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It’s what every reader longs for but experiences all too rarely. Just a few pages into a book and you realize there’s something special in your hands. German author Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone is just such a book. And what makes it perhaps that much more remarkable is that it is now being published in the U.S. for the first time more than 50 years after it was written.
 Every Man Dies Alone is far from the perfect novel. No one would expect it to be given the fact Fallada, the pseudonym for Rudolf Ditzen, wrote it in 24 days. From today’s perspective, his style tends to reflect the era in which the book was written. Additionally, he likes to wander a bit and uses coincidence as a plot mechanism perhaps a bit too much. Even with such flaws, the book deserves to be on plenty of this year’s “best of” lists.
Every Man Dies Alone is based on the true story of a married couple who dropped postcards containing anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler messages throughout Berlin during World War II. In fact, the book includes reproductions of the Gestapo file on that case, including photos of several of the cards. Here, the couple is Otto and Anna Quangel, whose campaign begins after their only son is killed in the Nazi victory over France in 1940. Otto is a taciturn, staid foreman in a factory that goes from producing furniture before the war to coffins as the war progresses. Anna is a homemaker who, despite her self-imposed subordination, is close to an equal partner in their crusade.
The book, translated by Michael Hofmann, essentially follows the investigation into their campaign and those — both noble and despicable — whose lives somehow intersect with their defiance. There’s plenty of people who are directly or indirectly swept up or affected by their actions. They include Eva Kluge, the postal worker who delivers their son’s death notice; other residents of their apartment building, from petty crook Emil Borkhausen to ardent and brutal Hitler Youth member Baldur Persickes to retired Judge Fromm. There’s also the fiancée of the Quangels’ son, the investigators, Anna’s brother and sister-in-law, and Enno Kluge, Eva’s ne’er-do-well, estranged husband who gets caught up in Emil Borkhausen’s mischief.
Although the fact Fallada approaches the story from the investigative standpoint might lead one to think it’s a thriller, it isn’t. Rather, this is a book about life in exceedingly difficult times and how people react both ethically and morally. Fallada, who died in 1947 just weeks before the book was published, gives us a story that examines and raises the question of the value and impact of resistance. Each ensuing chapter takes us through another step in the investigation or the events that unalterably impact the lives of each character, always crafted with an almost palpable sense of dread.
While I don’t usually put much stock in book blurbs, the statement on the front cover by Holocaust survivor and memoirist Primo Levi right on the mark: “”The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis.” That is particularly a huge statement given that Fallada is German. Yet that is perhaps what makes Every Man Dies Alone so powerful. It comes from someone who lived under the Nazi regime, who was familiar with the fear and surveillance, who was one of millions who, to at least some extent, went along to get along. But the book looks at the converse: what if you don’t go along.
It is not the story of a broad-based and wide-ranging resistance movement. It is not the story of a pattern or campaign of industrial or other sabotage. It is simply a story of individual conscience on the part of an older couple. “At least I stayed decent,” Otto Quangel says at one point. “I didn’t participate.” Theirs is a story of resistance undertaken without knowing whether it produces results. It is a story of the ramifications of even mild defiance in a society where the Hitler and the Nazis are “everything, and the people nothing.”
There is little doubt even such small acts of resistance are courageous. The more profound question is whether they ultimately have has any meaning after balancing the personal principles and redemption against the likely futility and body count. In exploring this dilemma, Every Man Dies Alone is a remarkable success.
As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean that we are alone.
Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone
Bulletin Board
It’s Jazz Appreciation Month. Go forth and celebrate.
Bookish Linkage
Toni Morrison’s A Mercy won the annual Tournament of Books, besting City of Refuge in the finals.
The six finalists for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize have been announced. The books, none of which I’ve had a chance to read, are from Columbia, China, Albania, France and Israel.
The Prez wins biography of the year honors in the British Book Awards.
The shortlists for The Orwell Prize have been announced, which includes not only books but blogs.
Nonbookish Linkage
In conjunction with Jazz Appreciation month, the staff at the Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues Society pick their top five jazz albums. Interestingly, Time Out is the only LP to make more than one list.
