The old saying "never judge a book by its cover" is a bit of a redundant one sometimes, I think. I realise it is supposed to apply more to people than books in the literal sense, but cover design is still pretty crucial in the publishing world. Only the classics can afford to be stacked on the shelf with just a plain cover, Penguin-style, when the title says it all.
So I can honestly say that it was the cover of Alone in Berlin that captured my attention. I had never heard of it before I spotted it in the book shop one day and I didn't buy it straightaway, but it stayed on my mind and I decided to purchase it a few weeks later.
The cover was atmospheric - a lone man almost lost in a whirl of snow amid crumbling monuments - and the font was strange. It compelled me. And the blurb on the back, promising a story about one man risking his life by daring to defy Hitler, was intriguing.
As I didn't actually bother to read the jacket notes before starting the book, I had no idea that this was not a contemporary novel. It was written in 1946, but the style and language led me to believe it might have been a 21st century creation. Learning halfway through that the story came from an author who had lived through the Second World War, rather than a modern writer who filled out the human suffering with research rather than experience, made it even more of a poignant read.
The action centres on Otto Quangel, a silent and reserved factory foreman living in 40s Berlin who has refused to join the Nazi Party, but otherwise harbours no extreme feelings towards the rise of the Third Reich. But the loss of his only son to the war and the subsequent reaction of his wife, Anna, releases something in Otto. Suddenly, this placid, self-contained man is inexpressibly angry.
His response is to start writing postcards that basically slag the Fuhrer and all he stands for, dropping them anonymously around the city. In an era when I could insult God's mother on this blog if I wanted and have the whole world see it, that might seem like a pathetic crime. But the point is that in wartime Germany, it was a crime and a capital one at that. So when Otto embarks on his quiet, gentle campaign, he is taking his life in his hands.
His aim is to start a silent revolution, envisaging his postcards being passed from hand to hand and stirring up anti-Nazi feeling that might ultimately stop the war. But the reality is very different and Otto soons finds himself the object of a slow, patient investigation by the Gestapo's creepy Inspector Esherich.
The book blurb paints Alone in Berlin as a 'cat and mouse' game between rebel and police, but although there are certainly gripping moments as Otto risks discovery, the story isn't really about that. Indeed, the novel takes some very unexpected turns and even seems to ponder on whether resistance really is futile. But particularly in the last act, Fallada manages to combine the cold realities of Nazism with a clearly unshakeable belief in the dignity and power of the individual.
The climate of fear in Germany under the Nazis is brought to life in chilling, painful detail and the reader is really made to care for these characters, making you feel a heart-stopping concern for their fate. Set against a backdrop of horrifically real fact, this fiction is an emotional yet ultimately uplifting read.
At the back of the book, there is some fascinating background detail about Hans Fallada, who by the time he was 20 had already been involved in a suicide pact. Rather obviously, he failed to die but his friend didn't and so already Fallada's life was off to a dodgy start. Although Alone in Berlin drips with venom towards the Nazis, it is interesting to read about his precarious relationship with the Third Reich as he continued to live and work in Berlin during the war and the way he explored this in his fiction.
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