April Reading Summary (with a spot of travelling)

April was a delightful reading month, improved even more by the #1937Club organised by Simon and Kaggsy and by having finished most of the International Booker Prize longlist, so being free to read as I pleased.

For the #1937Club, I read the rather bonkers but fun Ferdydurke by Gombrowicz, the dreamy but spikey Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb and the much-better-upon-rereading The Years by Virginia Woolf. I read The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone for the International Booker Prize, which I found a very compelling read, although it could have been equally impactful if it had been about a third shorter. I also read two titles from the Women’s Prize longlist, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy and In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, both of which I initially thought would be too gruelling a read, but both of which I enjoyed in very different ways.

Away from any literary prizes, I read three Romanian language books with a view to possibly translating them (or at least pitching them to some publishers). Two beautifully-written, highly evocative descriptions of growing up in the Moldovan countryside by Lorina Bălteanu and Valentina Șcerbani and one by Gelu Diaconu of growing up gay during the restrictive Communist times in Bucharest. These fictional coming of age stories worked equally as well with my memoir writing course, as the more obvious memoir by Vivian Gornick, Fierce Attachments.

With all these weighty tomes and topics. I also needed some down time with my favourite crime genre. The postmodern wittiness of Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz, the claustrophobic tension of Sharp Glass by Sarah Hilary and the strong characterisation and twisty narrative of A Stranger in the Family by Jane Casey were just the ticket (in the case of the latter, almost literally – for I read most of it at the airport and on the plane on the way to Berlin).

I had less time to read in Berlin, since I was walking what felt like a million miles every day (I have the blisters to prove it, but that’s my fault for choosing comfy shoes rather than hard-core trainers), as well as chatting non-stop with my friends, but I found the quite intriguing book by Ingo Schulze, which explores how such an apparently ‘nice, bookish’ person as the antiquarian Norbert Paulini from Dresden could espouse a right-wing ideology, something that Germany is clearly struggling with at present. Despite the historical differences, I think it could also explain a lot about those spouting right-wing propaganda in present-day US and UK.

As for Berlin: it charmed me with its summer weather, music, national holiday on the 1st of May, the quality of its housing, its cultural buzz and diverse neighbourhoods, and, of course, my very dear old friends. I have no doubts that it’s the right move for me. Here’s a little reminder of our day out at Wannsee – and now I’m searching for the film Die Wannseekonferenz, shown by the ZDF in 2022, as recommended by several people (although there is also an earlier one in 1984, which also seems to be rated highly).

#6Degrees of Separation May 2024

After a short but fun break in Berlin, it’s time to return to our literary muttons and take part in the monthly #6Degrees of Separation meme hosted by Kate. This month’s literary chain starts with The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop, which I haven’t read and haven’t seen around in the UK, but which sounds interesting potentially, with its theme of creative couples and how they handle each other’s success. Perhaps reminiscent of the film Anatomy of a Fall?

I opted for another unequal (in terms of power) couple for my first link, namely the troubled relationship between Hans and Katharina in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos. Many readers found the age difference and cruelty uncomfortable, but it worked well for me as a metaphor for the GDR.

Another GDR story (or set of stories, despite its slender form) is The Wall Jumper by Peter Schneider, published back in 1982. Or rather, it’s about the lives of ordinary people trying to survive in a divided city, on either side of the Wall, and trying to escape the wall in their own minds.

My next link is to another author named Peter, namely Peter Ackroyd and his strange, fascinating novel about London, architecture and satanism, called Hawksmoor. It’s that esoteric mix of history, erudition, speculative or fantastical fiction, but also detective fiction, that seemed to be hugely popular in the 1980s. So of course I had to include Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum next, as that was my YA literature at the time.

I’ll stick to literary detection and another book I adored in my youth (and would like to reread), namely Possession by A.S. Byatt. I certainly dreamed of finding a partner in love and research as Roland and Maud (and I think I might have used it before in a 6 Degrees post, but I don’t even care!)

