Novel
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Alfred Döblin · 1929
Synopsis
Franz Biberkopf, a former transport worker, leaves Tegel prison after serving four years for killing his partner, determined to lead an honest life from now on. The big city assails him with noise, advertisements and encounters; he sells newspapers and shoelaces, and falls back in with his old acquaintances. He befriends Reinhold, who changes women like shirts, and lets himself be drawn along with his gang into an affair of which he knows nothing.
Context
The novel was begun in the autumn of 1927 and finished two years later; preparatory versions appeared in newspapers and reviews from August 1928, before the S. Fischer volume in 1929, whose publisher had proposed the subtitle, The Story of Franz Biberkopf. The book proceeds by collage: newspaper extracts, advertisements, songs, speeches, biblical stories and the noises of the city enter the narrative. It was its author's only major commercial success. It has often been compared with Ulysses and Manhattan Transfer.
Who it is for
A long novel with multiple voices; the collage is disorienting at first, then gives the reading its rhythm.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the major works of the Weimar Republic, adapted for the screen by Piel Jutzi in 1931, then by Fassbinder for television in 1980.