Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Böll

First published:Billard um halbzehn, 1959 (English translation, 1961)

Type of work: Social criticism

Time of work: September 6, 1958

Locale: West Germany, presumably Cologne

Principal Characters:

• Robert Faehmel, a forty-three-year-old architect and demolitions expert
• Heinrich Faehmel, an eighty-year-old architect and Robert’s father
• Johanna Faehmel, Heinrich’s wife, a patient in a mental hospital
• Alfred Schrella, a childhood friend of Robert
• Joseph Faehmel, Robert’s twenty-seven-year-old son, an apprentice architect
• Hugo, a seventeen-year-old bellboy in the Prince Heinrich Hotel

The Novel

In this, one of Heinrich Böll’s most structurally complicated works, the history of the Faehmel family over a fifty-year period is narrated by several family members. Through monologue, memory, and flashbacks, historical and personal events since the turn of the century are recounted, mirroring political and social developments in Germany itself. The eightieth birthday of the grandfather, Heinrich—September 6, 1958—marks a turning point for four members of the Faehmel family. Each of them has withdrawn from an active public life, preferring instead the protection of private routine. On this day, however, they will come to terms with the past that haunts them and forge a new identity as a united family. The time span of the novel measures approximately ten hours on this single day.

The first three chapters of the novel gradually clarify the mysterious behavior of the architect Robert Faehmel. Faehmel spends little time in his office, leaving punctually every day for an unknown destination. Faehmel’s own secretary does not know where he goes, or why; she has only his explicit instructions that he is not to be disturbed. In addition, his two partners in the firm never visit the office, and all contact between them is carried out by mail. The reader soon discovers that Faehmel spends his mornings playing billiards in the Prince Heinrich Hotel, speaking only to a young bellboy, Hugo, who is there to guarantee Faehmel’s privacy.

While standing at the billiard table, Faehmel reminisces aloud to Hugo about the events in his life. During the advent of National Socialism, Faehmel was drawn instinctively to a group of dissenters and pacifists whom, in retrospect, he characterizes as “lambs”; their amateurishly attempted assassination of a Nazi leader failed, and they were forced to flee the country to escape punishment at the hands of the brutal Nazi conformists or “buffaloes.” Faehmel later returned to Germany, was inducted into the army, and spent the waning days of the war demolishing buildings for a demented officer who insisted on creating a “field of fire,” a clear zone which was to provide an unrestricted firing line to the enemy. During his last mission, Faehmel convinced the officer to blow up St. Anthony’s Abbey—built by his own father, Heinrich Faehmel—though it was of no military or strategic value whatsoever. Eventually, Faehmel reveals that this destruction was not an act of hatred, perpetrated against his father, but rather an attempt to destroy institutions which had collaborated with the “buffaloes’” reign of terror. Faehmel’s comrades in this military venture have since become his two enigmatic partners in the architectural firm.

In an abrupt narrative change, the fourth chapter is devoted to Heinrich Faehmel’s reminiscences. He recalls the day, fifty years before, when he first arrived in town. He was young and confident of his plans and thus of his future: Within a year, he would win the architectural competition to design St. Anthony’s Abbey, permanently establishing his professional reputation; he would create an image or persona of himself, at once dependable and unique; and he would marry a beautiful young woman from the higher social circles. Recalling his fulfillment of those ambitions from the perspective of his eightieth birthday, he is convinced that he can continue to live out his days untouched by the chaos of historical events.

Chapter 5 presents the memories of Johanna Faehmel through an extended interior monologue. In 1942, alarmed at the insanity of a world which was beyond her control, Johanna had herself committed to a mental hospital; she has remained there voluntarily in “inner emigration” for the past sixteen years. She now mirrors Heinrich’s recollections, but from her own point of view. She compares her two sons: Robert the “lamb,” who is persecuted and flees Nazi brutality, and Otto the “buffalo,” who died in combat near Kiev at the age of twenty-five, an unquestioning Fascist and conformist. In her disjointed ramblings, Johanna mourns her personal losses and pledges to sacrifice for the future good. On her husband’s eightieth birthday, Johanna leaves the mental hospital with plans to assassinate a former Nazi who has been able to maintain a position in the present government. Later in the day, she fires a pistol into the passing parade, but she only wounds her target. It is clear that she will be returned to the mental hospital for the remainder of her life.

From this point forward, the novel concentrates on the events of September 6, 1958, beginning with the return of the exile Alfred Schrella. He had been tortured and persecuted by the Nazis because he was a “lamb”; his flight into Holland saved his life, as it did that of his friend Robert. Upon his return, however, Schrella feels that he cannot remain in present-day Germany—not simply because the “buffaloes” are still in power, but because he cannot find any “lambs.” Schrella is not an activist and lacks political engagement, preferring to embarrass the police chief socially, rather than prosecute him for past criminal activities.

The youngest Faehmel, the grandson Joseph, is currently helping in the restoration of St. Anthony’s Abbey. On this day, he discovers that his father was responsible for the wartime demolition of the abbey, his grandfather’s most significant construction. Joseph does not know whether to continue with constructive architecture, move into demolitions, or abandon the profession entirely.

