Absent Without Leave

This volume by Heinrich Böll contains two long stories first published in the early 1960s. The title story is highly literary and somewhat tough sledding, about a German's experiences leading up to and after the war. Böll plays with forms here, offering snatches of headlines (like Dos Passos) and family portrait thumbnails to deepen the narrative. The second story, "Enter and Exit," is more conventional and describes a recruit's experiences leading up to the first day of World War II and his train ride home after the war's end. It is significant that in both these stories, like in much of Böll's writing, the war itself is never or only obliquely described. In this way he stays powerfully concentrated on his theme – the effects of tyranny and war on the individual.