Siegfried Lenz's latest novel, [Deutschstunde (The German Lesson)], may well be the most successful work of fiction to appear in West Germany since the war…. The book has attracted both the public's interest and an almost universally favourable critical reception. Deutschstunde is neither a simple nor an inexpensive book and its impact represents a very interesting phenomenon indeed. It shows, for example, that "Bewältigung der Vergangenheit" is still a living issue in West Germany, despite the desire to "forget it all", of which we often hear. On another level, the success of Deutschstunde also demonstrates, as does so much of Herr Lenz's work, that the trend to "documentary" literature in Germany has not rendered obsolete the quite different approach of a writer who has always insisted, and proved, that he is a story-teller, a lucid exponent of the craft of fiction. Deutschstunde is the longest and, at...