Bobby Underwood's Reviews > Little Man, What Now?

“They were standing right up to the shop window, well-dressed people, respectable people, people who earned money. But reflected in the window was another figure: a pale outline without a collar, in a shabby coat, with trousers besmirched with tar. And suddenly Pinneberg understood everything. Faced with the policeman, these respectable people, this bright shop window, he understood that he was on the outside now, that he didn’t belong any more…”


Unemployment was at 42% in Weimar when Hans Fallada published this tender and often charming novel of Germany between the wars. In a country being devoured by hyperinflation, with more and more people falling into a nameless, faceless nothingness where they no longer mattered to any one, the newly installed Chancellor cut unemployment support. Nine days later, Little Man, What Now?, a book written in only sixteen weeks, was published, giving the downtrodden a voice. Fifty German newspapers serialized the book, and it became a worldwide sensation. It also brought Fallada disfavor when it was turned into a wonderful film in America, starring the luminous Margaret Sullavan as Lammchen, and the underrated Douglass Montgomery as Pinneberg. The film, you see, was made by Jews in Hollywood…

Fallada’s focus in the novel is a young German couple with a child on the way. The reader only knows the unborn child by the affectionate term used by Sonny and Lammchen — Shrimp. Through Pinneberg and Lammchen’s struggles, and their slide downward, we see peripherally a people desperate to latch onto either the lofty ideals of Communism, or the promises of jobs proffered by the Nazi Party. In a novel nearly apolitical, because it’s focus is the little guy, we see the conditions that give birth to what happened, and get a glimpse — not from hindsight, because this was published in 1932 — at an ugliness that would only grow more fervent, until it threatened to engulf the world.

There is a soft neorealism to Fallada’s narrative, which is tremendously intimate, and terribly charming. Yet interspersed with this realism is the kind of loveliness such as one might find in one of Remarque’s novels:

“The white curtains moved gently against the windows in the wind. A soft light radiated through the room. An enchantment drew them towards the open window, arm in arm, and they leaned out. The countryside was bathed in moonlight. Far to the right there was a tiny flickering dot of light; the last gas-lamp on Feldstrasse. But before them lay the countryside, beautifully divided up into patches of friendly brightness, and deep soft shade where the trees stood. It was so quiet that even up here they could hear the Strela rippling over the stones. And the night wind blew very gently on their foreheads.”

In essence, the entire novel is made up of realistic vignettes, the love story of a couple who marry upon discovering that Emma (Lammchen) is with child. Johannes Pinneberg (Sonny) very much loves his Lammchen, and has to work in a different town just to survive. Their struggles are not unlike any newly married couple’s problems, but poverty and the growing unrest and desperation in Germany between the wars begins closing in on them, inch by inch. Fallada shows in great detail how such times bring out the best in some people, but the worst in others. He also shows how employers, knowing how valuable having a job was, took advantage. All this is done with great charm, humor, and slice-of-life moments which are universal. Pinneberg must even play up to a girl and keep his marriage to Lammchen secret in order to keep one job. No job is safe, however, and no matter how hard Pinneberg tries, the couple slowly move toward the gutter. Pinngeberg’s pessimism, and his desperation to take care of his Lammchen, is perhaps best represented by this apolitical passage:

“There was a wild, wide, noisy and hostile world out there, which knew nothing of them and cared less.”

In many ways, Lammchen is the stronger of the two, and she knows it. Pinneberg knows that despite his job, they are one step from hopelessness, and joining his comrades. The slide is so gradual, their day-to-day struggle so consuming, it is the reader who sees it best, through Fallada’s remarkably intimate and charming vignettes. Even as they are relegated to a tiny loft above a cinema, and then Lammchen must spend hours darning socks for just a small amount to feed the Shrimp and themselves, because Pinneberg can no longer find work, there is charm, and some hope. But Pinneberg knows that it is only his friend Heilbut’s kindness that is keeping them from the gutter. Lammchen’s Sonny boy, is losing himself, and his dignity.

Lammchen senses this, but knows that one day things will be better, if they can hang on. Her greatest fear is that her Sonny boy will do something before they are back on their feet which will stain him, and haunt him long after the tide has turned. She reveals this to the lovable scoundrel Jachman near the end of the book, while they are waiting for Pinneberg to arrive. But Sonny is very late, and her fear for him is growing. It brings about an open-ended conclusion that is terribly moving. It is also terribly lovely, one of the most beautifully written scenes you’ll ever come across in literature.

Fallada, whose own life was fraught with adversity, both outward and inward, based Emma (Lammchen) on his wife Anna Issel, and it is easy to see that Pinneberg is much like Fallada himself. This novel had tremendous success, easing Fallada’s own financial problems for a time. Though it perhaps takes too long to get to its moving conclusion, few will be sorry they read it. One of the most remarkable things about the book is that it was penned during the events, as these things were happening to Fallada and others. Fallada lived this, and the intimacy of Sonny and Lammchen’s story affords readers a bird’s eye view of what was really happening. In doing so, it gives us a better understanding of history.

For those interested, there is a good article about Fallada here: http://hansfallada.com

Someone was forced to take down the youtube link I had previously posted for the charming Hollywood film (there was one made in Germany also) based on the book. It stars Margaret Sullavan, who is luminous, and Douglass Montgomery, who is equally wonderful. It ends differently from the novel, however. For modern readers, it is a strange circumstance where I would almost recommend viewing the lovely 1934 film first — if possible — because it will help you get into the older style of Fallada’s intimate narrative of Little Man, What Now?