Ansichten eines Clowns

Ansichten eines Clowns, a novel by H. Böll, published in 1963. It is told in the first person and mainly in retrospect by Hans Schnier, the son of well-to-do parents, who opts out of his middle-class environment and becomes a professional clown. He does so from disgust at the pretensions and lack of integrity of the world of his upbringing. Yet in choosing to be an outsider he also chooses solitude, for which he is not fitted, and under the stress of this situation he breaks down. The book is intended as a bitter indictment of West Germany.