Hans Fallada's 'A Small Circus' was written in 1931, as the German Weimar Republic was beginning to collapse. This is the first time the novel has been available in an English translation, and while it may seem that its subject matter has niche interest only, that would be a pity. Fallada's themes of corruption, betrayal and manipulation within local politics and journalism and his witty, character and dialogue driven style deserve to reach a wide readership. The novel is set in the fictional town of Altholm, where the local farmers, under constant pressure to pay unreasonable taxes and faced with the seizure of livestock if they do not comply stage a small protest at one such seizure. Max Tredup, struggling journalist with the local right wing newspaper the Chronicle captures the events on camera and, desperate for money, sells the photographs to the local Social Democratic administration. The evidence within the pictures leads to the arrest of Reimers, a well known local farmer and a key member of the protest. Supported by Stuff, the editor of the Chronicle and by the mysterious Henning, the farmers band together to stage a mass demonstration in support of Reimers - a demonstration that rapidly descends into violence, skilfully manipulated by Henning and his cohorts and unwittingly aided by the incompetent police chief Frerksen. The end result is a boycott of the town by the farmers, and it is left to the liberal mayor Garies to try to solve an extremely complex problem. The book works on many levels. It gives an insightful education into the bizarrely fragmented political landscape in late 1920's Germany, where multiple parties vie for even a small slice of power and where government relies on string pulling and on the influence of newspapers. It is a salutary lesson on how even a corrupt political ideal can take advantage of such confusion if driven aggressively enough as Nazism did only four years later. It is a darkly witty black comedy, at times reminiscent of ‘The Thick Of It’ in its murky layers of intrigue (Michael Hofmann's hilarious contemporary translation is a huge boon to the novel). And ultimately it is a tale of the fallibility of men, where even the well intentioned Garies has to resort to underhand tactics to achieve his aims, where the hapless Tredup stumbles from disaster to disaster in his attempts to forge a better life for himself, and where unscrupulous but determined characters such as Henning and Stuff can take advantage of the failings of others to achieve their own agendas. In places the book is a little confusing: it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the numerous characters of varying different political persuasions, and Fallada uses a dialogue driven style of plot development that occasionally leaves you wondering who is speaking to whom, but those are minor criticisms. 'A Small Circus' is a very worthwhile read, and one that leaves you with much food for thought.

If there is one thing publishers like more than a best-selling author, it is a best-selling author who has the tremendous good sense to be dead. Yes, interviews on ‘This Morning’ are slightly difficult to arrange, but what is that to the general convenience of being able to release their books at a time of your choosing, with the cover you prefer, in the certain knowledge that at no point in this process will you receive an email that begins “It just occurred to me …”? Such a one is Hans Fallada, whose deeply impressive and moving ‘Alone in Berlin’ was one of the surprise hits of 2010. This didn’t come altogether as a bolt out of the blue. The Germans, natürlich, have been reading his stuff for years. But it wasn’t until Michael Hoffmann, a translator of genius, rendered that heart-breaking novel into vigorous, modern English that readers in Britain saw how brilliant an author Fallada really is. So here is the second book of his from Penguin Classics, ‘A Small Circus’. It was written seventeen years before ‘Alone in Berlin’, in 1930. The Nazis, then, were no more than a rowdy assemblage of bigoted yahoos, yet Fallada anticipates with uncanny prescience the horror and tragedy that were to come. Fallada’s theme is the death of democracy. Set in a Pomeranian market town during a farmers’ strike, ‘A Small Circus’ shows us the terminal dysfunction of the Weimar Republic, its utter feebleness in confronting the forces that threatened to tear it apart from within. We’re a long way here from the loveable bumpkins Paddy Leigh Fermor hung around with in Bavaria. Irresponsible journalists, corrupt, self-serving officials, demagogues and blowhards, perverts and crooks: the question we ask ourselves after reading ‘A Small Circus’ isn’t so much why Weimar collapsed in 1933, but how it managed to last as long as it did. Actually, that makes the book sound far more doom-laden than it is. We are so used to treating German history as an inexhaustible well of shame that we forget its occasional well-hidden absurdities. Many scenes in this novel, especially the farcical expedition by town dignitaries to negotiate with the farmers, reminded me more than anything of Tom Sharpe. Are we allowed to say that a Hans Fallada novel can be funny? I think we are. You’ll still get some odd looks if you’re seen roaring with laughter at it, even so. Among other things, Fallada’s book is a deadly satire on the fatuousness of provincial elites: fools and knaves for the most part, sprouting with fungal enthusiasm between the toes of the body politic. It has been objected that this story has no heroes, that each character is in some way compromised, sordid, or ridiculous. And this is true. But heroism was pretty scarce in those days.

I've not come across any of Hans Fallada's other works, and this is the first translation of this book. I did thoroughly enjoy the book, and was surprised about how easy and pleasurable it was to read. I will certainly look out for more by this author. The story is set in 1929 and covers the tensions and problems in a small town in Germany around the time of the fall of the Weimar republic. My only criticism is that in places it seemed to drag a bit, but overall it was a very good read and I'd recommend it.

A Small Circus by Hans Fallada was originally written in 1931. The book, set in 1929, is about the difficulties in a small town in Germany. The Weimar republic is on the brink of collapse and this town in particular is in a state of unrest. I found the book quite difficult to get into and felt the beginning especially dragged on. It is worth sticking with it though as it was generally enjoyable. I found it an interesting read overall but not as gripping as Alone in Berlin (best seller by the same author).

If only this entire book had the pace of its last few chapters, it would not have been three stars but five, and perhaps I would not have found reading it to be such a long haul. I read Hans Fallada's final novel, 'Alone in Berlin,' if not, of course - given the Nazi-era setting - with enjoyment, certainly with the normal enthusiasm due a very fine, satisfying novel, but cannot offer the same description to 'A Small Circus.' Set in a small, North German town, during the dying years of the Weimar Republic, when farmers who cannot, or will not, pay their punitive taxes face - in an echo of the feudal system - losing livestock or even more, it singularly lacks a strong, narrative voice. One wonders if that is why I found what should have been the most important dramatic set-piece - the real-life, 1929 farmers' demonstration, witnessed by the author himself as a journalist - less compelling than its resultant trial; why more than one cliff-hanger merely faded out and other moments of well-depicted high drama, or even humour, were simply islands in a lake of tedium. It did not help that there is no real hero, or heroine, in the traditional sense to identify strongly with, though I would be happy to read 'Little Man, What Now?' Fallada's follow-up novel. And there IS the hindsight-driven knowledge that they are all - be they social democrats, communists or nazis, or the farmers and bigwigs of the original title - marching towards the abyss.