#3: 1920s Berlin

 

ID: Collage in tones of brown and cream. Text reads "Return to Happiness" around an image of four people in 1920s costume miming a game of tennis. Central image framed by borders of b&w stripes, sheet music, and ripped paper. End ID. 

Yet again I’ve assigned myself a topic so rich that it’s impossible for me to begin to do it justice. The three novels I’ve chosen are nonetheless my attempt to summarize the tapestry of experience which continues to make this time and place so enthralling: self exploration, queerness, love, the nightlife, and, most importantly, fighting fascism.

The illustrations for this issue were taken in the twenties by famed Bauhauslers Josef Albers (noted square lover) and Herbert Bayer (noted uppercase hater). Two endless sets of stairs - where do they lead to, or from? And will I be copyright claimed for using them?

Content Notes: This issue contains mild reference to suicidality and political repression. 

“Hotel Staircase, Geneva” Josef Albers, gelatin silver prints (1929/32) via MoMA. ID: two side by side b&w high contrast images of decorative indoor staircases.

 1. Madonna in a Fur Coat (1943) by Sabahattin Ali

“But a dark thought still haunted me – that this stillness might, in the end, be more damaging than fearful hesitation. That it might stall what was alive between us, until it was as cold as stone: with every step not taken, we would be taking one step further apart from each other” (108).

A painful novel of dissolution and yearning. Sent from Türkiye to Berlin to learn his father's business, our narrator instead finds himself absorbed by the city's art scene, and particularly by the beautiful Maria, with whose self-portrait he becomes obsessed. One of the things which most attracts me about historical novels is their ability to provide a window into lives, emotional and otherwise, which are surprisingly similar to our own. This is a book of crushing heartbreak which feels entirely real, whether you've experienced the like or not. The novel is the last of three by an author whose dedication to social realism in fiction and nonfiction alike had him repeatedly censored and imprisoned by the Turkish government. 

2. Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood

“‘You queer too, hey?’ demanded the little American, turning suddenly on me.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘very queer indeed’” (234).

Isherwood's writing and the later works based upon it have come to define out image of 1920s Berlin to an extent which is probably unhelpful, but certainly not entirely inaccurate. Like his eponymous titular character, Isherwood was a bisexual English writer who moved to Berlin in the 20s was swiftly absorbed into its nightlife. Intended originally as part of a larger epic, the series of stories that make up this 'novel' are a window into a very specific kind of experience, one which is both delightfully queer and disarmingly self-absorbed. Though Isherwood, ten years in retrospect, writes of his subject matter with sharp analysis, his own position, separate and able to simply flee, only really became acknowledged in later adaptations. Nonetheless when it comes to fiction about late twenties Berlin this is a must-read for a reason.

3. Steppenwolf (1927) by Herman Hesse

“Had I not been enough of an outsider, mad enough, for years? And yet, deep down inside me, I fully understood this summons, this invitation to go mad, to jettison all reason, inhibition and bourgeois respectability, and to surrender myself to the fluctuating, anarchic world of the soul, of the imagination” (77).

I'm being slightly false by putting this on the list as the city in which its set is never specified. But I needed something actually written in German in the 1920s and I sincerely think that this is one of the best books ever written. Haranguing himself over his depression, chronic pain, and suicidality, the middle aged protagonist undergoes a series of increasingly strange experiences which force him to come to terms with himself in the deepest of senses. This book is a cry in favour of self-liberation, political activism, hope, and polyamorous queer orgies which has made a tangible improvement on my life - perhaps it could on yours too.  

“Iron Winding Stair” Herbert Bayer, gelatin silver print (1928) via MoMA. ID: b&w high contrast photo of a winding metal outdoor flight of stairs. End ID. 

 FINIS.