And Where Were You Adam?

Heinrich Boll

In Heinrich Boll's prizewinning WWII novel the setting is Central Europe and its leading characters are ordinary privates and lowly officials in the retreating German army. The sense of fatigue, futility and privation is compelling. It's hot and dusty. Their duties are chaotically assigned and, in any case, pointless. Told as a series of disconnected episodes it almost works as a set of short stories and even as a complete novel it's only a shade over 100 pages.

War is supposed to be 5% action and 95% boredom and so it is in this story. The obvious problem with reflecting this in a book is, well, you end up a novel that's only too true to its subject matter. So this book is by no means a page turner. But it's still a worthwhile read and what it lacks in incident it makes up for with its strong sense of time and place.