The blurb claimed that Käsebier Takes Berlin by Gabrielle Tergit is a novel about a middle-of-the-road singer accidentally becoming a huge sensation. While this does happen, it’s more the catalyst for the other plots in the book and Käsebier himself is nothing more than a cypher. The book is split into two broad halves, the first about the journalistic, cultural and literary world of Berlin and the second about the business and construction world. The world of Weimar Berlin seems bloated, unstable, based on nebulous finance and ready to implode, Nazis are just around the corner.

My first impression of this novel is that it’s an assault on the senses, frenetic, hectic and very difficult to follow. We are introduced to so many names, some of them of characters but many of people that frequently appear in the background, fixtures of the cultural life of the city who we don’t actually meet. Added to this are the huge amount of street names, many of them seven syllables long, which are described in a way that implies the reader already has deep knowledge of the city. It’s like listening to a Londoner talking, where the character and implications of a place name are a shared language.

The book isn’t helped by the dialogue rarely being attributed with whole conversations between a group of six people needing to be worked out by context. Add to this, the text of adverts, names of songs and other ephemera thrown in - and the novel is initially very hard work for an English reader in 2021. However, it settles down about chapter ten, when all the characters meet to see Käsebier’s first performance at the Wintergarten. Seeing them in a clear context together, finally fixed most of the characters for me.

It’s a pity Käsebier wasn’t more central to the novel. I enjoyed the story of a cheesy singer, whose lack of polish feels warm and authentic to the jaded culture-hounds, becoming a big star because it’s a slow news day and something needs to go on the front page of a paper. I’d have liked more of his perspective as one slimy toad of a character creates a Käsebier book in a day, as dolls (in felt and rubber), shoes, pens and cigarettes become the hot Christmas gifts. Unfortunately, he’s on tour most of the book and we don’t really get to know him at all. Unknown to him, he becomes the centrepiece of a building project of luxury apartments, shops and a Käsebier theatre, which becomes the principal plot of the second half.

It was interesting to see how the corporate greed, the cost cutting measures and the cheap but shitty architect create this awful, unliveable building rather than the living and entertainment complex it was meant to be. I live in a city full of empty buildings advertising luxury apartments that no-one can afford, creating desert regions and it was interesting to see a way this comes about.

I suppose the main character was the editor Miermann, a classically educated man of the old-school who is no longer fit for the rushing, glittering, empty world he lives in. However, he seems to peripherally enter other storylines than have much of one himself. There’s also a divorced gym teacher who sleeps around, a reporter who lives with her mum, a flashy reporter who says “Heil and Seig and catch a fat one, a man who won’t commit to a relationship, a banker, his uncle, his nephew, two architects, some salesmen, a sleazy writer who becomes a newspaper editor, some more nephews, a posh gossip journalist, a playwright turned journalist, a society lady, the banker’s wife, a shady businessman, a carpenter, more socialites, an investigative reporter, his daughter with TB, Margot, Aja Müller, a newspaper layout artist, a woman who makes ragdolls, some more journalists, Käsebier and his wife. It’s rather too many characters to hold onto.

The book really does improve once it fixes on the building storyline and even started to care for (and even differentiate) the characters, so it ended up a satisfying book but took a while to get there.

3.5 rounded to 4.

https://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/kasebier-takes-berlin-gabriele-tergit/

When I first started reading Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier Takes Berlin (translated by Sophie Duvernoy), I thought I was reading the author’s attempt to cash in on or mimic Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin. Tergit’s style—especially when describing life along the Kurfürstendamm—is as frenetic and Impressionistic as Döblin. Also, Käsebier Takes Berlin was published about two years after Berlin Alexanderplatz. Thankfully, the differences started quickly appeared. The cast of Käsebier Takes Berlin is larger and are mostly of a higher social class in than in Döblin’s epic. The scope is also different, given its larger cast and shorter timeline. I think, on balance, I liked Käsebier Takes Berlin a bit more, mostly because I started to really despise the main character of Berlin Alexanderplatz and partly because of its shorter time line...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.