Manas

This remarkable book is an exciting and intriguing story, a blend of Hindu mythology and existentialism told with great verve in a vigorous, direct language of many moods and voices.

Manas is one of the major novels Alfred Döblin produced over the forty tumultuous years pre-World War 1 to post-World War 2. Döblin himself is one of the least known of the twentieth century s  great German writers, though his reputation has grown in Germany since his death in 1957.

The English reader comes to Döblin with little idea what to expect. Maybe a vague knowledge of one title from his vast output: Berlin Alexanderplatz. The Story of Franz Biberkopf, published in 1929.  The next novel after Manas, it has eclipsed all the rest ever since its publication in 1929. 

Alfred Döblin, born in Szczecin in 1878, initially worked as a medical assistant and opened his own practice in Berlin in 1911. Döblin's first novel appeared in 1915/16. In 1933 Döblin emigrated to France and finally to the USA. After the end of the 2nd World War he moved back to Germany, but then moved in 1953 with his family to Paris. He died on June 26, 1957. 

 

I am confident in declaring that this work should have the greatest influence!

[Manas] has great pulling power in even the smallest details, thanks to Döblin s extraordinary felicity in feeling his way into alien fantastical cultural milieus.

Robert Musil