Evening star., 1936-03-14
By Marv.Carter Roberts.


ONCE WE HAD A CHILD. BY Hans
Fallada. Translated from the Ger
man by Eric Sutton. New York:
~ Simon & Schuster.
TN THIS new novel of his, the author
of Little Man. What Now?" has
tInquestionably written another best
seller. Since, however, commercial
success and merit are not inevitably
synonomous, it is only just to add that
the work has certain excellent quail
ties as well.
It is, first Of all, an utterly readable
thing. 1t is so persuasively done that
1t induces complete fortgetfulness of
everything except its immediate page.
The most disencnanted reader, one
propheSies, will be able to go along
with it as happily as a child with a
book of fairy tales. This holds true
throughout the first half of the vol
ume. and that felicitous quality is
lacking only at intervals through the
remainder. Herr Fallada, without
question, knows how to spin story.
And, since the first and greatest
Requirement of any work of fiction is
TO be readable. the important thing
Is said when reliability is conceded.
Yet, critically viewed, Herr Falladas
book reveals this structural character
istic-that its reliability lies in the
goodness of the numerous short epi-
Sodes which he has ingeniously built
into it, and not in the impresSiveness
OF the novels chief plot, which IS, at
best, conventional, and at worst, tr-
relevant, and, in its denoument un-
predicted by what has gone before.
One is disappointed when one comes
to that denoument. One feels that one
has been lured long way by display
of delectable and wickedly well-con-
structed tidbits, only to find out that
little or nothing lay at the end Of the
road, after all.
II is, first of all, the story OF its
hero, although we are also provided
with heroine of recogniZably human
b. proportions, and a rich gallery OF
peasant types of many degrees. This
hero is the peasant individualist, whose
one natural existence, as Herr Fallada
makes abundantly clear, is farming the
land which has belonged to his fore
bears since pre-Christian times. Cir
cumstances, however, take him away
from that heritage. He acquires an
education of sorts and wanders about
bit. At last he comes back to the
farm to which he has fallen heir, and
there re-encounters the one human
being with whom he has ever shared
affection, the daughter of the local
count. They had been childhood
comrades. Both are married now.
Duly, they re-discover their old af-
'fection and go away together. We are
assured that the countess is the only
person who has ever offered the peas
ants hard. dominating nature SYM
pathetic understanding, and that he
not only loves her, but admires and re-
spectS her-feelings which, to his exact
ing pride, are necessary parts Of love.
Or, in other words, we are assured that
they are perfect companions. And up
to this point the story proceeds log
Ically enough.
Yet, when the countess has a child
which dies at birth, we are informed
with startling suddenness that the
hero realizes that he has never loved
any one but himself, and, few pages
farther on, that she is "hopelessly and
. utterly" afraid of him-whereat they
separate, he going back, of course, to
his farm, and she to her legal husband.
Is This revelation of the lack of rap
port between pair who have up to
that point been represented as proud
NA1 - s,.l t~Nx,
, startling, and one has to smile at the
authors use of italics in putting the
E news down on paper. Apparently he.
4. too, realized the irrelevance Of the
climax.
However. the book by that time has
gone past 500 pages in length. and no
- doubt Herr Fallada felt that he had
- done enough. Necessary to end it
= somehow-so better send the farmer
- home to the plough. The reader has
had plenty for his money land, indeed,
he has). Let's get this over. So, back
goes the farmer, and back goes the
countess, too. and. what might have
been a superb noyel becomes a superb
collection Of related folk tales and
character sketches of country peo-
ple-and little tlSe.
But do not allow this criticism TO
prevent you from reading the book.
1t Is worth reading. It is fine thing.
There can be no doubt that it will
have a great success. One is moved
TO make the quaint observation that
1t will deSirve it. too.
THE BARONESS. BY Ernst Wiechert.
Translated from the German by
Phyllis and Trevor Blewitt. New
80. York: w. w. Norton IL Co.
IT WOULD almost seem that one
good novel from Germany ought to
. III out our quota for the week; how
ever, In the last seven days accumu-
lation Of fiction one finds three novels
OF certain quality. and Of these two
are from the troubled Rhineland. Hans
Fallada's "Once We Had a Child" is
reviewed above. Mention must no less
certainly be made of Ernst wiecherts
The Baroness" which has been one
of the most successful novels of the
year in its native land, and which,
like the Fallada book, strangely COM
hines commercial success with merit.
Here, however, likeness comes to an
end 1.-THE Baroness" is a quiet little
tale, worked out almost entirely in the
minds Of its characters, and its char
acters are few. It tells the story Of
the return Of peasant soldier after
20 years, most of which period he has
spent as prisoner in French penal
settlements in Africa. He is completely
burned out but, under the wise in
duence of the baroness, on whose
estate his family lives, he comes back
to normal living and feeling.
There is something about the little
book that is reminiscent of German
classics of another period. There is
something of ~Inmensee" In It, In its
gentle. romantic longing and its es-
3 Sential homeliness 1t has. however