The eyes of the clown. Billiards at half past nine. Belle G.

the eyes of the clown (1963)

“I am a clown and collecting moments,” says Hans Schnir, a poor artist, “his own among strangers, a stranger among his own,” the prodigal son of a rich society of large the bourgeois, the hero of one of the best, most piercing and bitter European books of the twentieth century.

the action of the first published in 1963 of Roman Bealle, which critics called “German“ over the abyss in rye ”, occurs throughout only one The days of the life of Hans, but this day, in which the events of the present are mixed with memories of the past, summarizes not only the life of the sad clown, but also the fate of all of Germany - at first glance happy and prosperous, but in fact deeply experiencing the drama of the defeated one, But not yet forgotten “ordinary fascism.”

“Billiards in half of the tenth” (1959)

Architect Henry Femel is eighty years old. The anniversary is a good reason to take the results of the life. His victory - the victory of the unknown stranger in the competition for the construction of the abbey of St. Anthony - promised a complete and happy life...

but in the end - deceived expectations...

Henry's wife is contained in the privileged hospital for mentally ill. The youngest son of Otto, who, in his youth, crossed the side of the executioners, ready to drown the world in the blood, became a stranger in his family...

in this day, which became a turning point in the fate of the heroes of the novel, the entire tragic history of Germany of the XX was focused centuries...