The WSJ, of all publications, gets it: Why You Should Have Watched Hockey. I did — including 8 straight hours last Saturday.
Music is what you notice when it’s no longer in your presence.
Pat Metheny
I do a lot of book reviews, both here and for Blogcritics. I get some of the books free, whether from the publisher, author or a publicist. Evidently, that now may subject me to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC is considering changes in federal regulations regarding the “use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.” One of those regulations requires that there must be full disclosure of any connection between the endorser and seller of a product “which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement.”
The proposals don’t change the content of the regulation itself. They do, though, propose adding an example dealing specifically with blogs. It deals with a college student with a reputation as a video game expert who also has a gaming blog. A manufacturer sends him a free copy of a new game system and asks him to write about it on the blog. After testing it, he posts a favorable review. According to the FTC, “The readers of his blog are unlikely to expect that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact would likely materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge.”
Hmm, sounds a lot like what happens with me and most other most book bloggers. Now I don’t know that I have a reputation as an “expert” when it comes to books. Likewise, the cost of any one book is nowhere near the value of a video gaming system. I also know I’m not doing this because of any economic gain. After all, if you translated the value into a hourly wage for the time spent just writing a review, the minimum wage laws would be violated.
I certainly don’t have a problem with transparency. What bothers me is that it seems the proposals treat bloggers treated differently than “the real world.”
This point was made in comments a variety of well-respected associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Advertising Federation, jointly submitted to the FTC. Referring to the proposals as a whole as constituting a “drastic change” in current policy, they pointed out that marketers long have provided products for review at no price. Moreover, they ask, if a blogger must disclose they received something for free, “is every critic required to disclose that a reviewed item was provided for free? Reviewers in traditional media do not have to disclose this information; reviewers in nontraditional media platforms such as blogs, online discussion boards, and street teams should not be treated any differently.”
These organizations also said that not only do reviews benefit consumers, but many critics “would not be able to review as many products and services as they do if they had to pay for them.” They also asserted that consumers may expect that critics received an item for free or “generally assume that an independent, expert reviewer is providing his or her honest opinions regardless of whether the reviewer purchased the item or received it at no cost.”
It’s the last point that I think truly represents the position of any legitimate reviewer. I freely point out here that some of the material I review I get at no charge. At the same time, I have promised — and adhere to the promise — that it “shall never play a role in the evaluation of the work.”
The comment period for the proposed regulations is closed and the FTC will determine if they will be adopted and, if so, whether the proposals will be unchanged. I realize there’s a variety of outfits and people out there who get paid or pay to push a book or other product, whether on a blog, Amazon or other sites. And adding a short disclaimer to a review isn’t a huge inconvenience. Still, if it takes a federal regulation for someone to express an honest opinion, it’s too late anyway.
Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
Norman R. Augustine, Augustine’s Laws
America’s tendency to rush books into print after newsworthy, or even not so newsworthy, events has generally soured me on books appearing shortly after the events with which they deal. After all, can the paperback you see in the a supermarket checkout line a month or so after the latest trial of the century really be all that insightful? That bias gave me some trepidation when I picked up Alan Johnston’s Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches. It proved it is a bias and not recognition of an immutable law.
Technically, Johnston’s book doesn’t really fall into the “rush it to print” category, at least in the U.S. The title comes from his kidnapping by an extremist group in the Gaza Strip in March 2007, where he was stationed as a BBC correspondent. He was released in July 2007 after being held captive 114 days. Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches was published in Britain some four months later but is just now making its U.S. appearance. It is a worthy addition to the reportage about the Middle East as well as the war on terror not simply because of the recounting of his ordeal but his observations of and insight into conditions on the ground.
Johnston’s story of his kidnapping, in fact, doesn’t appear until near the end of the book’s section on the Middle East and, even then, it is relatively brief. A lengthier discussion of Johnston’s impressions of and from his kidnapping come in an interview conducted by another BBC correspondent several months after Johnston’s release. Preceding and following these are pieces Johnston did for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent program from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
It is almost eerie to read a piece Johnston wrote about 15 months before his own kidnapping about the increasing use of it as a tactic in Gaza. After explaining that the trend seemed to arise after the Israeli army pulled out, he notes that
the whole business of kidnapping goes very much against the local social grain. Palestinians are extremely hospitable people, and one of the dangers of being abducted here must be that you’ll get fed to death.