With Johanna’s assassination attempt, the family’s birthday celebration at the hotel is interrupted. Instead, they meet at Heinrich’s old architecture office, the site of the family’s original success. Sitting atop piles of old construction designs, the intimate circle eats a cake—designed as a replica of St. Anthony’s Abbey—to celebrate their reconciliation.

During the course of September 6, 1958, each of the four Faehmels finds his or her way back into the family and, thus, back into the present. Johanna must attempt an act of political assassination to halt the spread of evil into the next generation. Heinrich supports his wife’s decision to shoot a political opportunist and fight, however unsuccessfully, the continued dominance of the “buffaloes”; indeed, he accepts Schrella, the “lamb,” as a son. Robert is reconciled with his father and, in turn, adopts the orphan Hugo as a representative of the next generation of “lambs.” Joseph must still sort out the confusing events of the day, but it is clear that he will remain in the family and carry on either the father’s or the grandfather’s legacy.

The Characters

At the novel’s outset, each of the major characters is living a timeless existence, protected from contemporary reality. Heinrich Faehmel, patriarch of the clan, is a product of his own timeless myth, sure of the future because the present was always the fulfillment of the past. He came to town at the turn of the century with definite plans to attain his professional and personal goals. Heinrich succeeded precisely according to plan and on his own schedule, living to this day seemingly untouched by economic depressions, four governments, and two wars.

Heinrich Faehmel remains above everyday developments with an ironic stance. Unlike her husband, Johanna Faehmel openly condemns political criminals and acts to correct injustices. She is especially sensitive to blind nationalism and public respectability; this behavior is symbolized by her condemnation of Hindenburg, the German general and politician whose career spanned several generations, from the “blood and iron” years of the German Empire to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism in 1933, to which he capitulated. Johanna’s lingering refrain, which summarizes those brutal years for the entire family, is the question, “whywhywhy.”

Unable to cope with the increasing violence of the Nazi regime (which affected her own son Otto and caused the death of her daughter-in-law, Edith Schrella), Johanna has sought refuge in a mental hospital. There, in her “bewitched castle,” she has been insulated from time. Despite her lengthy self-isolation, she is lucid and prepared to leave the sanatorium for one day, to avenge the past and save the future through an extreme act of political activism. Although she fails, she epitomizes the family’s conscience. She has never capitulated to public weakness or opportunism, seeking instead a way to combat evil and promote goodness.

Living with unresolved memories of passive resistance to the inhumanity of the Nazi years, Robert has developed his own routine of self-protection. At his billiard table in the hotel, he, too, attempts to escape time. As a soldier, he had the unique opportunity to destroy some monuments of Nazi Germany (including his father’s abbey) and thereby gain some sense of justice. Today, however, in his civilian occupation, Robert can neither ignore present injustices nor attempt to demolish them as he had been permitted to do earlier. By adopting Hugo as his son, Robert is finally able to make a constructive contribution to social betterment, as opposed to the destructive act attempted by his mother.

Critical Context

With its appearance in 1959, Billiards at Half-Past Nine was immediately perceived to be one of Böll’s most significant works, and this opinion has not changed over the years. While his later novels and essays are concerned with contemporary German problems, this volume is the culmination of a series of works dealing with Germany’s recent past, specifically the Nazi era.

It has been noted that this novel continues where Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1900; English translation, 1924) concluded: While Mann’s Buddenbrooks are nearing extinction at the turn of the century, Böll’s Faehmels are just beginning their dynastic ascent. Because of its scope and ambition, this novel has created much controversy. Though recognizing its obvious strengths, critics have questioned the validity of its conclusion. How can one family represent the complex course of German history over the past five decades? Is this presentation not an oversimplification of those years, an attempt to portray world history as only good and evil, and thus to categorize Germans as either “lambs” or “buffaloes”? Also, how does the Faehmels’ final, collective gesture—a political stance somewhere between resignation and companionship in isolation—offer constructive advice for social change? Still others have chided Böll for the seemingly happy ending, where the members of the family are reconciled with one another and with the past, while the young Hugo is unexpectedly elevated to the status of a Faehmel.

Heinrich Böll was one of the few contemporary German writers who consistently served as a conscience of the nation; in large part as a tribute to this moral engagement, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. He actively championed frequently unpopular political causes, simply because he considered them to be correct. Billiards at Half-Past Nine is Böll’s provocative reminder that the past cannot be ignored and that the future must be shaped by thoughtful action in the present.

Bibliography

Bernhard, Hans Joachim. Die Romane Heinrich Bölls, 1970.

Conard, Robert C. “Novels of Conquering the Past,” in Heinrich Böll, 1981.

Reid, James Henderson. “The Family Novels of the 1950’s,” in Heinrich Böll, 1973.

Ryan, Judith. “The Bewitched Castle: Heinrich Böll’s Billiards at Half-Past Nine,” in The Uncompleted Past, 1983.

Vogt, Jochen. “...nach funfundvierzig der Aufbau nach den alten Planen,” in Heinrich Böll, 1978.