The year is going so fast. I’m surprised I haven’t written about books since July this year, but there’s been a lot going on. I’d read my two books about Frederick the Great early on in preparation for Berlin, and have discussed them here. It was terrific background for our trip. As were the ones that I discuss here linked to Berlin and / or Germany. The only one without a direct link – although it’s still relevant as it involves the carve up of Europe after Germany’s defeat in the First World War is this rather strange book I came upon in a second hand bookshop and bought because I loved his wonderful Transylvanian Trilogy which I discuss here.
the Phoenix Land, Miklós Bánffy
This is of historical interest only really, being quite a strange little book consisting of a couple of descriptive essays and diary entries. The land he is describing – in bits and pieces – is Hungary. It starts with a description of the coronation of the last King of Hungary. Bánffy was in charge of organising it. So much pomp and ceremony – the last gasp of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I googled and saw pictures of what he describes. Then there’s a lot about the internal machinations that occurred in Hungary after the First World War. He was part of a group of ex and current politicians trying to protect as much as possible of the Hungarian State as it was – all the while recognising the futility of the exercise. I wholeheartedly recommend Bánffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy – this one not so much – it’s only for afficiandos of Hungarian history.
The Kindness of Strangers, Salka Viertel
I’ve read a lot about the emigrés from Europe who ended up in Hollywood after fleeing Germany on the eve of the Second World War. People like Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley and that crowd. Salka was part of all of that but she spends quite a bit of time in this memoir talking about her childhood and then nascent career as an actress in Germany before we get to Hollywood. All very personal – the trials and tribulations of embarking on such a precarious career. Her husband was a famous German theatre director. They both left Germany well before the real threat of the Nazi period became evident when he was invited to work in Hollywood. Where he was unsuccessful but where Salka became the family breadwinner – they had two boys who rapidly became more American than their parents. She was initially successful, for writing screenplays for Greta Garbo vehicles but as time goes by work becomes more precarious. So we move on to the vagaries of being a script writer under the thumb of the big studios – and big egos. She’s very self effacing but was obviously a real mover and shaker – although not acknowledged as such. She then became the subject of the anti-communist witch hunt that spread through America. All of it is very interesting and she writes really well. Lots of cameos of famous people have cameos in these pages but your interest is held by Salka.
The Sun and Her Stars, Donna Rifkind
This is a biography of Salka Viertel that draws heavily on Salka’s own autobiography and an earlier biography that according to the review in the TLS has entrenched various bits of Hollywood gossip as truth. So should be read with a grain of salt. The autobiography is better. But I did discover that Salka’s son Peter was married to Deborah Kerr for years!
Jena 1800: The Republic of Free Spirits, Peter Neumann
This was terrific. A wonderful evocation of the German Romantics who lived in Jena for a period pre and post 1800. I referred to it quite a bit in my blogs on Berlin as we came upon statues of this one and that one. Goethe, Novalis, the Schlegal brothers – August Wilhelm and Fritz,Friedrich and Caroline Schelling, Dorothea Schlegal. Short summaries of the ideas being promulgated at the time as well as all the drama of their inter-relationships. I loved it.
Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self, Andrea Wulf
I’d completely forgotten I’d read this but it was a great follow up to the Neumann book. While the people overlap there’s more of Goethe, Schiller, Fichte and Alexander von Humboldt in this. Wulf calls them the Jena Set which is a bit modern but then they were remarkably modern in their views about relationships and the role of women. Both authors give a lot of attention to Caroline Schelling – as she became after divorcing August Schlegel – and Dorothea who eventually became Fritz Schlegel’s wife. This book finishes with a chapter on the battle of Jena which is where Napoleon finally vanquished the Prussians. How Napoleon was viewed by these progressives is interesting – mostly positive in these early days. Now I’ve been to Berlin and to Leipzig where these figures have walked the streets, drunk coffee and had their spirited conversations I feel like reading both these books all over again.