A.S. Byatt died recently, towards the end of 2023, so my final link is to another author whose recent death left me quite saddened, Paul Auster and his New York Trilogy, which was exhilarating and quite unlike anything I’d read before.

Coincidentally, all of my choices this month seem to have a link with the 1980s – either set during that time period or published then. And I have travelled from Berlin to London, Paris (and Milan) to London once more, and finally ended up in New York. Where will your Six Degrees take you?

Original edition of the complete trilogy. They were published as individual volumes in 1985 and 1986, but have since appeared in a one-volume edition.

Friday Fun: Vintage Travel Posters

Before the Second World War (and of course, with a big pause during the First World War), there was quite an upsurge in European travel. Cars were becoming more common, roads were being built and suddenly the world seemed to open up to people. I have a real weakness for those vintage travel posters – and, as the British Library discovered, they make great book covers for books from that period too! All of the images below are available on multiple art/framing/poster sale sites, so I think all of them can be bought.

Greece – the panoramic view that never quite existed.

I think it’s safe to say that is our standard view when we think of Tuscany.

A slightly more unusual angle for this image of Venice.

Can’t resist this 1937 poster from the Monaco Grand Prix.

From the South we head up towards Lyon via the Route des Alpes – a road I’ve taken quite a few times – but without any close encounters with cows.

How can I forget beautiful Annecy, maybe not quite so stylish nowadays though?

And another place close to where I used to live, Vevey in Switzerland.

Even Romania had its travel posters in the 1920s-30s – Sinaia, mountain resort and royal summer residence.

Although my favourite is this jaunty blue-and-white image of Constanta Yacht Club.

I’ll end with a bit of a sad one from the 1950s: Berlin Awaits You Once More (but not for long – by 1961 it became very hard to visit both sides of it). Fits in well with the German book I am currently translating, set the summer that the Berlin Wall was built.

Incoming Books for the Winter Months

I didn’t receive any books for Christmas, other than the Vintage Crime Advent Calendar I offered myself. I don’t think I have any more books currently on order, and I have tried to weed out some of my shelves. Nevertheless, quite an alarming pile of new books have somehow managed to wing their way to me over the past month or so. And I’m not even counting e-books, although I might mention one or two below.

From top to bottom:

The first four books – I suppose my Berlin shelf is getting quite well-stocked now, in preparation for my move towards the end of the year. Although I can understand people’s fascination with Weimar Berlin and the rise of Fascism, MY Berlin (and the Berlin of my generation) is the city just after the fall of the Wall, so I’ve acquired quite a lot of books describing that period: Sven Regener’s Berlin Blues is set in 1989 and translated by John Brownjohn. Wladimir Kaminer’s Russian Disco is a memoir about coming to Berlin in 1990 from Russia as a DJ, translated by Michael Hulse. Ulrike Sterblich’s book is also a memoir, this time of a childhood spent in a city that no longer exists, namely West Berlin. And finally, Carmen-Francesca Banciu is a Romanian writer and her collection of stories and micro-memoirs entitled Berlin Is My Paris (because most Romanian intellectuals of the interwar period and even those escaping Communism ended up in Paris) captures the atmosphere of the whole 1990s in Berlin.

Tone Schunnesson: Days Days Days, transl. Saskia Vogel, published by Heloise Press.

If you haven’t heard of Heloise Press, a small indie publisher in the UK dedicated to contemporary female narratives (both fiction and non-fiction), then I can heartily recommend them. This Swedish novel is about a reality TV star who’s fast approaching middle age and can feel success is beginning to slip through her fingers… and is prepared to do anything to maintain her ‘D’ list status.

Robert Coover: Pricksongs & Descants, Penguin Modern Classics.

I can’t remember who recommended this on Twitter, and I’ve not always gelled with American fiction of the 1960s-1990s, but I’ll give it a go. I think someone said that his short story The Babysitter is one of the best in all of American fiction.

Percival Everett: Erasure, Faber.

