The Worst Great Literary Work You'Ve Ever Read

[Jo498]

I read Billiards at Half-Past Nine long ago and thought it was OK, though I recall little of it now. I found Grass's novels (which I read around the same time) somewhat more impressive.

IIRC "Billard..." is about a guy who was a civil engineer or architect but eventually (in the war?) became responsible for blowing up buildings. Many of Böll's seem a bit heavy-handed on the "message", as it is always some war/postwar thing.
Grass is much richer in language and storytelling, I think.

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But I also read a collection of Böll's short stories which I rather enjoyed. In fact, Murke's Collected Silences is one of my all-time favorite short stories and I still reread it occasionally.
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Yes, Cato should read "Dr Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen"
There is another funny one with Christmas celebrations being somehow extended or shifted throughout the year because of a spleeny relative (Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit). Of the novels I read the funnies is "Ende einer Dienstfahrt" (roughly "End of a business trip") where a father and son? enact civil disobedience (forgot the context, it's postwar, not vs. Nazis) by torching a car.

[Cato]

Yes, Cato should read "Dr Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen"

There is another funny one with Christmas celebrations being somehow extended or shifted throughout the year because of a spleeny relative (Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit). Of the novels I read the funnies is "Ende einer Dienstfahrt" (roughly "End of a business trip") where a father and son? enact civil disobedience (forgot the context, it's postwar, not vs. Nazis) by torching a car.

I will look into that: I do recall reading Mein Onkel Fred, which was a nice post-war vignette.

Thanks for the tip!

I should mention that one of my favorite novels in German is Patrick Süskind's Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer: funny, inventive, nostalgic, and mysterious.