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Gabriele Tergit
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Käsebier Takes Berlin (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – July 30, 2019

by Gabriele Tergit (Author), Sophie Duvernoy (Translator, Introduction)
4.1 out of 5 stars 25 ratings
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In English for the first time, a panoramic satire about the star-making machine, set in celebrity-obsessed Weimar Berlin.

In Berlin, 1930, the name Käsebier is on everyone’s lips. A literal combination of the German words for “cheese” and “beer,” it’s an unglamorous name for an unglamorous man—a small-time crooner who performs nightly on a shabby stage for laborers, secretaries, and shopkeepers. Until the press shows up.

In the blink of an eye, this everyman is made a star: a star who can sing songs for a troubled time. Margot Weissmann, the arts patron, hosts champagne breakfasts for Käsebier; Muschler the banker builds a theater in his honor; Willi Frächter, a parvenu writer, makes a mint off Käsebier-themed business ventures and books. All the while, the journalists who catapulted Käsebier to fame watch the monstrous media machine churn in amazement—and are aghast at the demons they have unleashed.

In Käsebier Takes Berlin, the journalist Gabriele Tergit wrote a searing satire of the excesses and follies of the Weimar Republic. Chronicling a country on the brink of fascism and a press on the edge of collapse, Tergit’s novel caused a sensation when it was published in 1931. As witty as Kurt Tucholsky and as trenchant as Karl Kraus, Tergit portrays a world too entranced by fireworks to notice its smoldering edges.
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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NYRB Classics
  4. Publication date
    July 30, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.62 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    168137272X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1681372723
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Portraying a society declining into fascism, the novel resounds with hollow laughter and is crisp throughout, but the journalistic sections feel most alive. These tableaus, which blend absurdism and poignancy, match the comic invention of classics like Michael Frayn’s Towards the End of the Morning and Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop.” —Publishers Weekly

“In a pace that’s intensely frenetic, Tergit captures the pulse of the period brilliantly in her prose – light and airy, comic and satirical, but also dark and profound...Käsebier Takes Berlin is an excellent novel well worth reading.” —Radhika’s Readers Retreat

"A star is born, Weimar-style, in this German novel originally published in 1931....Tergit's novel deserves a place alongside Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, Canetti's Auto-da-Fé, and other key works of the period." —Kirkus

"Tergit's prose is energetically rendered by Sophie Duvernoy. . .Tergit's gift for engaging dialogue enlivens the novel. But beneath the witty comedy and acute observation lies a sober reminder of the dangers brewing: references to mounting debt and widespread bankruptcy; and as the election posters go up, auctions are held and suitcases of the vulnerable stand ready." —Rebecca K. Morrison, TLS

About the Author

Gabriele Tergit (1894–1982) was a novelist and journalist, known initially for her courtroom reporting. After gaining fame for Käsebier Takes Berlin, her writing career was cut short when the Nazis rose to power in 1933. She immediately fled to Czechoslovakia, then Palestine, and finally London. After the war, her work was largely forgotten by the public, but she continued to work on behalf of other authors as the honorary secretary of the London PEN Centre of expatriate German-speaking authors.

Sophie Duvernoy has translated work by Sibylle Berg, Sabine Rennefanz, and Zora del Buono, and has written for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Thomson Reuters, and other publications. She is the winner of the 2015 Gutekunst Prize for young translators and is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics (July 30, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 168137272X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681372723
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.62 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 25 ratings

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Gabriele Tergit

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4.1 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Yaakov Ben Shalom
    4.0 out of 5 stars An impressionistic view of Berlin society in the Weimar Republic
    Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    The novel is the story of Georg Käsebier, a modestly talented singer of sentimental songs in a local cabaret, who is personally uninteresting and uninterested. But suddenly Käsebier rockets to fame in Berlin because of one favorable review in the right newspaper and the buzz it creates. Except this novel isn’t the story of Käsebier. It’s really about everyone else in Berlin who seeks to profit from the mania surrounding Käsebier: journalists who review his concerts, writers who write his biography, artists who paint his picture, photographers who photograph him, socialites who throw parties in his honor, even real estate speculators and contractors who build him a theater. But what goes up must come down. After all, George Käsebier is only modestly talented and personally completely unremarkable. And when his bubble bursts, a lot of Berliners who rose with the Käsebier-bubble suffer.

    So this book is a depiction of the febrile, media-saturated, celebrity-obsessed society in Berlin around 1930.

    But as amusing as the book is, I thought that it didn’t read well. There are a ton of different characters, and it’s hard to keep them all straight. Sometimes, it’s not even clear who is speaking or who is doing what as the author jumps abruptly between characters in the same chapter or scene. Also, the central plot very slow in developing. Rather, the novel largely consists of the stories and experiences of a dozen or more individuals, which only very slowly come together in a crescendo. Incidentally, Käsebier himself has only a slight presence in the novel. We never get to know him, but he doesn’t matter since he is only the vehicle for everyone else’s hopes and ambitions.
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  • ChristopherS
    5.0 out of 5 stars A fun novel to read
    Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    "Kasebier Takes Berlin" is one of the most pleasurable books I have read this year. Both serious and funny, the characters are interesting and the dialog plausible. I can't find any other work of Gabrielle Tergit translated into English - I hope that changes.
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