By way of contrast, I’ve been amused, horrified and fascinated by every book by Percival Everett that I’ve ever read (he never seems to write the same book twice, does he?). This is not a new book, it was originally published in 2001, but there’s a film out called American Fiction based on this book, so it’s been given a new lease of life.

Felix Hartlaub: Clouds Over Paris. Wartime Notebooks, transl. Simon Beattie, Pushkin Classics.

I do know who is to blame for this acquisition: two of my favourite bloggers. Jacqui reviewed it on her blog, while Kaggsy(aka Karen Langley) reviewed it for Shiny New Books – and it sounds so compelling: the observations of a German embedded journalist who comes with the Nazi occupiers to Paris. Meanwhile, I have the dilemma of deciding where to shelve this: in my German section or my French section (it’s not just about the origins of the author, but also about subject matter).

Jan Morris: Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, Faber.

Hilde Spiel and her novella set in Trieste are to blame for this one, but to be honest, Trieste has always fascinated me as a mix of Austro-Hungarian, Italian, Slavic and other elements. Jan Morris first visited the city as a soldier at the end of the Second World War and has seen it change and evolve over the decades.

Clarice Lispector: The Besieged City, transl. Johnny Lorenz, Penguin Modern Classics.

Her least-known and least-Clarice-like novel, but the reason I want to read it is not just because I’m a completist (although it’s been a long time since I read her, high time to reread, perhaps in chronological order), but also because she wrote it while she was an (unhappy) expat in Switzerland.

Arkady & Boris Strugatsky: Roadside Picnic, transl. Olena Bormashenko, AND The Inhabited Island, transl. Andrew Bromfield, both published by Gollancz SF Masterworks.

I enjoyed reading Roadside Picnic so much (very different but just as brilliant as the film Stalker) that I recommended it to someone and lent it to them, but can’t remember who. So I had to buy it again, and while I was ordering it, I came across this other novel which I hadn’t heard of, so now I have two of theirs, as well as the utterly hilarious political satire of Monday Begins on Saturday.

Elvin James Mensah: Small Joys, Scribner.

I think I must have come across this one in one of the Best of 2023 lists, but I apologise once more for not remembering whose list it was (identify yourself in the comments if it was yours). A book about friendship, homophobia, race, depression and suicide – but ultimately about hope and loyalty.

Nikhil Krishnan: A Terribly Serious Adventure. Philosophy at Oxford 1900-1960. Profile Books.

This is a direct result of a discussion about Iris Murdoch on #DevonBookHour on Twitter, where the founder of the Devon Book Club, Ian, said he was rereading her fiction and someone else mentioned that this book also talks about her philosophy. Of course, when I proudly produced it in front of my older son, who’s studying philosophy, he dismissively said: ‘I think the Cambridge version of this might have been more interesting!’

#GermanLitMonth: Gabriele Tergit and Weimar Berlin

Gabriele Tergit: Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Conquers the Kurfürstendamm), 1931. Available in English from NYRB in US and Pushkin Press in UK, translated by Sophie Duvernoy as ‘Käsebier Takes Berlin’.

Gabriele Tergit was a journalist and the first female court reporter during the 1920s in Berlin. She wrote this debut novel informed by her experiences of working for a newspaper in just six weeks and it catapulted her to instant fame. It is a wicked satirical snapshot of the late Weimar Republic but it covers perennial topics such as media manipulation, celebrity culture, corruption in city planning and building, the widening gap between rich and poor.

Although there are some snide references to the National Socialists in this book, this was not what got Tergit into trouble with them, but reporting unfavourably on several court cases which involved the Nazis (and probably her Jewish origins) meant that the SA forced their way into her apartment in March 1933 and she realised she had to leave the country. She fled first to Palestine and in 1938 moved to London, where she died in 1983. Because she spent the rest of her life in exile (although she continued writing in German), she was largely forgotten in her home country. This changed in 2016 when her debut novel was reissued, as was her later novel Effingers, described as the Jewish Buddenbrook saga, a selection of articles and her memoir. She still remains a more shadowy figure than her other rediscovered contemporaries Irmgard Keun or Vicki Baum.

