A Small Circus

January 1, 2015
First published in German in 1931 and loosely based on the author's experience as a newspaper reporter, Fallada's bleak political comedy is as relevant-and rich-as ever in Hofmann's supremely natural translation.These are desperate times for the citizens of the small German town of Altholm in the summer of 1929, and political and social tensions are running high. True to the title, the action starts small: A pair of bailiffs have been sent to repossess two oxen belonging to a farmer who, according to the government, owes back taxes. But the operation goes awry when the area farmers union bands together in protest, and Tredup, the hungry "advertising manager" for the local Chronicle, happens to snap some shots of the resistance on camera-pictures he might sell to the right buyer, for a price. It's the story the papers have been waiting for, and when the farmers take their (supposedly sanctioned) demonstration into the city and the bumbling local police respond with excessive violence, the town's unraveling is set in motion. Which is not to say the ensuing crisis is solely the corrupt government's fault or the incompetent police's fault, exactly, or even the opportunistic journalists' fault: In Fallada's hands, everyone is simultaneously sympathetic and amoral, united by an unlikely combination of total despair and joviality. Fallada's (Every Man Dies Alone, 1947, etc.) world may be grim, but it's not cold. And if there are a few too many characters here-a guide at the front is essential for keeping up with them all-the effort is worth it: As a tragicomedy of human failings, this novel is arrestingly authentic. A meticulously detailed chronicle of provincial politicking and small-town pettiness with haunting contemporary resonance.

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January 1, 2015
In Altholm, a small town in Pomerania, Germany, in the late 1920s, the obese Mayor Gareis, a Communist, pits Social Democrats, Communists, Nazis, and a host of others against each other. Gareis is a good man but not above a little blackmail. Nipping at his heels is the shabby, hard-drinking newspaperman Stuff, who is similarly ambitious. Though the county seat is not far away, farms gird Altholm, and the farmers have their own political movement and newspaper. Each individual and each group uses whatever means advance their cause, legal or otherwise, though the atmosphere is less menacing than venal. Written by the acclaimed German novelist Fallada (18931948), author of Every Man Dies Alone (2009), and translated by the talented Hofmann, this tale offers an elaborate, satisfying, thriller-like plot. But what are more remarkable is Fallada's immense generosity toward his many characters and the fact that there are no villains: Why sigh, Herr Stuff, They're just human beings. Change the names and the party affiliations and this could be a contemporary novel. Impressive.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)