“I am a clown and collect moments,” says Hans Schnier about himself, a poor artist, “one among strangers, a stranger among one’s own,” the prodigal son of a wealthy society of the big bourgeoisie, the hero of one of the best, most poignant and bitter European books of the twentieth century century. The action of Böll's novel, first published in 1963, which critics called “the German Catcher in the Rye,” takes place during just one day in the life of Hans, but this day, in which the events of the present are mixed with memories of the past, does not sum up only the life of the saddest clown, but also the fate of all of Germany, which at first glance is happy and prosperous, but in reality is deeply experiencing the drama of involvement in the defeated, but not yet forgotten “ordinary fascism”...