Having now read the novel that made her name, I can perhaps see why her contemporaries are more popular. I admired rather than loved this book, stuffed to the gills as it is with names and characters, some of them slightly stereotypical, others bordering on the absurd. This is a Dickensian Weimar world and it takes a while to settle into the main story, as there are too many parallel scenes and secondary stories unfolding.

This is the cover of the audio version of the book, and I wonder if that makes the book more or less accessible.

It is basically the story of a slow news day at the Berliner Rundschau newspaper. One of the journalists writes a filler article about a nothing-but-average singer of popular tunes Käsebier (whose name seems farcical in German – Cheesebeer). To everyone’s surprise, Käsebier becomes the next big sensation. Everyone wants to see him or produce some merchandise associated with him: from records to dolls to shoes. Soon, estate magnates are planning to build a whole complex on the main commercial street in Berlin, the Ku’damm, with luxury apartments and a Käsebier theatre. It appears that everyone is determined to make their fortune on the basis of the well-meaning but rather dim singer – but fashions change and fade, and soon he and several others around him are left ruined or forgotten. All against a backdrop of rising Fascism, constant economic and political crises, and the effects of the 1929 stock market crash in the US on a German government that had been largely propped up by American loans.

This is all told in a quick-paced, impressionistic style, as if we were eavesdropping on a series of conversations at a party, or perhaps imitating the film technique of a camera hovering above the crowds and then zooming in on specific scenes and characters. There were many throwaway brilliant sentences but the staccato delivery, the points of view changing with dizzying speed, did make my head spin at times.

Here are some examples which stayed with me:

1. Two journalists discuss a doctor who doesn’t seem to have too many clients, perhaps because he is too honest about not being sure about the diagnosis or the treatment. ‘Surely you are not of that primitive opinion that if I’m going to the doctor, he must prescribe something? It hurts me that you don’t appreciate it when someone isn’t trying to trick you.’ ‘No, I do appreciate it, I just wanted to give you an explanation as to why he’s not got a lot of work. Success is a matter of persuasion, not of performance.’ ‘Miermann would say that this sentence alone explains the whole principle of Fascism: you are fearful slaves, you need authority.’
2. Discussions on how to revitalise a newspaper and make it sell more: ‘Who cares about intelligence? Speed, headline, sensation, that’s what people want. Entertainment. A new sensation every day, in all caps!… You have to reward the most beautiful Berliner leg… a swim contest with prizes, the most loyal dog… the fifty most elegant typists in Berlin, the oldest cooks, the best automobile drivers…’
3. The investors who refuse to listen to the architect about their white elephant of a project. The architect keeps telling them there is no demand for 5-6 room apartments, that they’d be better off building 1.5-2.5 room apartments – ‘but we’re not going to suddenly build flats for proletarians on the Ku’Damm, are we?’
4. The experienced old-school journalist Miermann tries to ask for a raise, but is told that the paper needs new blood and is made to feel completely disposable. ‘But don’t you care about your readership?’ ‘No need, the readership doesn’t know any different and every year there are 200000 graduates who’ve learnt to write essays to order for 10 Pfennigs per line. There’s no stardom in journalism. It’s all about the paper’s position, not about the individual.’

In conclusion, this book required a bit of effort to remember all the names and personal stories, but it was quite rewarding, full of wit and the kind of humour that I’m beginning to recognise as typically Berlin. I have no doubt it will stand me in good stead as I translate a book set in 1960s Berlin.

For my next #GermanLitMonth, I take a trip to another favourite city, Vienna, and although the book has another bumper crop cast of characters, it is proving to be a much easier, page-turning read, even a bit soapy.

Winding Down and Wrapping Up (Part 2)

It’s amazing how the colours on the covers of the most memorable books I read in the second part of the year also match my mood during that period: much more colourful, even pinkish and coy, although normally I am not a fan of pink. Yes, this was the most optimistic part of the year.

