The boat

Format:

Book (regular print)

Title:

The boat

Uniform Title:

Boot. English

Author:

Buchheim, Lothar Günther author

ISBN:

9780394491059

Edition:

1st American ed.

Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.

Physical Description:

463 pages ; 25 cm

Contents:

Bar Royal -- Departure -- Frigging around : 1 -- Frigging around : 2 -- First attack -- Storm -- Contact -- Second attack -- Provisioning -- Gibraltar -- Return voyage.

Summary:

Autobiographical novel looks at the Battle of the Atlantic from a German U-boat perspective. Revisionistic, boasting a humane submarine commandant who deeply regrets the necessity of sinking civilian vessels, professional, competent officers and a crew of decent, often unwarlike men nicknamed the "children's crusade" because of their extreme youth.

Subject(s):

World War, 1939-1945 -- Naval operations -- Submarine -- Fiction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Naval operations, German -- Fiction.

Submarines (Ships) -- Fiction.

Submarine warfare -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Genre:

Added Author:

Lindley, Denver, 1904-1982,

Lindley, Helen

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Buchheim, L.	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Author Notes

Writer and art collector Lothar-Günther Buchheim studied at the Academies of Art in Dresden and Munich before becoming a reporter in the German navy during World War II. He was stationed aboard the U-96 in 1941 and took part in submarine operations in the Atlantic Ocean and Straits of Gibraltar. He photographed and wrote about his experience for propaganda purposes, but in 1973 he wrote the novel Das Boot or The Boat, which carried an underlying anti-war message. This novel was made into a German film in 1981. He also wrote U-Boat War, which is a non-fiction work that includes more than 5,000 of his photos from the U-96. He was an art collector that founded a museum to house his collection. He died from heart failure at the age of 89 on February 22, 2007.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A best seller in Germany, The Boat has been compared to All Quiet on the Western Front and could do very well here. The front here, for the nameless narrator and his young companions, is U-boat VII-C during the turn of German fortunes in the fall and winter of 1941-42. After a rather overwritten and chaotic scene onshore in a French whorehouse, the reader is slowly submerged into as dynamic an adventure story about WWII as one can remember. Despite the tale's confinement to a single submarine mission it escapes its claustrophobic setting. A striking concern is accomplished in great part by Buchheim's unstinting attention to the young crew, their salty lingo (remember Mailer's ""Chow Line"" in The Naked and the Dead?) and his richness of concrete detail. The story is simple enough: a long period of ""frigging around"" and sighting nothing to sink; an attack by a destroyer during two hellish weeks of storm at sea; a successful strike against a British convoy; more destroyer attacks; then a direct hit followed by an incredible dive to the bottom of the sea; and the ironic return voyage with its own relentless horrors. The sub's 30-year-old commander is strongly drawn indeed and shock after shock gives the reader as grinding a retrospective on U-boat life as he is ever likely to experience. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.