Customer Reviews

The Train Was on Time (European Classics)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had to read this for a senior-level university class on the wars of the Twentieth Century. I read it originally in English, although I have since re-read it in the original German. I remember very clearly the day I sat down to read it. I had to read it and its companion novel, "Where were you, Adam?", and I was running behind on my reading. I had just finished the first novel, and I sat down to read the second novel-only 110 pages. And something happened that rarely happens to me reading: I was so affected that I cried. I sobbed through a good half of it...

The story is of a young German soldier who leaves Paris on a train on a Wednesday in September of 1943 and he is absolutely positive he will die on Sunday at 6:00am. He has numerous opportunities to leave the train (on pain of court-martial, of course), and yet he cannot and will not. He feels powerless to resist his fate.

Heinrich Böll was a master. And, while this is not one of his more famous novels, it is splendid. I strongly encourage you to pick this one up.

Poigniant and startling, The Train was on Time explores the idea of fate, and people's overwhelming concern with the future. Boll's sensitive writing allows this grim story to shine beyond its catastrophic end.

This is a remarkable book that is only about 100 pages long. The author, Heinrich Boll, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. It's clear as to why he won the Prize after reading this book. It's a well-written European Classic. I forget how I discovered it. I think I saw it listed as required reading for a Literature class somewhere in New York. It's about a German Soldier and his adventure on a train as he envisions and wonders how he will die. The 'Twilight Zone' ending comes only too SOON. Great book with some great lines...like the one that reminded me that life is beautiful and that cheese, white wine, bread and cookies make for a glorious meal. It's true. I tried the simplicity of this glorious meal, today, on this summer afternoon of June 23,2001.

The Train was on Time is Heinrich Boll's first work, published in 1947, a time when Germans were trying to come to terms with the atrocities they had wrought and the widespread destruction their nation suffered in return. Andreas, a young soldier on his way to the meat grinder that was the Eastern Front, is suddenly gripped by the knowledge (not just the preminition or conviction) he will die in the next few days. We spend many pages in a short work following him through the mental torment and his undying love for a French girl he saw for less than a second during a battle in 1940. Towards the end he and a couple of soldier friends take refuge in a bawdy house in Lvov just hours before Andreas knows he will die. I am sure that at the time this book broke new ground but read now, all these years later, it comes across as little more than a young's man philosophical ramblings about life and war and death. At heart it is a good short story.

Boell manages in this beautifully written novella to capture the personal tragedy of a lost and unnecessary war. I gather that Boell himself saw action with the Wehrmacht. The book has the feeling and sense of being written by someone who was there and lived it, and fortunately did not die like Andreas, the main character.

I read The Train was on Time immediately after finishing The 900 Days by Harrison Salisbury (see my Amazon review) about the Nazi siege of Leningrad. I thought I would benefit from seeing the Eastern Front from the "other side."

This war story is very personal and internal. It contains no military action except some snippets as recalled by Andreas during his train ride back to the Eastern Front. Nevertheless Boell captures the agony, desperation, instant comradeship, and fear experienced by the soldiers in that most awful of wars.

I suspect that Andreas is typical of Nazi soldiers in many ways, and not so typical in others. He was dubious of the entire Nazi enterprise at the same as being profoundly apolitical. He didn't want to die but knew that he would--for no earthly reason. Andreas was totally self-absorbed. All he ever thinks about is himself and how things are related to him. Andreas was cultured. He was a piano student who knew the works of Liszt and Schubert. His was a "sensitive soul." I wonder how many Nazi soldiers prayed for the Jews of Poland and Ukraine as Andreas did.

I read this in the original German. It is beautifully written and moving in places. If you enjoy reading German, I recommend this short book. It has the somber, agonized, self-absorbed atmosphere of so much German literature. I glanced at the translation, which takes liberties with the text but is helpful with some of the German soldier slang.

I started reading this book for a project in my high school German class, and finished it while I was traveling in Europe. it's very short, and shouldn't take more than a day to read-my mom claims it took less than two hours-but it took me a while, for whatever reason. Anyways, I highly recommend this book. The bleak, wartime images that Böll conjurs up stick with the reader long after finishing the book; I read it over a year ago, and certain lines and pictures still run through my head.

Wolfgang Borchert and Erich Remarque get more press as German postwar authors, but Heinrich Böll, with this book, deserves attention. Read it- despite the bleak subject matter, it's fun, and even funny at parts.

This is an ok read. It's a somewhat feverish account about a german soldier on a train going to the east front in September 1944. The troops on the train are divided in two camps, those who says that of course Hitler will win the war and those who knows that the war is lost. The I persona of the account knows that he is soon going to die. And inside he prays for himeself and others, apparently he is christian. There is also a love story he has with a prositute, which somewhat reminded me about White Nights by Dostojevskij.

Not a novel with a good story line,character development,visual scenes,humor,etc.Most of the book consists of mental gymnastics over expecting death soon.After a hundred pages of this one is left with wondering if this is ever going anywhere and finally all wraps up in a few pages.So, its a classic and with all its mental gymnastics,can probably provide lots of inconclusive discussion fodder.It reminds me of the stuff we were subjected to in school which turned so many of us off.If you like this sort of stuff,great. If not,don't be too influenced by classics,prize winners,best sellers,etc. There's a whole world of books out there,whatever your taste,go find them and enjoy!