SOURCE: "The Irreverent Germans," in The Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 57, No. 259, September 30, 1965, p. 11.

Heiney is an American educator, novelist, and critic. In the following favorable review, he examines stylistic aspects of Böll's Absent without Leave.

The new wave of young German writers, led by Günter Grass and the 47 Group, has finally arrived. Germany, which recovered physically from the war so quickly, has taken much longer to recover culturally and intellectually. It was only with Grass's novel The Tin Drum in 1959 that the German literary world showed some real signs of vitality. Even today German writers are still preoccupied—one can almost say obsessed—with the war, long after American writers, the British, French, even the Russians have gone on to write about something else.

But now that the new German writing has finally appeared it is vigorous, highly talented, and totally original while remaining totally German...