review: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Boll

With the Leveson inquiry fresh in the mind the idea of someone having their life destroyed by the press perhaps isn't too surprising. But rarely do you get such an insight into what exagerrated half-truths can do to someone.

This story follows the sad case of Katharina Blum who makes the mistake of falling for a young man that is wanted by the police. She doesn't spend that much time with him but when the press get to hear about it she becomes the villain of the piece.

The story around her takes on its own ever expanding proportions with her labelled as a communist, whore and her relationship with the man taken into the realms of fantasy as the newspaper writers write what they want about her.

Her life starts to crumble and the previous hard working and respectable existence that she had worked so hard to develop is pulled apart by damaging headlines and tabloid lies. Ultimately she resorts to something rather desperate and as a reader you are left knowing why she did it and even going as far as to sympathise with her actions.

The tragedy is of course that if you want to get back at the press you play into their hands by becoming the sort of person that they have been portraying you as. Losing control gives them even more material.

This story is a sobering one because it shows how dangerous lies can become when they were presented as fact. when you are caught in the middle of the nightmare as Katharina is then it must be a nightmare. A nightmare quite brilliantly pulled together by Boll.

Thoughts at the half way point of the The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

A woman kills a reporter and then turns herself into the police. It's an interesting way to start a story and you want to know why she pulled the trigger.

Boll starts with the crime and then works backwards describing what led Katharina Blum to get to a stage where murder seemed to be an appropriate response.

It seems strange that this quiet and diligent house keeper should find herslef in trouble and the start details how her friends are motivated to rush to her side to support her. But as the days leading up to the killing are detailed it's clear that underneath calm outward appearances not all was going well.

Blum is involved with a criminal who spends a night with her before escaping police capture. It is for this initial crime, aiding and abetting a felon, that Blum is involved with the police.

But the press starts to create havoc and the seeds for the reasons for Blum to murder a reporter start to be laid down.

A review will follow on completion...