, who had, and still has, a tremendous influence
here. But Ledig does not have Mailer's political anger, and draws no
political implications except that war is abysmal.
The writer of war experience has it easier than the writer of post–
war involvement. War is tremendous, shattering, destructive; any episode
from it will do to prove this; and hardly anyone now poses questions
about its origins, end, or implications.
But who has really managed to write about the complexities of
German postwar existence? Best of all, I would say, the young Hein–
rich Boll, who writes with originality and unsentimental humanity about
aftermath and transition. Some of his novels have already appeared in
America, and his latest book
Haus ohne Hueter
(House Without
Keepers) shows again greater literary maturity. This novel
is
precisely
about the central German problem: how one lives at the breaking point
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