Talk:The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

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Translation

Someone Please make use of the English translation to fill in the gaps of the synopsis!!

I've overhauled the entry with information from the German article, and filled in other parts with my memory of the story and, failing that, my copy of the book. I wasn't too sure of the translation that was up here before, if it was a machine translation or what, and it didn't really seem to correspond with the German article, so I wrote my own translation from my copy of the book. I hope this is an acceptable quality for the article, and have removed the 'tidy up' tag that was in the article. If it still isn't the acceptable quality for Wikipedia, feel free to add it again. (Maaya 00:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Its alot better however, this is based on the German copy of the book. Should english wikipedia entries be based on the english translations of the books or the original copies? (Pichu1988)

I only have the German book. :( If you happen to have the English translation, or if anyone else does, I think they could fix things. But, unless I translated something very wrong, the meaning should be the same. (Maaya 17:50, 24 September 2005 (UTC))[reply]

About Ludwig...

I could be wrong, but I recently saw this film and glanced over the book, and if I recall correctly, Ludwig is actually not a bank robber (though he's suspected/accused of such). He's a deserter who stole some money from the army, but he didn't rob any banks, and he isn't a terrorist.

Also - the intro to this article says that Die Zeitung is modeled after the Bild-Zeitung in Germany. It may be semantics... yet at the end of the film there is a disclaimer which says something along the lines of, "If the fictional Die Zeitung bears some resemblance to the methods of the Bild-Zeitung, this is neither intentional nor accidental, but rather, unavoidable."

Ergo it's not a model, exactly.

That's fairly minor, though... mainly just wanted to raise the question about Ludwig. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.252.67.146 (talk) 04:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

It's both true and important that he isn't a bankrobber. There are other errors in the plot summary, too. It might be better to make it less detailed than to have incorrect details. As I understood the novel (not a translation), for example, Toetges arrives at Katharina's home by appointment for the interview, not after having already interviewed her. The description of her as cold and calculating is a twisting of Dr Blorna's remarks to the effect that she is sensible and clever. My German is not perfect, so I am reluctant to assume authority and edit the article myself. Of course it should be based on the novel and not on a translation. 18:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

As for the disclaimer, I think it served 3 purposes: a.) To make clear what Böll was referring to, b.) to safeguard himself against a smear campaign from BILD ("neither intentional"), and c.) I interpret the "unavoidable" bit as that Böll was trying to make people aware of the overall structures, or structural bias, of a society that facilitates the existence of tabloids such as BILD. --79.193.41.248 (talk) 19:32, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About splitting into separate articles for book and film

Please split. Imho, it's no good having the same article for film and for a book. The film is notable, as also it's directors (Volker Schlöndorff is Oscar and Palme D'Or winner). And a film article does need an infobox. Alex ex 18:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plot again

As people have already noticed, the previous plot summary was not in fact a summary of the book (presumably it referred to the film, though I haven't seen that). I've replaced it with a brief, but at least accurate, summary of the book. There are some things which could still be added, though we don't want to make it too long. Henry ^Flower 16:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw a screening of the film with several friends at Stanford an hour ago. (Boy was that emotionally draining.) None of us remember any mention of a bank robbery, just that he was a deserter who'd stolen some money. Anyone have any evidence to support Wikipedia's statement about robbing a bank? Vaughan Pratt (talk) 05:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]