Ferdinand, The Man with the Kind Heart
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The last novel from the acclaimed author of The Artificial Silk Girl, this 1950 classic paints a delightfully shrewd portrait of postwar German society.
Upon his release from a prisoner-of-war camp, Ferdinand Timpe returns somewhat uneasily to civilian life in Cologne. Having survived against the odds, he is now faced with a very different sort of dilemma: How to get rid of his fiancée? Although he certainly doesn’t love the mild-mannered Luise, Ferdinand is too considerate to break off the engagement himself, so he sets about finding her a suitable replacement husband—no easy task given Luise’s high standards and those of her father, formerly a proud middle-ranking Nazi official.
Featuring a lively cast of characters—from Ferdinand’s unscrupulous landlady with her black-market schemes to his beguiling cousin Johanna and the many loves of her life—Ferdinand captures a distinct moment in Germany’s history, when its people were coming to terms with World War II and searching for a way forward. In Irmgard Keun’s effervescent prose, the story feels remarkably modern.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A German man drifts through his days a couple of years after WWII in Keun's droll satire (after Gilgi), originally published in 1950. Ferdinand Timpe returns to Cologne after his release from a POW camp. He rents a room from a landlady who sells jam on the black market while he struggles to write a story for his acquaintance Heinrich's newspaper before learning Heinrich had drunkenly mistaken him for a different, more literary Ferdinand. He feels trapped in his engagement to Luise, which he agreed to at a low point during the war, and attempts to find Luise a different suitor, but his "loose" cousin Johanna steals the men's attention. Ferdinand takes a job at an occult clinic, doling out advice to clients who participate in a color therapy program ("Find the color of your soul," reads the inspirational wall text). Ferdinand's frequent digressions turn to his acquaintances, patients, and family, including his mother, Laura, "a genius of sleep" who avoided problems by taking serene naps, and his determination to find a way out of his engagement climaxes with a fraught family reunion. Keun (1905 1982) shows a sure hand in this biting sendup of postwar Germany, full of absurd moments and amusing foibles. It's a genuinely funny, ambling story full of sharp character studies.
