Fabian: The Story of a Moralist by Erich Kästne. Short summary

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The novel’s protagonist, Fabian, lives in 1930s Berlin. He meets a girl, Cornelia, and even begins to make plans for his future life, but with his dismissal all his plans fall apart.

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The action of the novel takes place in the early 30’s in Berlin. The protagonist — Fabian, a young man of thirty-two, rents a room and works as an advertising man in a tobacco factory. Immediately after school he went to war, from which he returned with compromised health and mental trauma. Now Fabian leads a simple frivolous life, spending his evenings drinking with friends.

Unemployment and the threat of starvation grows in the country. Fascists and communists are striving for power. But the protagonist of the novel is far from both.

Fabian gets to know Cornelia, who is new in town and has come to intern at a film studio. It turns out they live in the same house. The young people start dating. But Fabian is fired, giving away two hundred and seventy marks of settlement. Cornelia leaves him, moving in with a producer, and Labude’s best friend shoots himself. Fabian goes to the village to his parents’ house, but there, too, he has no place.

One day Fabian is walking on a bridge and sees a boy falling into the river. He saves the boy, but drowns himself.