Heinrich Boll: BILLIARDS AT HALF-PAST NINE

Billiards At Half-Past Nine (1959) by Heinrich Boll (1972 Nobel Prize in Literature).

It took me several attempts to finish reading the book. The first attempt was years ago, before Goodwill Bookstore in Sta. Cruz (Manila) closed. I bought my copy of this book from this bookstore; I read it as soon as I reached home. I made it through a few pages only. Years after, I tried again, this time I made it through almost a hundred pages. Then, for some reason, I stopped reading it. It was only in March this year that I remembered I never finished the book. So, I started to read it again from the first page since I already forgot almost everything in it. Onething in the book that has always stuck in my mind is one character's complaining about how he was given H2O when what he asked for was water. I was not sure what it meant. Until now, I'm still not sure what it means.

I finally finished the book today (May 16, 2010); however, I'm not sure if I really got the essence of the novel. Do I like it? Yes, but only in the way I understand it. What makes the book difficult to read is its complex plot structure. Most of patches that will create the whole picture of the story are told in flashbacks (of different characters), which, sometimes, are not easy to follow. For example, a single character's points of view are distributed in the book but told in different persons (sometime first, sometime third). Sometimes, a chapter consists of different characters' points of view. Whew! Despite this, I think the book is an important post-Nazi literature.

Overall, the book is still worth my time. A different (though exhausting) reading experience.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

{16 May 2010}