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3.0 out of 5 stars
An early attack on the power of tabloid journalism., 1 Nov 2003
Katharina Blum's murder of a newspaper reporter, to which she has confessed on the opening page, is not the point of attack for a mystery story. There is too little suspense and character development to make you care much about her. Instead, Boll uses the murder and its aftermath to offer a cautionary tale about overzealous police investigators and the unfettered tabloid press--showing how the press descends on Katharina and everyone who has ever come into contact with her, twisting words, creating false impressions based upon police department leaks, casting aspersions, ruining lives, and inciting Katharina to eventual murder. The novel may have been startling, and even controversial, when it was published in 1974, but no contemporary reader familiar with the tabloids at the supermarket checkout or with sensational talk shows conducting one-sided investigations will find this depiction of the press shocking. In fact, the methods of the press in this novel seem unrealistic, not because they are so extreme, but because they are so obvious, crude, and lacking in subtlety. Boll may have been prophetic with this novel in 1974, but it is a product of its own time. While it may confirm that the conflict between responsible journalism and irresponsible sensationalism has a long history, it offers few useful insights for the present day.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic novel that suggests Germany is like Orwell's 1984, 15 July 1999
By A Customer
Böll has several enemies he seeks to attack: the press, the police, and the German government's secret service. He describes the mud which the tabloid "News" throws at people, mud which sticks. He shows the incompetence and unruthfulness of senior police officers. He also shows how tax payer's money is squandered on tapping people's 'phones for very little useful information. In all Böll shows that Big Brother was really watching West Germans and that the state could make things really nasty. He also showed how all this was supposedly done in the name of anti-communism (a noble cause of course!)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A harsh and yet enlightening glance into the FRG society., 2 Jun 1999
By A Customer
This novel characterizes Boll's disdain for the development of an unscrupulous, powerful press who let nothing stand in the way of their 'scoop', people, truth ...... and who are accountable to no one. It also identifies some of the key issues of the time with which many people were preoccupied, for example, anti-communist feelings amongst West Germans as a result of the cold war. It is entertaining if not a little heavy to read.
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