Berlin: The City and the Court - Softcover

Laforgue, Jules; Smith, William Jay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1885983026 ISBN 13: 9781885983022

Publisher: Turtle Point Press, 2000

Synopsis

Written before his death of TB at 27, this subtle work leaves indelible impression.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Jules Laforgue, who has been called the "French Keats" and whose work greatly influenced T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce, went to Berlin in 1881 as French reader to the Empress Augusta, a descendent of Catherine the Great. Written shortly before his death from tuberculosis at age 27, Berlin, la cour et la ville was not published until 1922 and is still little known in France. This first complete English translation of an important lost work is a brilliant example of what Jacques Barzun has called the poet's "visual reportage". It presents a precise picture of what everyday life was like in Berlin in the 1880's. Like his friend Seurat, Laforgue shows us what people did, what they wore, what they ate, what they saw and heard. He paints memorable portraits of the leading court personalities and pays special attention to the Prussian military, the power of which permeated every aspect of life.

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1881, the symbolist poet Laforgue (Les Complaintes) left Paris for Berlin, where he would spend five years as reader to the Francophile Empress Augusta. While there, he carefully recorded many details for a book that wasn't published in France until 1922, some 35 years after his premature death. Perhaps Laforgue hadn't finished, as in many places it seems more a choppy collection of notes ("People do not read in the street; you never see people with leather briefcases under their arms. No interesting street names... No sidewalk cafes.") and the ending is abrupt. But Laforgue is startlingly frank, especially about his Russian-born employer and the mutual disdain between Berlin and its empress. He also hints at more important matters?strains among William I, his son and grandson and between the younger Hohenzollerns and Bismarck, all of which shaped William II's disastrous decisions. But mostly Laforgue is a sharp, thorough and often wickedly funny observer of Prussian manners, dress and mores?most of which suffer by comparison with those of Paris, as when he describes a knife grinder attracting clients by striking his grindstone with "a hammer that produces a rather unpleasant sound. The benumbed visitor then recalls the Parisian plumber's cheerful whistle." One can almost taste the bitterness of this child of the Second Empire who finds himself among the hated victors of Sedan. Smith's translation is able, though in his introduction and (less frequently) in his notes, he often slips from useful background to entirely pointless commentary ("Laforgue would have been interested to see that German bad taste in women's clothes has found its match in present-day Washington").
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtle Point Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1885983026
• ISBN 13: 9781885983022
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 225