Review: Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

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.

Review: Don't Look Now & Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier is widely considered to be one of our most gifted female writers. In fact, scratch that because it sounds patronising, as if women need to be sectioned off in their own area. She is widely considered to be one of our finest writers full-stop, so I have always meant to read more of her work.

The only book I’ve read until now was Rebecca, a novel which constantly makes it onto all-time greatest lists whenever masterpieces are being discussed. I was a kid when I read it, plucking the dated TV tie-in paperback from my parents’ wicker bookcase, a youthful and bewildered Joanna David gazing out from the cover. In fact, a guilty glance over my shoulder to my own bookcases has just revealed that yes, I never put it back...

Rebecca is a really great book. I was probably only about 10 or 12 when I read it and if a story about old-fashioned love and adult jealousy can enchant someone who still watches Grange Hill, it’s got something going for it.

However, I was not immediately gripped by the idea that I should seek out more of her work. And I think it is because Rebecca, however thrilling and occasionally dark, still resonates a gentility which doesn’t quite match my literary tastes. The titles of Du Maurier’s other novels – Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek – just seemed to nudge towards the twee, so she wasn’t really at the top of my must-read list.

While browsing about in the bookshop the other day, I suddenly spotted a copy of Don’t Look Now and Other Stories and knew immediately that I must have it. Never having seen the film – another highly celebrated work – all the way through, I only had a vague idea of the storyline. But with my love of paranormal fiction, I knew at once that it was a must-read.

And I wasn’t wrong. Although Don’t Look Now is the big-name striker in the team, all the other players on the pitch quietly make their own mark. From the sublimely odd and unexpected turns of the title story, to the equally bizarre A Border-Line Case, Du Maurier shows an awe-inspiring grasp of character and place.

Somehow she manages to take strange, fanciful notions and place them right into the middle of ordinary life in the most believable way. I felt a little frustration with A Border-Line Case, simply because the language and action felt almost dream-like and as if Du Maurier had become a little self-indulgent. But on the whole, these five stories were intriguing and bold, in most cases seeming to introduce ideas and characters merely to let us know they existed, with no conclusion or even real comment on them at all.

Although Don’t Look Now is her most satisfying tale, as it does at least have an ending, The Way of the Cross might be the most accomplished. In just 67 pages she paints an astonishingly vivid picture of a group of disparate tourists in Jerusalem, all suffering a series of minor calamities and for what purpose? Just as we get a grip on them all, we leave them. And that is where Du Maurier’s consummate skill and assurance really makes itself known.

The final story, The Breakthrough, left me positively gripped and desperate to know more about the psychic energy experiments of an eccentric scientist. But I guess I will never know what might have been if the story was allowed to progress, the plug pulled on that particular intrigue.

This copy of Don’t Look Now is part of the Penguin Decades series, a really beautifully presented collection with covers by Zandra Rhodes, which makes it something of a keepsake and I'd recommend seeking out these attractive editions.