Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Doblin

[Jamie]

I really liked this one, in the translation I read (by Michael Hoffman). It reads like jazz, with lots of song lyrics mixed in, and bits of advertisements, all sorts of tangents, perspective switches, etc. The narrative often lays out like verses of songs, with chorus lines every so often, too. The story follows Franz Bieberkopf, a man who just got out of prison after serving a 4 year sentence for manslaughter, for killing his wife. His story is told as a journey, a bit like the story in O Brother, Where Art Thou. Eventually he finds peace and a place for himself, but only after several disastrous false starts. The book was written and published in the last couple years before the Crash of 1929, that kicked off the Great Depression, so it is a snapshot of Berlin during the Roaring Twenties, in all its mid-war glitz and glamour, before Hitler came to power and the new war began brewing in earnest.
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads. This one is definitely among my top 10 List books for this year. It's a challenging read, but worth the effort.

[Liz M]

Why it is included in the 1001 list: ""Berlin Alexanderplatz ranks alongside the work of Joyce and Dos Passos both as one of the great urban epics of the 1920s and as an attempt to innovate the novel genre.... The novel is chiefly remembered for its style.... In a conscious rejection of traditional conceptions, the multilayered narrative gives free rein to the competing discourses of the metropolis."

This book has gotten a fair amount of good press for the translation. Apparently, the original German is so set in it's time and place that it has been considered a novel that is quite difficult to translate -- how to capture the rough language and the variety of vernaculars. As I only speak/read one language, I have no way of judging the translation -- I am not sure if I would know if it was good or bad. Some readers were bothered by the Britishisms, but I didn't really notice.

This book also seems to be compared to Ulysses frequently, but I didn't see it myself. Joyce is so controlled and everything is so perfectly, visibly constructed. This novel, and it's protagonist, are a hot mess. The collage-like style with the main character's inner monologue mixed with random advertisements, jingles, snatches of Biblical stories and so on is probably also perfectly constructed, but the structure is so much less apparent.

I did not find it a particularly pleasant or easy read. The main character, Franz Biberkopf, has just been released from prison (incarcerated for beating his girlfriend to death), is not likeable. Even though he desires to avoid further criminal behavior, there is still little redeeming about him -- he doesn't work to be better, rather he sinks into his previous life and with minimal effort, and almost passively avoids outright badness. As he makes his way through lower-class Berlin, there are glimpses, through descriptions, bits of songs, stories, and so on, of the instability of society. It seems in post war Berlin no one is able to get ahead, to do well. It is an interesting depiction of a particular time and place, held loosely together through the narrative downfall of a not-so-good protagonist. The collaged writing is disorienting and occasionally powerful, but overall the book feels unpleasant. Which, I suspect, is exactly what the author intended.

[Diane]

Rating: 4 Stars


Set in Weimar Germany, and finishing just before the dawn of the Great Depression, this is the story of a man trying to turn his life around after being released from custody for killing his girlfriend. He had only intended on beating her during a fit of jealousy, but the kitchen tool he used accidentally stabbed her in the chest. A series of mishaps and poor choices ensue on his road to live a better life.

This is not an easy read for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, it is a well-written book, deserving of its spot on the list. Like Liz, I also failed to see similarities with the book Ulysses. I did enjoy reading about the Berlin of almost a century ago, before the dramatic changes brought on by WWII, Nazism, and the Great Depressions.

[Amanda]

I ended up giving this one 3 stars. I liked how the 'fate' like forces that prevent Franz from truly moving on from his crimes mirrors how Germany during the Weimar Republic wasn't able to remove the darker elements that cumulated in Nazism.

Other than that, I felt like it was a well written book with some valid points explored, but it just didn't enthrall me.