Iron Gustav: A Berlin Family Chronicle (2015) - Plot & Excerpts
I love every one of Hans Fallada's novels and this was a joy to read, but I hesitate to write a review, because it is so hard to convey the magical way in which he takes such ordinary and difficult lives, in such a dark and perilous period of German history, and somehow makes them sparkle. This novel announces quite early that life is hard and that often, the very act of doing what seems to us to be right can lead us into the horrible consequences of being wrong. He follows the moral choices made by each of the children raised by Gustave and describes Gustave's response to the way they each turn out. We are invited to place the responsibility - and therefore the blame - on Gustave and the excessively strict and harsh way he treated them as children and young adults. But we also observe how Gustave himself adjusts to the twists of fate in his own life, his loyalty to his wife, his capacity for love. "Even though ninety-nine of his plans had miscarried, the hundredth might still succeed. We travel. We laugh. We never give up hoping. Maybe we will fall into the mud one day but we don't have to stay there. We mustn't give up if we do fall. On we must go." Is there a trace of Samuel Beckett in such sentiments? Gustave is difficult to like but it is hard not to respect him by the close of this book. A remark made about Gustave himself late in the book might possibly offer some justification for his record, or at least transfer some blame from him to his children for their own choices in life: " ...things - whether small or big - are not achieved because of the belief others have in us, but only because of the belief we have in ourselves." It sounds wise but then again, on reflection, we have to wonder where does that belief in ourselves come from? As a minimum, looking back over the lives of the different children, we have to concede that each, from much the same type of childhood, made dramatically different choices. There was nothing fully determined in their lives. If Gustave cannot be blamed for all that transpires for his children, then we are obliged to look elsewhere for explanations. We are told repeatedly that the story is about the lives of real "Berliners"; maybe there is a message in this concept and we really are intended to see this family as a comment on their social, economic and political environment. Knowing that he had no less a critic than Joseph Goebbels looking over his work, and writing in the totalitarian Germany of 1938, whatever Hans Fallada wrote was always going to be coded. His ambiguity had indeed confused politicians sufficiently for him to be allowed to write. The truth is that the choices facing this generation of Berliners were harsh and restricted. The moral compass to which they were trained was seriously defective in the best cases and perverse in the worst. Hans Fallada is vicious in his portrayal of German politicians and he identifies a vicious streak in many of his ordinary characters. Against this he seems to offer little more than the fundamental integrity and humanity of ordinary people, people like Gustave, the cabbie. Even "Iron Gustave", the brutal father and hard businessman, a bully lacking in real feelings, turns out to be motivated by love and the desire to do the right thing and sufficiently self aware to appreciate that he may have got it all wrong. The novel ends on a terrific, optimistic upbeat, with quite a few suggestions that things are just starting to get better for Berliners. What we now know of course is that things were about to take another turn for the worse; in 1938 Hans Fallada already knew that and so did his readers. But maybe he hoped that Goebbels would not have seen it this way, or not been quite sure. And it is possible for us to take the novel on face value and enjoy the ending as a relief from the tough times it has described. This is why I was reluctant to write a review. I cannot avoid seeing the political nature of such a novel and yet I would hate to drive readers away from what is, after all, such an affectionate and comical family saga. I don't know if the right answer to tyranny is humanity and humour; sometimes it is clearly not; I just wish it could be so and I think that for Hans Fallada, that was how he dealt with an insane country in an impossible era. I am reminded of the way Shostakovich had to deal with Stalin, always risking his very life to make great music. Spike Milligan would have us accept that Germans lack humour but with this novel, surely, Hans Fallada stared Joseph Goebbels in the face and dared to laugh.
What do You think about Iron Gustav: A Berlin Family Chronicle (2015)?
