Berlin Alexanderplatz () is a 1929 novel by Alfred Döblin. It is considered one of the most important and innovative works of the Weimar Republic. In a 2002 poll of 100 noted writers, the book was named among the top 100 books of all time.
Summary
The story concerns a murderer, Franz Biberkopf, fresh from prison. When his friend murders the prostitute on whom Biberkopf has been relying as an anchor, he realizes that he will be unable to extricate himself from the underworld into which he has sunk. He must deal with misery, lack of opportunities, crime and the imminent ascendancy of Nazism. During his struggle to survive against all odds, life rewards him with an unsuspected surprise, but his happiness does not last as the story continues.
Focus and narrative technique
The novel is set in the working-class district near Alexanderplatz in 1920s Berlin. Although its narrative style is sometimes compared to that of James Joyce, critics such as Walter Benjamin have drawn a distinction between Ulysses’ interior monologue and Berlin Alexanderplatzs use of montage. Oliver Kamm, writing in the London Times, says Döblin's methods are more akin to Kafka in his use of "erlebte Rede (roughly, experienced speech — a blending of first-person and third-person narrative)". The novel is told from multiple points of view, and uses sound effects, newspaper articles, songs, speeches, and other books to propel the plot.
Translations
The novel was translated into English in 1931 by Eugene Jolas, a friend of James Joyce. The translation was not well received; it particularly was criticised for the way in which it rendered everyday working-class speech. A 2018 English translation by Michael Hofmann, published by New York Review Books, was given a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, which called it "vigorous and fresh" and a "welcome refurbishing of a masterpiece of literary modernism". According to Oliver Kamm, "Dialogue is the most difficult thing to get right in translation" which Hofmann has rendered "in cockney dialect. It reads fluently, even at the risk of being possibly obscure to a non-British audience".