I believe I started Every Man Dies Alone in February... maybe March. Being an avid reader of Holocaust literature, I was intrigued by the story. Hans Fallada has an intriguing story: husband and wife write postcards in an attempt to show resistance to the Nazi government. In addition, while Fallada's story is fiction, it is based on a real-life couple. Furthermore, Fallada was imprisoned by the Nazi's for a time, wrote this book in 24 days and then died.
All of the above notwithstanding, but the story just drags and drags and it took me a LONG time to force my way through it. Fallada's attention to detail is, at times, overwhelming. Although, I'm not sure if it is Fallada's failure or that of the translator, but at times the language just does not flow. The novel was touted as "the greatest story of German resistance to Nazism". I'm not sure if that is true. What is certainly true that there were too many sub-plots and characters, and not enough action. It is, after all, a story of nearly passive resistance.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
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1 comments:
OMG, we read this book for book club a few months ago. The translation is terrible, but the concept is interesting. I'm with you, though, it takes forever to get through and there are too many characters, etc, to keep straight. Certainly not my favorite book. Good for you for finishing it. If it hadn't been for book club, I'm not sure I would have stuck with it.
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