…. But of course being taken away by armed men is no joke. I dread it,… But if my turn does come I will be terrified. The trouble is, the fewer foreigners there are around, the greater the danger, and there are now very, very few foreigners in Gaza.
His “turn” came just 16 days before he was scheduled to leave Gaza. Taken by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, Johnston was told he was being held to obtain the release of Muslims being held in Britain. He had no pen, paper, book, radio or television (although the group later gave him a radio). Johnston was wearing disposable contacts that had to be thrown out his first day in captivity. Thus, it was in a “blurred, empty room [that] I began to try to come to terms with the disaster that had engulfed me.”
Although generally not maltreated, Kidnapped looks at a bigger internal danger, that of Johnston’s mental state. He found some solace in a perhaps unusual place. Thinking of the people diagnosed each year with terminal cancer, “I told myself it would be shameful if I couldn’t conduct myself with some grace int he face of my much lesser challenge.” He embarked on a variety of routines and mental exercises to combat the psychological dangers his experience presented. The radio also heartened him as he was able to hear his parents’ voices and the growing worldwide demands to free him. Ultimately, Johnston was rescued by Hamas, which had gained control of Gaza and wanted an end to the kidnapping. Thus, rather than government intervention, it was the act of another extremist organization that ended Johnston’s detention.
Beyond sharing those experiences, Johnston’s pieces on Gaza, Afghanistan and Central Asia provide first-hand insight into not only the problems that plague those regions but the people who live there. Johnston undoubtedly has a great deal of respect and even empathy for the Palestinians in Gaza. He examines how they cope with life in a place he describes as “battered, poverty-stricken and overcrowded” while being “short of money, short of space, short of hope.” Sadly, he observes, “it’s not short of guns.”
He displays a similar approach with Afghanistan, taking us not only from the internal strife but to the Bamiyan Buddhas both before and after they were destroyed and the experiences of the people. Likewise, his pieces on Central Asia look at peoples who are no longer controlled by the Soviet Union and are now trying to find their own way in the world.
Kidnapped could be criticized because most of it is years old now. Yet there seems to be some universal truths in it. Equally important, while his kidnapping helps provide this particular forum, Johnston commendably uses it to try to educate people about the places he worked, rather than broadly denounce nationalities due to the actions of a handful.
There are too many guns, too many armed factions and not nearly enough hope of something better to come.
Alan Johnston, Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches
Last month’s edition, which focused on books up for review and on hold at the library, panned out so well I should almost do it again. I’ve read four of the five books for review and the fifth doesn’t hit the street until the beginning of May. I’m still on the hold list for one of the four library books but got two read and took a third back because it was evident I wasn’t going to get to it before it was due.
In part because of all the reading, this month’s list is a bit shorter but looking at it indicates I may be going through a bit of SF withdrawal. It includes:
The City & The City, China Miéville — While this book doesn’t come out for nearly two months, I’ve been enthralled with Miéville’s work since I read Perdido Street StationPerdido Street Station in 2002. I can’t wait for this one.
Columbine, Dave Cullen — Some media hype and rave reviews about this exploration of the high school shootings 10 years later prompts this addition to the list. That plus the fact I will be able to get it from the local library.
Ghosts — Still hooked on world lit, some favorable reviews of this novella by Argentine author César Aira caught my interest.
Level 7, Mordecai Roshwald — Despite the number of post-apocalyptic novels I’ve read, this one, first published in 1959, somehow escaped my attention. I plan to remedy that error with this re-release.
Other Earths — Another of my favorite SF sub-genres — alternate history — caused this collection of stories to pique my interest.
Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead, Peter Manseau — I don’t know why but I’m attracted by these sorts of books — Manseau travels the world in search of religious relics. A fairly favorable review pushed it on to the list.
In a word, literature is my Utopia.
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
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Disclaimer 
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