Disturbing, queer things these—two unconnected novellas in one thin volume ["Absent Without Leave"]—tales told in the first person by German males who, like the author, were of military age during World War II. The reader must bring to each his own understanding of Germans and the war, for the principal materials used by Heinrich Böll are blanks and holes.

He uses the qualities of nothingness as a modern sculptor does, which sounds like a rotten idea, but he makes it work like a dream. Take the second of the tales. "Enter and Exit." It begins with the first day of the war, and ends with the day of the narrator's return to peace. There is not one word about what happened between those two days. Hey presto! Do what you will with the missing six years.

"Enter and Exit" is easy reading. The two days...