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Alone in Berlin (Penguin Hardback Classics)
 
 
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Alone in Berlin (Penguin Hardback Classics) (Hardcover)

by Hans Fallada (Author), Michael Hofmann (Translator) "The postwoman Eva Kluge slowly climbs the steps of 55 Jablonski Strasse ..." (more)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; First English Edition edition (26 Feb 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 184614082X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846140822
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.8 x 4.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 131,772 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis. --Primo Levi

This novel is far more than a literary thriller. Fallada's vivid novel gives us the true, concentric circles of lives in a Berlin apartment block under totalitarianism. Michael Hofmann should be congratulated for bringing this work with all its immediate clarity to the English language.
--Hugo Hamilton, Financial Times, March 23, 2009

Review

An unrivalled and vivid portrait of life in wartime Berlin.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
The postwoman Eva Kluge slowly climbs the steps of 55 Jablonski Strasse. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, page-turning moral thriller set in wartime Berlin, 1 Mar 2009
By Gilgamesh (London) - See all my reviews
This novel is nearly impossible to put down. It's an incredibly moving, gripping story based around an ordinary couple who, after the death of their only son at the front, decide to resist the Nazi regime - if only in a small, mainly symbolic way. For me its power comes from the rough, raw style - it was written in just a few short weeks shortly after the War - and the unfamiliar yet utterly believable events that eventually overtake each character. Subtly translated by the award-winning Michael Hofmann, it's a novel not to be missed if you've any interest at all in what it must have been like to live through the War in the heart of Germany.
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47 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A dramatic story of resisting Nazi rule , 11 Mar 2009
By A Common Reader "Committed to reading" (Sussex, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Alone in Belin illustrates the moral choices that ordinary people were faced with while living under the Nazi regime and it is fascinating to read this "ground-level" description of life among factory workers, post office officials, minor criminals and others. Fallada focuses on those who were on the cutting edge of these choices, some taking the route of complicity, while others resisted, but at great cost to themselves.

The novel opens in a house in Berlin, 55 Jablonski Strasse, a multi-occupancy building where an elderly Jewish woman lives on the top floor, a Nazi loyalist family below her, and on the ground floor Judge Fromm, a retired and resisting judge who seeks to honour the rule of law. Above the judge live the main characters in the book, Otto and Anna Quangel a quiet and self-contained couple. Otto Quangel is noted for his stern, taciturn manner and in the factory where he works as supervisor he has no friends but is respected for his ability to get things done. His wife is obedient and respectful of her husband, a classic Haus Frau. However, when the Quangel's learn that their only son has been killed in the war they are are unable to sustain their grudging acceptance of the political situation.

The death of their son slowly enrages the Quangels and although they have lived a mildly reclusive life until now, refusing to join the Nazi Party and keeping themselves to themselves, they begin a campaign of resistance by writing postcards which Otto drops in various locations around the city, hoping that these will foment a wider revolt against the Party.

The book is populated by a wide range of other characters. The low-life criminal Emil Borkhausen and his pathetic accomplice Enno Kluge, the Nazi Persicke family, the brave Trudel Baumann, fiancée of the Quangel's dead son, and many others. For this is a book which attempts to give a picture of the wide-ranging responses to the regime, from total loyalty through to heroic resistance passing through the usual criminals and corrupt police officers who would survive whatever the circumstances.

Although the book is mainly concerned with the Quangels and their rebellious postcard enterprise, the cast of characters enables the author to provide many dramatic narratives which inter-weave throughout the book providing a fascinating picture of life in this sector of Berlin. The police hunt to find the writer of the postcards provides a comic back-drop to the unfolding human crises and tragedies. Fallada was a great story teller, and at times this book is a glorious soap-opera of domestic dramas while the bigger picture of Nazi brutality continues in the background.

However, the story keeps returning to the ill-fated Quangels, where their shared enterprise in some ways renews their marriage and enables them to act in concert in their acts of minor defiance. Their story reaches its inevitable conclusion, and Fallada gives us a terrible picture of what happens to those who try to undermine the regime in however petty a way. By the end of the book this reader realised that the humour and amusement in many of the pages is actually a vehicle for a very serious set of messages which may have been too much to take on their own.

We read that Hans Fallada led "a very tortured life: an alcoholic and morphine addict, who spent roughly a seventh of his life in prison". The Wikipedia entry on the author reveals that Fallada wrote this novel in 24 days and died just weeks before its publication. Certainly the urgency of the writing comes across strongly in the novel, and occasionally its lack of polish can be seen, but in a way which implies passion rather than carelessness. I am convinced that this book is rightly categorised as a classic. This excellent translation by Michael Hofman will surely bring it a wider audience who can only affirm its significance as a classic of 20th century world fiction.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully crafted novel, 5 April 2009
This is a wonderful read, it evokes the claustrophobic and repressive atmosphere of an evil totaliterian state, where nevertheless,decency blooms but is inevitably overwhelmed. The characters are superbly drawn and believable, the plot is tight and the writing is of a high calibre.I would really recommend this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic German novel of individuals' resistence from within WW2 Germany
Staggeringly written in 24 days and first published in German in 1947, Alone in Berlin is without doubt a modern classic. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Ripple

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting if a little long-winded
The Second World War is obviously a topic that has been dealt with extensively in a number of ways and from various points of view. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Maria2222

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, satirical war-time thriller
Hans Fallada was the nom de plume of one Rudolf Ditzen, a German novelist whose best known work is probably the Great Depression novel, "Little Man, What Now? Read more
Published 1 day ago by Steve Benner

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing story about a brutal time
This is not an easy book to read. Not because its not well written - it is But because the brutal society that it portrays shows the sheer power of a totaliatrian regime to... Read more
Published 2 days ago by A. J. Sudworth

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping examination of personal morality in the face of state oppression
Otto and Anna Quangel are an unremarkable couple living in Berlin in 1940. They are middle-aged and working class, and each of their days is pretty much the same: Otto goes out... Read more
Published 3 days ago by purplepadma

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling read
Hans Fallada has written a gripping and masterly tale of life in Berlin during the Third Reich's purple patch in the early years of the Second World War. Read more
Published 4 days ago by Barney McGrew

5.0 out of 5 stars Very scary story of the realities for ordinary Germans under the Nazis
Gripping, heart-wrenching, chilling but ultimately redemptive story of a few ordinary German people in the ghastly years of the Nazi rule, during the second World War. Read more
Published 5 days ago by M. R. N. Shackelford

5.0 out of 5 stars Resistance
This book deals with the different type of resistance people demonstrated in Nazi Germany from the Postwoman Eva Kluge who censors her own thoughts before meeting important party... Read more
Published 9 days ago by kdog

5.0 out of 5 stars resistance strife and family morals take on the Nazi regime.
This book is a fantastic read, its gripping take on life post world war 2. The story is chilling yet pefectly describes the turmoil and suffering of a family in the grip of a... Read more
Published 9 days ago by K. D. Squire

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last
When I saw this being offered on the Vine program I jumped at the chance to get this, as I was going to buy it anyway. Read more
Published 10 days ago by M. Dowden

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