In my teens I was (sort of) diagnosed with bipolar disorder: for me (everyone is slightly different) this typically manifests itself as periods of intense activity, almost manic energy and optimism which has no bearing to reality (the ‘up’ periods), to be followed by far longer periods of utter hopelessness and despondency (the ‘depressive’ periods). I was given lithium to even out these wild mood swings, but that made me feel like it was benumbing me, so I lost all of the positives of being on a high and only very slightly had the edge taken off my depression. Over the next few decades, I learnt to manage my moods with a cocktail of home-made and medical remedies, and over the past decade, I thought I had moved more into depression (partly sparked by external circumstances).

However, this year the manic period reasserted itself with a vengeance, perhaps because I travelled to see my parents for the first time in 2.5 years, or perhaps because I briefly thought I might like to have a relationship again. It was kind of lovely having the energy back, even though I knew about its dangers and limitations. For a couple of months, I felt invincible: I survived on very little sleep, had so many new ideas, wrote love poetry (which I had not done since high school) and so many other things, submitted regularly, took my boys on a trip to Brighton, went to plays and exhibitions, joined the Society of Authors, attended the Translation Day in Oxford, reconnected with old friends, investigated a possible collaboration with a theatre in London and so much more. Helped by the wonderful weather and by better news on the creative front, I was able to handle the growing anxiety about my mother’s incipient dementia or my cat Zoe’s state of health (she had started vomiting far too frequently, but we had not yet diagnosed her with cancer).

All this is reflected in my top reading choices. In April, I chose to focus on Romanian writers, because I spent two weeks in Romania, although some of the reading was entirely serendipitous since I just happened to come across Martha Bibescu’s journals set just before and during the Second World War in my parents’ house. I was also smitten with the two plays by Mihail Sebastian that I had not previously read (one was seldom performed during Communist times, perhaps because it talked about lies being published in newspapers, while the other was unfinished at the time of his death). I also reconnected with the work of surrealist, absurdist writer Urmuz, whose work was published largely posthumously when he committed suicide at the age of 40 and translated a couple of his short pieces (they are all very short, more like flash fiction, even a novella in flash). One of them, I am happy to say, will appear in Firmament, the literary journal issued by Sublunary Editions.

May was all about life in Berlin, often written by expats. The only one that impressed me and which gave me a bit of insight into the history and society of Berlin was The Undercurrents by Kirsty Bell, but I was intrigued by a different kind of expat, namely the anthropologist, in Mischa Berlinski’s rather epic, occasionally uneven but fascinating look at the ‘outsider going native’ Fieldwork.

June was my month for catching up with French writing, and I’d forgotten how eloquent and impressive Simone de Beauvoir can be in describing women’s experiences. Gael Faye’s Petit Pays taught me so much about Rwanda and Burundi and trying to integrate into French life. I also enjoyed books that fell outside my original reading plan (I’ve always been flexible about allowing others in): I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed the relatively simple story about a love affair set in Japan, Emily Itami’s Fault Lines and yearning for love and companionship in Seoul in Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City.

As I said, I might have been susceptible to love stories that trimester, even though mine never got off the ground (with the wisdom of hindsight, I’m inclined to say: thank goodness it didn’t!).

Finally, one crime novel that stuck with me because it was so post-modern and different and sly: True Crime Story by Joseph Knox. The danger with these seasonal summaries (rather than those done by genre, for example), is that crime fiction often gets sidelined. So, several crime novels might have made my ‘best of the year’ list among others of its genre, but they might struggle to compete with Simone de Beauvoir or Mihail Sebastian.

#GermanLitMonth: Volker Kutscher and Babylon Berlin

Volker Kutscher: The March Fallen, trans. Niall Sellar, Sandstone Press.

A return to the German Literature Month reading with the most recent book in the Babylon Berlin series, although in this book there is far less of the Weimar decadence and much more of the ruthlessness of the Nazis. I have been captivated both by the books and by the TV series, although the adaptation is not 100% faithful to the books. Most interesting of all, the main protagonist, Gereon Rath, is a deeply flawed, often unlikeable individual, and it appears that the actor playing him may be more similar to the character than we might have expected.

