Heinrich Böll, The Bread of Those Early Years (translator: Leila Vennewitz)
In The Bread of These Early Years, Walter Fendrich remembers the hunger and deprivation of the early, postwar years in the form of a hunger for bread. Fendrich lives a sleepy life, repairing washing machines, which he hates, and dating the boss’s daughter, Ulla – until he goes to meet Hedwig at the train station and falls crazily in love.
After WWII, the economy of Germany was unstable. Amongst other unhappy conditions, there was inflation and hunger. Scarlett O’Hara reflected on her hungry days by declaring that money is the most important thing in the world and that she wanted to never again be without money. Fendrich probably agrees with Scarlett, but instead of money, he thinks of bread. Because of inflation, the value of money, in terms of how much food it could obtain, varied. Bread is real and, unlike money, has value, instead of being only being representative of value. Bread is extremely filling, unlike the soup that Fendrich was given as an apprentice, which sat uneasily in him along with his resentment. Bread is constant in its value to hungry people.
In times of hardship, people, who are normally generous, become stingy and greedy. Having imprinted those calculated expressions of miserly thoughts in his mind, Fendrich is hypersensitive. He looks at people and, whether they are the jolly cafe owner looking with a greedy longing at youth or his pretty fiancée, he can always see what they would have been during those early years – people who hoarded their food and contemptuously begrudged others their bread.
As he falls in love with Hedwig at first sight, he awakens from his sleepy life and reflects, in a moment of mental clarity, upon his current life, from his job and his girlfriend to the lasting effects of longing for bread in those early years.
I, too, understand the draw of bread, with much diluted exigence, of course. When I was on the swim team, we used to drive places for swim meets and have to stop for lunch or dinner near a restaurant or a grocery story. I had a teammate who would buy a giant round loaf of sourdough bread, a little rotisserie chicken, some salad, and bananas - which would cost the same as a meal at a fast food place. The comic image of her biting into her giant, round "sandwich", while other teammates ate miniature versions of her meal, in the form of a normal hamburger, stuck in my mind. I had my room and board with a health-conscious family on one of my work terms. Their meals were all very balanced and full of healthy, nutritious food, but, sometimes, I would miss the sturdiness of a thoroughly unhealthy repast and go for a stroll in the nearby Loblaws. There, however, instead of grabbing potato chips, I'd go for the giant loaves of bread. There's a kind of solidness to bread and its superfluousness to a healthy diet makes it all the more enticing.
Heinrich Böll was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.
I heard from my prof that Heinrich Böll was a difficult author to read because he compacted so many ideas into his writing...but with you explaining it, it makes it sound dense, but enjoyable!
ReplyDeleteIt´s incredible that you have a story that parallels the bread idea - I just think that´s brillant. Bread is such a staple in European cultures (except maybe Ireland?), and I like the idea of writing with that in mind. You´ve changed my mind about Böll (I was undecided as to if I would try reading this book), but I think I´d like to make it my goal: I will try and read it in German (not now, but maybe within the year).
Speaking of food, I´m going to be reading Hunger by Knut Hamsen for my Northern Epic class. Have you read it? Any thoughts?