Little Man, What Now?
by Hans Fallada
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hans FalladaTranslator: Susan Bennett
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-03
ISBN: 1933633646
Number of pages: 345
Publisher: Melville House
Book Reviews of Little Man, What Now?
Book Review: Timeless? Timely? or Both?
Summary: 5 Stars
"Little Man What Now?" was a popular success when published in Germany in 1932, and an international best seller in translation. Made into a Hollywood film, its success continued, but the fact that the producer was Jewish may have helped bring the author Hans Fallada into disfavor with the National Socialist regime. Fallada was certainly the victim of Nazi hatred; he spent most of WW2 imprisoned in an asylum, where he secretly wrote "The Drinker". But the oppression is a little odd, considering that "Little Man What Now?" is hardly a political activist's novel. Both the National Socialists and the Communists are acknowledged to exist, but the Little Man, 'Sonny' Pinneberg, is neither. He's just a decent, simple bloke trying to stay afloat economically and emotionally in a depression environment of unemployment, inflation, unrest, and violent social polarization... an environment remarkably like the USA today. That's the 'timely' part of this book. Pinneberg's difficulties would seem awfully familiar to laid-off workers in Detroit, Philadelphia, or Oakland. Perhaps it was Fallada's impartiality, or rather the apolitical nature of his Little Man hero, that made his work unacceptable to the Third Reich.
Despite any and all hardships, the Little Man doesn't succumb to the allure of Nazism or Communism. He offends some of his 'home boys' by refusing to turn to crime. He resists the temptations of alcohol, low life, beggary, and suicide. Much of his strength comes from his wife, Lammchen, whose indomitable bounty of love and trust makes her one of the classic 'working class' women in all of literature. That's the 'timeless' part of the book; the two main characters are 'real' down to their toenails. Lesser characters are also brilliantly plausible and individualized, even the eccentric nudist Heilbutt and the Little Man's disreputable bawdy Mother. The novel may depict the gloomy decadence of Berlin at the end of the Weimar debacle, but it's replete with picturesque settings and characters. It's funny, as well as perversely 'heart-warming'. I haven't seen the old movie, but I could imagine Jimmy Stewart playing Pinneberg, with a musical score gradually shifting from clangorous brass to mellow strings. Or Charlie Chaplin, of course. A hybrid Stewart/Chaplin would be best of all. One almost has to think of Chaplin's "Modern Times" while reading Little Man What Now? Pinneberg is a white-collar salesman, not a factory worker, but he is as brutally oppressed by 'capitalism' and 'efficiency' as any character in Zola or Dickens.
This early novel by Hans Fallada reminds me quite a lot of the works of the American Theodore Dreiser, both in themes and in style. Fallada's style is blunt, forcefully plain, determinedly non-literary. Critics like to discuss his work as representative of the movement in German art and writing called "The New Factuality." That would link him to such writers as Alfred Doeblin in Germany or John Dos Passos in America, but the linkage is weak at best. Doeblin and Dos Passos combined a stream-of-consciousness with the externality of 'found art'. Little Man What Now? is far less self-conscious. No one will find it a difficult book to read. Nobody will damn it with faint praise for being 'experimental'. It was popular precisely because it's easy to read and even easier to feel sympathy for. Fallada's later books, translated to English as The Drinker and No Man Dies Alone, are worlds away both in style and in mood.
Don't be lured to this book by the notion that it depicts "The Rise of Hitlerism" and the debauchery of 1932 Germany. It does portray 'hard times', but chiefly as a backdrop to the human drama of the Little Man, his 'Lammchen', and their unplanned, much-wanted Baby, whom they call The Shrimp. Great book! Timeless! Timely! What more could you ask for?
Summary of Little Man, What Now?
This is the book that led to Hans Fallada?s downfall with the Nazis. The story of a young couple struggling to survive the German economic collapse was a worldwide sensation and was made into an acclaimed Hollywood movie produced by Jews, leading Hitler to ban Fallada?s work from being translated.Nonetheless, it remains, as The Times Literary Supplement notes, ?the novel of a time in which public and private merged even for those whowanted to stay at home and mind their own business."
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