February 1933 and the city of Berlin believes that Hitler and his rabble are only a passing fashion, and the upcoming elections will return things to normal. Charly and Gereon are about to get married (if you haven’t read the previous book in the series, as I hadn’t, then this might come as a bit of a surprise, so apologies for the spoilers), Charly is about to be promoted to the rank of inspector, but she is not happy at being sidelined in the Women’s CID, where the type of crimes they investigate are graffiti and runaway youths. Meanwhile, Gereon is part of a team investigating the murder of a homeless war veteran, who had been lying for several days unnoticed under the railway arches. Or at least, he was investigating that until the arson attack on the Reichstag, when he suddenly finds himself working alongside Hitler’s brownshirts to interrogate Communists.

Another war veteran, but of a higher social and military rank, Baron von Reddock, identifies the victim and claims that his own life might be in danger. For the victim, the baron and a few other soldiers all witnessed a nasty incident during the war and were involved in hiding some gold, which has since gone missing. The Baron has just written a book about it, which will be serialised in a newspaper, and he suspects that the man bent on killing them all is a Jewish captain who was believed to have died during the war.

With the anti-semitic feelings raging in Germany, the investigation turns into a manhunt rather than exploring all options. Gereon wants to keep his head down and not get involved in politics, but it is getting harder and harder to sit on the fence. Charly, with her far keener sense of justice, is suffering so much in her division, hearing all her female colleagues praise the Führer, that she takes sick leave, and uses that time to try and track down a young orphan girl who is said to be a lunatic after setting fire to a homeless shelter. She too seems to be targeted by the killer.

As you can imagine, the case itself is full of twists and turns, but what is most interesting about this book is to see that people whom Charly and Gereon considered friends have suddenly sided with the Nazis, whether for personal gain or because they genuinely believe in their ideology. Although Gereon does not stomach the Nazis any more than Charly does, he is equally sceptical about the Communists and believes that the messy democracy of the Weimar is to blame for the rise of Hitler and his party.

Much like Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series, this is well-researched historical crime fiction with a moral compass and a bite, revealing how difficult it is for the ‘masses’ to even realise the dangerous road they are about to be led on.

Sometimes Charly felt as if Berlin had been full of people just waiting for this government who were now, suddenly, revealing their true colours. As if the whole time somewhere deep under this city there had been another, darker Berlin that was seeping upwards like sewage rising in the street. That wasn’t true, of course, it was the same people inhabiting the same Berlin. The new government simply had a talent for bringing out the worst in its citizens.

I absolutely love this series, but it is in danger of not being translated any further. Sandstone Press were crowdfunding for the translation and publication of the next novel Lunapark, which takes place in 1934. Sadly, they were unable to reach their funding goal, so work on this novel has been cancelled (or, hopefully, postponed). As a small indie publisher of translated crime fiction, I can fully empathise with this tricky situation.

Back from Holidays – and Books Acquired!

There is no such thing as a relaxing holiday with the extended family back in the home country… but there were many pleasant moments, and a complete break from the treadmill, so I can’t complain! I’ve been boring everyone with endless holiday pictures on Twitter, but here are a few of my favourites, to give you a flavour of the landscapes and ‘vibes’. I will share more in my next few Friday Fun posts. [None tomorrow, though, as I have a lot of catching up to do still]

Barajul Vidraru – reservoir and dam

The Black Sea coast

The Bran-Rucar pass in the Carpathians

Sibiu

Although I had no time to browse in bookshops (unbelievable, I know!), I brought back a whole pile of books with me, some were old favourites languishing on my parents’ bookshelves, others that I had ordered online a few months ago and got delivered to their address. Meanwhile, a few books made their way into my letterbox here in the UK while I was away.

Here’s the result!

