Escape from a bourgeois world
not altogether forgotten amongst other
modern German writers. In a radio play
by Arno Schmidt Tom Al! Alone's: Bericht
vom Nicht Mörder (Tom All Alone's" Ac
count of the Non-Murderer), three spea
kers discuss Dickens' life and work from
the point of view of modern research. In
their conversation, David Copperfield
comes under heavy fire, but The Old
Curiosity Shop and Bleak House are prai
sed as masterpieces. In his essay
Bekenntnis zum Trümmerlireratur (Decla
ration for Rubble Literature) written in
1952 Nobelprize winner Heinrich Boll
speaks of Dickens' early career, of his
keen perceptive faculties and his humour.
Of the latter he remarks that it 'presumes
minimal optimism and at the same time
sorrow'. In Frankfurter Vorlesungen
(Frankfurt Lectures) Boll says that Dic
kens, like Balzac in France, is a 'perma
nently controversial classic'; he states that
there is nothing comparable in German
literature to the stupendous meals descri
bed in Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoi, or Tho
mas Wolfe; he ruminates over the question
why Jean Paul did not become a German
Dickens or Thackeray.
Finally a paragraph from the memoirs of
Hitler's former minister Albert Speer may
be cited. Referring to the Nuremberg trials
Speer writes: 'During the time of almost
unbearable suspense, exhausted by the
preceding eight months of mental torment,
I read Dickens' novel of the French Revo
lution A Tale of Two Cities. He describes
now the prisoners in the Bastille looked
forward with tranquillity and often with
cheerful serenity toward their fate. But I
was incapable of such inner freedom. The
Soviet prosecution had urged the death
sentence for me.'
Recently Boleslav Barlog, former Director
of the Berlin State Theatres, regards Dic
kens, whose books he had admired since
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