Billiards At Half Past Nine Analysis

Heinrich Böll was one of the best known German authors of the 20th century (Michaels). He became internationally known around 1971 when he was elected president of the International PEN Club. He went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Some of Böll’s most acclaimed works are Billiards at Half-Past Nine and And Never Said A Word. Like any author, Böll’s works are influenced by his own experiences. In Billiards at Half-Past Nine, the inspiration from his life impacts the novel in an extremely evident fashion.

Heinrich Theodore Böll was born in Cologne, Germany, on December 21, 1917. On both sides of his family, his ancestry is strongly Catholic. As such, he grew up a devout Catholic in a predominantly Catholic Germany (Michaels). Despite his youth coinciding with Hitler’s rise to power, Böll never accepted Nazism. This is mostly due to the influence of his family. The Bölls gave their children security, understanding, and freedom, but they did not hide social problems from them. Because of the way he was raised, Böll began to see injustice in German society from an early age, like when many of his proletarian friends could not …show more content…
Like many of Boll’s works, the novel is set in Cologne, Germany, on September 6, 1958. Although Robert is the central interest, the book also has a strong focus on Heinrich, and his son, Joseph. Each of these three men of the Faehmel family is inspired by facets of Böll’s life. For an example, both Robert and Böll were drafted into the Wehrmacht in WWII. While the narrative takes place in one day, flashbacks the various perspectives reveal most of the information that characterizes the conflict. Over the course of this day, Robert struggles to reconnect with Heinrich and Joseph, as he has been withdrawn from most people since he returned from the war, and has been hiding a guilty secret since