Romanian books:

• As part of my search for contemporary Romanian authors to read and possibly translate, particularly women authors, I’ll be reading Raluca Nagy, Nora Iuga, Magda Cârneci (this one has been translated by Sean Cotter) and Diana Bădică. All recommendations via Romanian newsletters to which I subscribe.
• A mix of contemporary and more classic male authors as well: Gellu Naum is better known for his avantgarde poetry and prose in the 1930s and 40s, or his wonderful children’s book about the wandering penguin Apolodor in the 1950s, and this is his only novel as far as I am aware (this too has been translated into English, see some reviews here); Max Blecher’s Scarred Hearts, which I previously read and reviewed in English, but wanted to own in Romanian; one of my favourite modern poets, Nicolae Labiș, who died tragically young; an English translation by Gabi Reigh of my favourite play by one of my favourite writers, Mihail Sebastian; finally, two young writers that I want to explore further, Tudor Ganea and Bogdan Coșa.
• Last but not least, a dictionary of Romanian proverbs translated into English – just to remind myself of some of the old folk sayings.

Other books:

• Another expat in Berlin story, imaginatively entitled Berlin by Bea Sutton. I read Susan’s review on her blog A Life in Books and couldn’t resist.
• Two Japanese crime novels: Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Onda Riku (I was bowled over by The Aosawa Murders by the same author) and an older crime classic by Matsumoto Seicho entitled Tokyo Express.
• Two volumes of poetry, Reckless Paper Birds and Panic Response by the English poet John McCullough. I recently attended a workshop with him and found him very inspiring indeed.
• Last but by no means list: a whole flurry of chapbooks of Swiss literature, translated from all four official languages of Switzerland, published by the wonderful Strangers Press at the UEA. I am hoping to convince them to do a series on Romanian literature too someday, fingers crossed!

Friday Fun: Apartments in Berlin

Now that I have sung the praises of the large, airy 19th century Parisian apartments, I feel I should also mention apartments in Berlin. Some are in 19th or early 20th century buildings with the famous inner courtyards, but many warehouses have also been redeveloped. You will see that the Berlin property market is less afraid of modern architecture and interior design than the Paris one.

This is the kind of apartment I aspire to live in when I finally relocate to Berlin. Remains to be seen how feasible it might be. From HouseDiaries.com.

I just love those large windows, high ceilings, rooms flowing into each other (which is not ideal with small children, but it suits me fine now). From Pinterest.

There seem to be a lot of top-floor flats in Berlin, which could be very hot in summer and cold in winter, but gives you nice views over the city, such as this one from Tranio.com

An industrial conversion, rather New York loft style and perhaps appealing to all those wealthy expats craving to reinvent themselves in Berlin. From DezignArk.com

Perhaps a little too modern, corporate and bland, but what one could do with such a big space! From InteriorZine.

Quite a monochrome design, but enhanced by the greenery outside, from Forwardracingmtb.com

Berlin: Down There on a Visit

Christopher Isherwood: Down There on a Visit, 1962.

We are all familiar with Isherwood’s depiction of 1930s Berlin, at least from the musical and film Cabaret if not from his stories in Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin. One of my friends lives on the same street in Berlin where Isherwood lived for nearly 4 years, near Nollendorfplatz, and it is as popular now for its gay nightlife as it was in his time.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

This novel, however, only refers tangentially to Berlin. It is in fact a collection of four novellas, each centring on a different period and character in the narrator’s life. Although the narrator is called Isherwood, we know from past experience that the material is only partially autobiographical. The author mashes up fact and fiction, and is prepared to make any changes to heighten the drama and the comic effect. Besides, as he points out, isn’t any memoir a highly selective account of impressions rather than facts?

The Christopher who sat in that taxi is, practially speaking, dead; he only remains reflected in the fading memories of us who knew him. I can’t revitalize him now. I can only reconstruct him from his remembered acts and words and from the writings he left us. He embarrasses me often, and so I’m tempted to sneer at him; but I will try not to. I’ll try not to apologize for him either.