The Undercurrents, Kirsty Bell
This is another recommendation from the TLS – as the two above were. It was wonderful, especially for someone on the eve of visiting Berlin. She is an Anglo-American who married a German with whom she bought a house in Berlin. She starts exploring the history of the house as her marriage starts to crumble. Through her investigations we get a comprehensive history of Berlin. She talks about the high water table on which the city is built so I wasn’t surprised to see all the pipes running water out of construction sites that dot the city. She also told me about the stumbling stones that record the names of people who were transported to concentration camps that dot the pavements throughout the city. It’s an easy read, making Berlin’s extensive and at times horrific history very accessible. We visited a lot of the places she mentions – although my attempt to find the Einstein Kaffé she visits at one stage were unsuccessful – there are hundreds of Einstein Kaffés in Berlin! We walked along the Landwehr Canal which features a lot as her kitchen window overlooked it. The walk was quite lovely as well as interesting. And I agreed with her descriptions of Potsdamer Platz as a corporatised nightmare – very uninviting. All in all I agreed with a lot of her observations and it was great to have read it before our trip. I looked it up both while I was there and while doing my Berlin blogs.
Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin, Alexandra Richie
I found this book at the same second hand bookshop as the Bánffy. I didn’t know it at the time but this was regarded, when it was published twenty five years ago, as the most authoritative and comprehensive history of the city and it’s still referred to a lot. Including in The Undercurrents. I was intending to dip in an out of it but I read most of it, leaving out the Second World War – which I didn’t have the stomach for (after reading Antony Beevor’s account of that horrendous period in Berlin The Downfall:1945). This is a terrific read and while dense a very easy one – beautifully written. As with our tour guide in Berlin she is against any backsliding about how bad the German Democratic Republic was, about which there must have been a debate occurring when the book was written – and which continues. Great childcare but a police state nonetheless. If you want to know anything about any aspect of Berlin history you’ll find the answer here. It’s another of my Germany focussed books that I may go back to.
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
This was my reading on the way to Berlin, deliberately chosen although in fact the link to Berlin is only tenuous. There’s more about Wagner, and The Ring Cycle in fact. I loved her Death Came For The Bishop and I loved this. Beautiful writing. About growing up in the mid West. They say this is very autobiographical. She writes about this part of America so well. The cover on the picture shows ancient Indian structures that feature in the story. Our heroine, based on Cather herself, grows up to be an artist – though in the fictional version she’s an opera singer not a writer. It’s terrific about the drive necessary to become an artist in these circumstances, the support needed, the self-belief. It kept me going through the twenty hours of flying time – no bigger compliment to an author!
The Countess From Kirribillie, Joyce Morgan
And this was my reading on the way back from Berlin. I’d read and loved Elizabeth von Armin’s first book, Elizabeth and her German Garden which was published anonymously in 1898. The story of how she created a garden in her home in Pomerania when she was first married. She was born in Australia – as the title indicates in Kirribilli – but was taken back to England when she was very young and really didn’t consider herself an Australian. She was Katherine Mansfield’s cousin and the two had quite a lot to do with each other towards the end of Katherine’s tragically short life. I loved everything about her famous garden book – which made her famous although she wasn’t known as the author until much later. it was beautifully written and wonderfully acerbic. She refers to her husband throughout as The Man of Wrath. He was much older than her and a Count – hence she became a Countess. Unsurprisingly the marriage didn’t last but they never divorced. She went on to have another two marriages – the last with Bertrand Russell’s brother Frank, who seems to have been a maniac. He was also a Count so she was a countess twice over. She had an amazing life. Continued to write best selling books for which she was recognised – The Enchanted April and Vera are perhaps the best known. She gathered the great and good – and famous – around her at her homes in England and Switzerland. Had lots of love affairs with men much younger than herself. Quite the liberated woman. She had five children with the Man of Wrath and ended up dying in America where two of her daughters and her son ended up living. As her biographer says, she should be much better known. Although the link to Australia is slight.
Leave a Reply