Volume 4, Number 1 · February 11, 1965
Artist Into Beggar
By D.J. Enright
The Clown
by Heinrich Böll, translated by Leila Vennewitz
McGraw-Hill, 247 pp., $5.00
'What portion in the world can the artist have,' asked Yeats, 'but dissipation and despair?' Hans Schnier, the professional clown of Heinrich Böll's new novel (the sixth to be published in America), doesn't take to dissipation—he is an innocent, a pure person, irretrievably monogamous, and cognac costs money—nor completely to despair. The novel ends with him begging outside Bonn Railroad Station, the first coin falling into his hat. Charity? He is singing for his supper. And rather the charity of passing individuals than a retainer, a grant, a subsidy. For this way no group, no institution, no party is buying the clown and his services.
Review, 1512 words
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