Theodore Ziolkowski

Albert Camus and Heinrich Boll

Readers have often been reminded, while perusing Heinrich Bolls books, of Albert Camus-so much, in fact, that several German critics, without specifying their contention, have been prompted to call Boll the German Camus. 1 It is obvious to anyone familiar with the life and works of the French writer and his German contemporary that there are vast differences between the two men. And although Boll is acquainted with Camus books, the relationship cannot be explained by so-called literary influence. It is rather a more delicate spiritual affinity that emerges in their consciences as writers, in the texture of their fiction, and in their craftsmanship as artists. Both Boll and Camus are basically moralists. Their works are characterized by an ideal that is implicit in every line, fictional or expository, that they have written, and this implicit ideal is the measuring stick for their moral judgments. Camus ideal might be called the just society of liberal humanism, while B6lls is a state of practical Christianity.2 These are not attitudes, of course, that are

Disenchanted Images: A Literary Iconology

The Description for this book, Disenchanted Images: A Literary Iconology, will be forthcoming.