Volume 44, Number 18 · November 20, 1997
Lone Wolf
By D.J. Enright
The Mad Dog
by Heinrich Böll, translated by Breon Mitchell
St. Martin's, 176 pp., $19.95
The earliest work in The Mad Dog, a collection of hitherto unpublished stories by Heinrich Böll, is 'Youth on Fire.' It was written in 1937, when the author was nineteen years old, and is, as we say uneasily, interesting: 'the most surprising story' here, according to Breon Mitchell's zealous introduction, but not wholly surprising. A sensitive young man, disgusted by the world's ugliness, is thinking of killing himself, when he is approached by a beautiful seventeen-year-old prostitute, who points to a crucifix round her neck and announces: 'I come in the name of this sign.' Her mission, 'under the mask of sin,' is to save young men on the brink of spiritual ruin. She sits 'in mystical beauty, leaning forward slightly, with the suffering visage of an apocalyptic angel,' while in a rush of shame the young man covers his face with his hands.
Review, 2793 words
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