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Human, All Too Human: Thomas Berger's Crazy in Berlin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

WILLIAM HEATH
WILLIAM HEATH*
Affiliation:
Department of English, Mount Saint Mary's University. Email: heath@msmary.edu.
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Abstract

Thomas Berger is best known for his western, Little Big Man, made into a film starring Dustin Hoffman, yet his Reinhart tetralogy is at least as important an achievement. Crazy in Berlin (1958), the first volume and the author's first novel, is a very ambitious work that captures postwar Berlin in telling detail. Based on Berger's experiences in the American Army during the occupation, the book displays his tragicomic vision of the human condition. The opening sections of the essay provide information about Berger's German American background while growing up in Cincinnati, a discussion of how Berger studied the political novels of his time to shape his craft, and a succinct account of the harrowing situation in postwar Berlin that Berger witnessed firsthand. Having established the most relevant contexts, the latter half of the essay provides an interpretation of the novel's central themes as well as an aesthetic evaluation of its merits as a work of fiction. While Crazy in Berlin is not without significant flaws, it is in the last analysis an impressively accomplished work, distinguished both by its memorable characters and by the author's philosophical depth. It deserves to be much better known as one of the most challenging works of his distinguished career.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 172 - 196
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

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References

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