Customer Reviews

And Where Were You, Adam (European Classics)

This book is an excellent mind game. Boll uses many subtle tools to focus blame on the entire German populace for the events of World War II. One of the major devices used contrasting irony. Boll places occurrences of totally different perspective next to each other in order to draw out the idiocy of the German soldier. One of the examples I can remember deals with the relationships throughout the book. Every time a soldier wants to have a relationship with a female (a very ordered and structured type of arrangement) there is always some sort of disorderly thing going on in the background part of the story. The soldiers never question the war, but always takes the failed relationship at face value.

One other subtle and enjoyable aspect of the novel is the way Boll interconnects all occurrences. Throughout the novel objects appear in multiple places. One may think that it is just coincidence. Looking deeper it is more than that. A table gets a cigarette burn on it early in the novel. Several chapters later the exact table (Boll points out the cigarette burn) shows up in different locations even after it has been destroyed. This is only one example of many that make the book an enjoyable novel to read.

I do have to admit that the story is slow going at first, but don't give up on it. It is full of subtle irony, and subtle blame of responsibility that takes close reading and following of the story.

Bob Flaherty
Senior at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Terre Haute, Indiana