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A review by agnestyley
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
All the desire I had from reading Isherwood to have lived in Weimar Germany has swiftly evaporated. A chaotic and brutal novel (see exhibit a: 20 pages intensely describing the experience in slaughterhouses, with seemingly no relevance to the plot), but nevertheless a masterpiece (although now I remember the paragraph about describing how vegetables protect themselves from the cold sandwiched between a man searching for his girlfriend's murderer).
Felt a bit like Dostoyevsky in its inpatient but gorgeously compelling narration:
"Arise weak spirit, and get on your legs.
There are states of unconsciousness which amount to death in the living body. Franz Biberkopf, still unconscious, is put back into bed, he goes on lying there in the warm days and reaches this conclusion: I'm at death's door, I feel it, I'm going to croak. If you don't do something now Franz, something real, final, comprehensive, if you don't take a club in your hand, a sabre, and strike about you, if you don't run loose, no matter how, Franz, my little Franz, my little Biberkopf, then it's all up with you for certain, then you can have yourself measured for a coffin.
Groaning: I won't, and I won't, I won't croak, he looks at the room, the wall clock ticks, I'm still here, yes I'm still here, they want to get in on me, Schreiber almost shot me down, but that won't happen. Franz lifts his remaining arm: it shall not happen."
Beautiful, exquisitely constructed, poetic writing:
"There is objectivity in the air, there is objectivity in the air, there it is in the air, in the air, in the air. There is something idiotic in the air, there is something hypnotic in the air, it's in the air, it's in the air, and it won't get out of the air."
And nothing more fun than reading a book called Alexanderplatz IN Alexanderplatz itself earlier this week. But hoping there's less murder and prostitution and extortion when I live in Berlin.
Felt a bit like Dostoyevsky in its inpatient but gorgeously compelling narration:
"Arise weak spirit, and get on your legs.
There are states of unconsciousness which amount to death in the living body. Franz Biberkopf, still unconscious, is put back into bed, he goes on lying there in the warm days and reaches this conclusion: I'm at death's door, I feel it, I'm going to croak. If you don't do something now Franz, something real, final, comprehensive, if you don't take a club in your hand, a sabre, and strike about you, if you don't run loose, no matter how, Franz, my little Franz, my little Biberkopf, then it's all up with you for certain, then you can have yourself measured for a coffin.
Groaning: I won't, and I won't, I won't croak, he looks at the room, the wall clock ticks, I'm still here, yes I'm still here, they want to get in on me, Schreiber almost shot me down, but that won't happen. Franz lifts his remaining arm: it shall not happen."
Beautiful, exquisitely constructed, poetic writing:
"There is objectivity in the air, there is objectivity in the air, there it is in the air, in the air, in the air. There is something idiotic in the air, there is something hypnotic in the air, it's in the air, it's in the air, and it won't get out of the air."
And nothing more fun than reading a book called Alexanderplatz IN Alexanderplatz itself earlier this week. But hoping there's less murder and prostitution and extortion when I live in Berlin.