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Madeline Island Public Library

The silent angel

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Publisher:
St. Martin's Press
Publication Date:
1994
Language:
English

Description

The Silent Angel is a haunting love story set amid the ruins of a bombed-out city, which is in fact Cologne but has been compared by the critics today to destroyed Sarajevo, Beirut, and Belfast. Suppressed in Germany for over forty-one years, the book has quickly become a major literary event and a bestseller in Europe, for it was Nobel laureate Heinrich Boll's first book, a work that was originally judged too strong for German readers still suffering from the ravages of war.
The story begins with the return of a hardened and cynical soldier, Hans Schnitzler, who quickly falls into a dangerous web of financial and personal intrigues as he searches for the widow of a comrade. He meets Regina Unger, another war widow who has just lost her baby, and their ensuing love story, set among the ruins of the city, will force readers to recall Nathan and Sophie in William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Yet Boll's characters reach a completely different ending, for in Regina and in his reexposure to the church, Hans Schnitzler finds a redemptive purpose for living, and his psychic and physical recovery take on heightened meaning as he wanders through the "naked destruction, desolate and terribly empty, as if the breath of the bomb still hung in the air."
Fans of Boll's classic works and new readers alike will be startled by the power of the novel's language, particularly by Boll's use of irony and imagery. For the remarkable language for this book, so ably translated by Breon Mitchell, echoes the power of earlier German writers like Franz Kafka and Max Brod yet also serves as the first harbinger of a generation of postwar literature that was still to come.

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ISBN:
9780312110642

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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID954d19a4-ab8b-4424-9121-8ea5c1006d79
Grouping Titlesilent angel
Grouping Authorheinrich boll
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2025-01-07 12:30:56PM
Last Indexed2025-01-24 04:46:45AM

Solr Fields

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0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
auth_author2
Mitchell, Breon
author
Böll, Heinrich, 1917-1985
author2-role
Mitchell, Breon
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Böll, Heinrich
available_at_madelineisland
Madeline Island Public Library
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Madeline Island Adult Fiction
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Books
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Book
id
954d19a4-ab8b-4424-9121-8ea5c1006d79
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9780312110642
itype_madelineisland
BOOK - HARDCOVER
last_indexed
2025-01-24T10:46:45.046Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Fiction
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Fiction
local_callnumber_madelineisland
F BOL
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Madeline Island Public Library
owning_location_madelineisland
Madeline Island Public Library
primary_isbn
9780312110642
publishDate
1994
publisher
St. Martin's Press
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Reconstruction (1939-1951) -- Fiction
War fiction
title_display
The silent angel
title_full
The silent angel / Heinrich Boll ; translated by Breon Mitchell
title_short
The silent angel
topic_facet
Reconstruction (1939-1951)

Solr Details Tables

item_details

Bib IdItem IdShelf LocationCall NumFormatFormat CategoryNum CopiesIs Order ItemIs eContenteContent SourceeContent URLDetailed StatusLast CheckinLocation
ils:.b1106500x.i20022359Madeline Island Adult FictionF BOL1falsefalseAvailableDec 08, 2016mific

record_details

Bib IdFormatFormat CategoryEditionLanguagePublisherPublication DatePhysical DescriptionAbridged
ils:.b1106500xBookBooksEnglishSt. Martin's Press1994viii, 181 pages ; 22 cm

scoping_details_madelineisland

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ils:.b1106500x.i20022359On ShelfAvailablefalsetruetruefalsefalsetruefalse9999