Off Limits

Hans Habe

A review on the front cover of this turkey calls it “the finest novel yet released about the American occupation.” If that's the case, people were writing some serious drivel after World War II. There's not a single word anywhere in this book that conveys anything other than Habe's utter boredom with his subject. Two-dimensional characters, both American and German, move through occupied Berlin just after the war, trying desperately to give their lives meaning. They fail just as much as Habe does in trying desperately to give the reader any interest.

Thankfully, Gunter Grass came along to write much better stuff about occupied Berlin a couple of years later, and this faded into well-deserved obscurity. Best to let it lie in its shallow grave. (zero)