The first part of the book features Mr. Lancaster, who owns a shipping company, is a distant relative or acquaintance of the family and invites Isherwood to visit him in Germany (not in Berlin but in an unnamed port town, most likely Hamburg). This is a coming-of-age story, with the narrator having a grand old time in Germany, making friends with the young people working for Mr. Lancaster and being somewhat cruel to the ‘old man’, whom he considers a fuddy-duddy. Just listen to his straitlaced opinions about notorious Berlin!

Christopher – in the whole of The Thousand and One Nights, in the most shameless rituals of the Tantras, in the carvings on the Black Pagoda, in the Japanese brothel pictures, in the vilest perversions of the Oriental mind, you couldn’t find anything more nauseating than what goes on there, quite openly, every day. That city is doomed, more surely than Sodom ever was. Those people don’t even realize how low they have sunk.

All of which makes Christopher even more determined to make his way to Berlin as soon as possible, of course! And, is it just me, or is Mr. Lancaster surprisingly erudite about where to find ‘shameless imagery’? The author is so good at poking fun at every one of his characters, and even cultural differences, just about steering clear of lazy cliches. Although I have to admit I giggled at this stereotype about the German language below:

Someone had once explained to me the technique of storytelling in German; you reserve, if possible, the whole point of the story and pack it into the final verb at the end of the last sentence. When you reach this sentence, you pause dramatically, then you cast forth the heavy, clumsy, polysyllabic verb, like a dice thrower, upon the table.

The ‘real’ Christopher Isherwood round about the time he was in Berlin.

In the second story, it is 1933 and Christopher has been living in Berlin for some time with one of the friends he made in the earlier story. That friend, Waldemar, convinces him to join him on a trip to Greece where a friend of his is working for an eccentric Englishman who is building a villa on an uninhabited island. Now that the Nazis have come to power, Christopher recognises that it is time to move on, but not before evoking once more the thrill of Berlin for expats then and now.

When I first came to Berlin, I came quite irresponsibly, for a thrill. I was the naughty boy who had enjoyed himself that afternoon at the flat of Waldemar’s Braut, and wanted more. However, having thoroughly explored the Berlin night life and begun to get tired of it, I grew puritanical. I severely criticized those depraved foreigners who visited Berlin in search of pleasure. They were exploiting the starving German working class, I said, and turning them into prostitutes. My indignation was perfectly sincere, and even justified… But have I really changed underneath? Aren’t I as irresponsible as ever, running away from a situation like this?

The more I read about foreigners’ perceptions of Berlin, the clearer it is to me that they consider it an Eldorado rather than a real city, a place where they can run away, start afresh, be more truly themselves or at least try on new personas.

The mad Englishman on his island is Ambrose, who gives his name to the second novella, and whom the narrator knew vaguely at Cambridge. He is surrounded by a gaggle of hangers-on, including the snobbish Geoffrey. The English and the Germans represent the obnoxious type of expats who complain about the local people while exploiting them (the author has them explicitly referring to the locals as ‘niggers’ and it is clear that he didn’t approve of this term even back then). No wonder that their Greek ‘friends’ use the ‘weapons of the weak’ (foot-dragging, insolence, laziness) to get back at them.

Mordant wit about the British in the third part, where Waldemar tries to find refuge in England in 1938 but utterly fails to do so. Isherwood obviously encountered some prejudice in his homeland, which is why he moved as far away from it as he could, so he is particularly acerbic about the ‘warm welcome’ you are likely to find in England.

How compactly the English sit, confronting their visitors: here we are, take os or leave us – this is where you’ll do things in our way, not yours… They are indomitable, incorrigible, and so utterly self-satisfied that they no longer have to raise their voices or wave their arms when they address the lesser breeds. If you have any criticisms, they have one unanswerable answer: you can stay off our island.

I did not finish the book – the American section dragged on too long and is the least interesting. I may well return to it at some point, but it didn’t fit in that well with my expat theme this month. Despite its unevenness, I enjoyed the book and Isherwood’s sharp observations of human behaviour and vulnerability.