Tuesday, April 08, 2008
What I Saw, Reports From Berlin 1920-33 by Joseph Roth is a collection of articles chronicling the life and times of Berlin and its people during the years of the Weimar Republic.Born into a Jewish family in Galicia, a province of the former Austrian-Hungarian empire, Roth served in the Austrian army during World War One. After the war he worked as a reporter in Vienna before leaving for Berlin in 1920.
The first article in the collection “Going for a Walk” written in 1921 acts as a template for Roth future work. His focus on the minute rather than the magnificent, as the following quote illustrates.
“Confronted with the truly microscopic, all loftiness is hopeless, completely meaningless”
and
“Whatever is heralded or touted can only be of little weight or consequence”.
In the article entitled “Nights In Dives” the reader accompanies Roth as he visits nocturnal Berlins underbelly. We visit The Café Dalles, Reese’s Corner, Albert’s Cellar and The Cigar Box amongst others. We meet the inhabitants of the divers. We observe their traits. We learn of their occupations both nocturnal and official.
But Roth is also a political animal despite his insistence otherwise. His article “A Visit to the Rathenau Museum” which, as the title states, describes his visit to a museum dedicated to the memory of the murdered German Foreign Minister Rathenau. Rathenau a German Jew was murdered by right wing militants. Roth leads us through Rathenau’s quarters and we are presented with a picture of a cultured man who lived quietly and with great dignity. Roth’s sense of loss at the murder of the Foreign Minister is unstated, but is all the more powerful for that. He finishes the article with the following….
“I walk pass the place where he met his end. It is not true that a murder is just a murder. This one was a thousand fold murder, not to be forgotten or avenged”.
The final piece in the collection entitled “The Auto-da-Fé of the Mind” and was written by Roth in 1933. Here Roth presents for the reader the contribution which the Jewish people have made to German cultural life. First though he admits that life for the Jewish people as they knew it in Germany is over he states simply “Let us concede our defeat”.
Roth lists for the reader Jewish writers and their achievements Bruno Frank a playwright, George Hermann a “plain and truthful novelist”, Paul Heyse the first German Nobel laureate and Alfed Kerr “A theatre reviewer of abundant imagination”. The list goes on. Roth later apologizes to any German Jewish writers he has omitted from his list.
He contrasts the German Jewish writer, who wrote about the city, with the folk literature, with its emphasis on region and landscape which touted by the nazis. He says that the Jewish writer “revealed the whole diversity of urban civilization”.
Roth ends “The Auto-da-Fé of the Mind” with the following quote.
“Many of us served in the war, many died. We have written for Germany, we have died for Germany. We have spilled our blood for Germany in two ways: the blood that runs in our veins, and the blood with which we write. We have sung Germany, the real Germany! And that is why today we are being burned by Germany”.
With the coming to power in Germany of the nazi party Roth fled to exile in Paris where he died destitute in March 1939.
Labels: What I Saw by Joseph Roth
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"There Are Little Kingdoms" by Kevin Barry is a collection of slightly surreal short stories set for the most part in small town rural Ireland. But it is small town Ireland on the cusp of change. The Celtic Tiger in some cases is just about to roar.For example in "Ideal Homes" we encounter two twins running amuck in a small town. In the distance they can see the city encroaching on their home.
"There was a view south to the city: it was ever spreading, quickly approaching. It was ten miles wide of sodium light, a sea of promise laid out beneath them. They drank it in and tasted faster nights to come."
In the story "Breakfast Wine" we also bear witness to Kevin Barry's unique turn of phrase.
"But the crossword was left aside, for there was to be a disturbance this day in The North Star. The door opened up and glamour stepped in. Glamour carried itself with great elegance and ease. It was jewelled at the fingers and jewelled at the throat."
While the story "Burn The Bad Lamp" introduces to a jaded world weary genie.
"But then the smoke clears and the genie separates from legend. There are no tapered slippers nor flowing silks. He wears no turban, nor fathomless expression. He wears a pair of troubled chinos, an overcoat with fag burns on its lapels a pair of scuffed Nikes and a leery, self-satisfied smirk."
All in all this is an excellent first collection and should put Kevin Barry up with the best on the Irish literary Map.
Labels: There Are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry
Saturday, March 01, 2008
When a lone drifter lands one afternoon in the Twin Oaks Tavern owned by Nick and Cora Papadaks the scene is set for a classic noir thriller. In his debut novel “The Postman Always Rings Twice” James M. Cain charts the trials, tribulations and eventual fall of the main protagonist, drifter Frank Chambers.This novel, which consists of a mere 116 pages, moves along at a fantastic pace and contains all the ingredients necessary for noir: life, death, lust, love murder and retribution.
Although published in 1934 and reflective of the social and racial mores of its time “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, is nevertheless a cracking electric novel. You couldn’t ask for a better introduction to the work of James M. Cain.
Labels: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Just finished "Sitting Up With The Dead" by Pamela Petro. The book recounts a series of journeys undertaken by the author to the Southern United States during the summer of 1999. Through the medium of stories, the great oral tradition of the south, Petro wishes to discover what it is that makes the south so different. What makes it tick. Along the way Petro meets storytellers from various ethnic backgrounds who make the south their home. Creole, African American, Cajun, white. The author travels to from the Appalachian Mountains to the gulf coast and from the Bayous of Louisiana to the mundane interior in her pursuit of stories and their tellers. Petro encounters Brer Rabbit, The Grey Man and a menagerie of other characters on her southern odyssey. While the stories themselves are fascinating, entertaining colourful and absorbing the only weak link is in Petro's relating of her journey. The whole thing doesn't quite fit together easily.
Labels: Sitting Up With The Dead by Pamela Petro
Monday, February 18, 2008
I watched the film, then read the book. To be honest I found the films ending very disappointing. The book of course has much more to offer. Cormac McCarthy easily captures the timbre of southern vocabulary. Perhaps you should really read the book before seeing the film.
Labels: Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
