![]() ![]() ![]() The key points are then that this is a short book (152 pages plus a 23 page history of the Republic as an appendix) which draws attention to Gay's idiosyncrasies - a lengthy six or seven pages given over to The Magic Mountain and his theme - The Outsider as Insider a vision of the Weimar republic as dominated by forces and perspectives which had been present in Imperial Germany but which had then been on the peripheries, as you can imagine in such circumstances the big story is the centre ground striking back, and the centre ground in this case was anti-Republican, Monarchist, Authoritarian and generally politically right-wing (particularly noticeable he points out among the judiciary who gave light sentences to political criminals from the political Right, but heavy ones to those from the political Left). I had the sense too of Gay writing to the USA saying 'this is me and my cultural hinterland, this is where I am coming from, read it and weep oh ye philinistines!', but perhaps that is me and my over active imagination. In style it is not so different from his book Why the Romantics Matter - engaged, interested, and wandering from point to point purely on the basis of what arrests his attention. ![]() This is a smooth, short, easy reading, whistle-stop tour of Weimar Germany. Anyway, rumble, grumble, cruel fates tricking coins out of my hollow pockets, grrgh, accursed lack of self restraint. I saw this lurking in a secondhand bookshop and since I was reading Berlin Alexanderplatz it seemed that Fate was calling to me in capital letters - perhaps I need my hearing checked, because fine as this book is, it is not helpful or informative on the subject of Berlin Alexanderplatz although that novel is listed in the index and recommended in the Bibliography. ![]()
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