Slow to start, slow all the way through, but it becomes increasingly gripping despite the stagnant pace to end up as a horrifying narrative of the miseries of life in Germany post-WWI. The suffering people claw their way up only to be hit with further setbacks, again and again. I just wanted Herr Seldersen to be put out of his misery far earlier. But the ultimately horrifying thing is that this is close to real life. Hans Kielson experienced this and more and fled Germany, although his parents weren't as lucky as the Seldersens and eventually died in a concentration camp.
I think the almost dull tone of the writing has something to do with translation, or translation from the hardly lively language of German. I didn't find all the characters to be well drawn, I didn't warm to Albrecht in particular although I feel I was meant to! But this was Hans Kielson's first novel after all.

A heavy read, but fantastically insightful into a particular time and place.