Michael Hoffman’s 2009
translation of Hans Fallada’s novel Alone in Berlin was a great success
(the novel sold more than 350,000 copies in the UK alone).
Inevitably, the
success of Alone in Berlin led to more works of Fallada (real name Rudolf
Ditzen) being released for the consumption of the Western readers among whom,
it would appear, there is an appetite for European novels about
totalitarianism.
A Small Circus, published in the UK in its (excellent)
English translation by Michael Hoffman, was Fallada’s debut novel. He submitted
it for publication in 1930 and the novel was published the following year.
According to the
foreword (by Jenny Williams), A Small Circus, like many other
debut novels, was inspired by Fallada’s experience as a journalist working for
a provincial newspaper in the small German town of Neumunster in the district
of Schleswig-Holstein. Fallada worked for the local newspaper for two years and
was an observer of not only the workings, machinations and petty politicking of
provincial journalism but also of the political situation developing in Germany
which would bring an end to the Weimer Republic and pave way to the rise of
Hitler.
All of which is
described in with great bravura in the blackly funny A Small Circus.
Neumunster becomes
Altholm in A Small Circus. It is the late 1920s and the German economy,
burdened by the reparation demands of the Treaty of Versailles, is in a
freefall. The democratic Weimer Republic is on its knees. In Altholm the Social Democrats (SDP) are in power, led
by its frighteningly capable, larger than life, mayor Gareis. In his capacity
as a mayor Gareis is also the Chief Commissioner of Police. Gareis is
accountable and answerable to the district president Temborius who is based in
Stolpe (another fictional town). Gareis’s work is cut out. He has to steer his
way through what he sees as obstacles put in his path by other political
parties in the region including the Democrats, the Communists, the right-wing Volkspartei,
the Reichswirtschaftspartei which represents
the interest of the middle-classes, and last but not least the National Socialists who are on the rise
with their populist, xenophobic agenda. Then there are the local newspaper such
as the right wing Chronicle with its
menacing and devilishly cunning chief reporter Stuff who feels obliged to
oppose tooth and nail every policy of SDP, the Volkszeitung which supports the SDP, and the highest-selling News which considers itself to be
holding the centre position.
The situation in the
district of Stolpe is like that which will be described as prevailing in
Austria on the eve of its annexation to Germany a few years later: serious but
not desperate. However it is about to become desperate for the ruling SDP. The
farmers in the region, most of whom not rich and land-owning but small and
independent, are seething with rage at what they see as very unfair taxation by
the Republic, which they have come increasingly to view as anti-farmers and
only having the interests of the working-class at its heart. The farmers form
their own movement, Bauernschaft
(based on the real life Landvolk
movement formed by the farmers in Schleswig-Holstein in the 1920s, bitterly
opposed to the taxation of SDP). The proverbial last straw that breaks the
camel’s back is an attempt by a couple of hapless employees of the tax
department to confiscate the oxen of farmers who are unable (unwilling as the
administration sees it) pay the taxes. The tax officials are driven away but
the identities of the assailants is captured in a photograph taken by Tredup,
the perennially impoverished advertising manager of the Chronicle and a
freelance photographer. Tredup sells the photographs to the district
administration in Stolpe and Reimers, the headman of the village of Gramzow
where the trouble with the tax-officials began, is arrested and thrown in jail
in Altholm. The farmers’ movement decides to organize a huge demonstration in
Altholm. Gareis, the mayor of Altholm, much to the displeasure of the district
president Timborius, decides to give permission for the demonstration to go
ahead. Once the decision is made all sorts of characters and forces swing into
action vying with each other to add more spice into what is already promising
to be a vindaloo. These include in no particular order the Fourth Estate,
factions within the farmers’ movement, the district administration in Stolpe,
and some fly-by-night characters who have no personal interest or stake in the
local affairs in Altholm other than to have a damn good ruckus. No
one—including mayor Gareis—is a saint, here, and every trick in the
book—including threats, calumny, misinformation, blackmail, bribing—is employed
by all the parties. The demonstration duly takes place on the due date and is
dealt with unusual severity by the Altholm police force, inexpertly led by the
bungling and bombastic Frerksen, the commander of the Altholm police force, who
also happens to be a member of the SDP and probably owes his position to him
being a lackey—as is accused in the right-wing Chronicle—of mayor Gareis.
The demonstration is a
fiasco. To compound the problems for the Altholm businessmen and bourgeoisie
the farmers in the region embark upon an unofficial boycott of the town which
hurts the already ailing economy of the town. It is very clear that someone is
going to have to take the blame for it; heads are going to have to roll. The
question is: who would that person be. The person who, for many, is for the
high jump is mayor Gareis, who makes it clear that try as he might he is simply
unable to comprehend how it was his fault and the chances of him relinquishing
the post willingly were less than slim. Frerksen is in trouble, too, for his
inept handling of the farmers’ demonstration. District president Timborius’s
role in the whole affair is also of interest partly because of his insistence
that the farmers’ demonstration should not be permitted under any circumstances
but also because of the ‘secret order’ he is supposed to have sent to Gareis on
the eve of the demonstration about which the Altholm mayor is acting more coy
than a Bollywood virgin looking at her beau with trembling lips, knowing fully well what is it that is on his
mind but acting ignorant all the same. The state brings charges against the
torchbearers of the Altholm demonstration. This gives rise to a fresh round of
back-stabbing, skulduggery and perjury in which all parties involved come out
with flying colours.
When this sprawling,
humongous novel of almost 600 pages draws to a close no one, unsurprisingly,
emerges as a winner; and most characters get their just desserts.
A Small Circus is anything but small in its scope and the
ambition of its author. The cast of characters populating it is extensive. A
list given at the beginning of the novel of all the ‘dramatic personae’ that,
in small or big way, propel the story further, is very handy, but despite that
it tends to get a tad confusing at times. This is (I think) because of the
sheer number of characters each and every one of them is up to some or the
other shenanigan, but also because of the way the story is told so that the
links amongst different strands of the story are not always apparent. The plot
is revealed to the reader piecemeal, in snatches and, if you find yourself,
from time to time, going back in the story trying to decipher the significance
of a comment, say, you wouldn’t be the only one.
A Small Circus, on the face of it, depicts German life in a
small rural town at a particular period in the history of Germany in twentieth
century. The novel, several decades after it was first published is, still,
relevant, not just because what we now know of the events in Germany in the
1930s, the rise of National Socialists and subsequent tragedy, which the
novel—in its realistic and, frankly, terrifying, portrayal of Germany’s
implosion—so superbly helps the reader to gain an insight into, but also
because Fallada touches themes in the novel that ring true even now: the
corruption in politics, sycophancy, the poor becoming poorer and rich richer.
A great pleasure of
reading A Small Circus is the way the story progresses, which is mostly
in dialogues, which, for the most part are quirky, idiosyncratic and funny. The
credit for this should also go to the translator Michael Hoffman.
A Small Circus is an impressive novel, a caustic and piercing
commentary on the greed, treachery and petty bickering that made Hitler’s
dramatic rise to power possible.
Hans Fallada,
according to various biographies I read of him on the Net, was a tortured soul.
He died a broken man in 1947, of morphine overdose, at a relatively young age
of 53, in East Berlin, East Germany where the Soviets had banned A
Small Circus because of Fallada’s less than flattering description of
the Communists in the novel. The success of Alone in Berlin (which
heralded the revival of his works) and subsequent novels, in the West may have
come too late for their creator, but it is still a deserving recognition of the
genius.
