A Small Circus

A satiric look at Weimar Germany. I had previously read Alone in Berlin by this author and really liked it. However, I was a bit disappointed in this offering. The time period was good. The cast of characters was so large that I had to keep a running list--no fun. There was not one to like or admire. About 95% of the book was dialogue and with so many characters, I felt that half the time I did not know what was going on. I understand that this was one of the author's first books. Since I liked his previous work so much, I'm willing to give him a pass on this one and try yet another! 578 pages

Reading the translator Michael Hofmann's cast of characters I wondered how difficult this book would be to follow, but I didn't really refer back to it while reading it: true, there is a large cast of characters who represent various groups, but most of the action follows a much smaller set. This is a novel about a town and its surrounding countryside where local newspaper editors report what they choose (even if they have to make it up), farmers' genuine grievances turn into major sticking points between the town's administration and policing and local law-enforcement finds itself panicking when the people on the streets are not the usual Communists. I'm not sure my reading of this book did justice to the book, but it worked show more surprisingly well as bus reading and I was engaged all the way through. show less