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Käsebier Takes Berlin
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
9 posts | 3 read | 2 to read
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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Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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#wondrouswednesday @Eggs
1.Cabaret works very well as a companion piece to the tagged book.Same setting with the backdrop of rising fascism.Both deeply unsettling given the current times.
2.Bookmarks,mugs and branded book bags from bookshops!
3.Interesting question!If it's nonfiction it doesn't matter ,but fiction I prefer it to be people my age.I should correct that!

Eggs Well done ðŸ‘🼠Thanks for joining in 📚🎶â¤ï¸ 4y
9 likes1 comment
blurb
Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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#WeekendReads @rachelsbrittain
1. Absolutely riveting tagged book
2. Probably Twins at At.Clares by Enid Blyton!
3." He was the rare German intellectual who dressed well"

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Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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Sounds just like Bombay right now

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Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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This could be 2020 Bombay. Written in 1886.

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Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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Vansa
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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Great writing

4 likes1 stack add
blurb
sisilia
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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@Leftcoastzen I just realized that I have read all your picks 😆 I gave 5â­ï¸ for Judith Hearne, 4â­ï¸ for Apartment in Athens, and 2â­ï¸ for my struggle with Kasebier #nyrbbookclub #nyrbclassics

Leftcoastzen 😀ðŸ‘I read it long ago but remember loving 5y
sisilia Ooohhh have never heard of it. I like Glenway Wescott; and will definitely read his other works @Leftcoastzen 5y
57 likes2 comments
review
sisilia
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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Mehso-so

2â­ï¸ Gah, another difficult read in 2020! It took me ages to finish 🥴 Too many names, and chatters coming from all directions! The rise and fall of the Weimar Republic could be better delivered if the story was more structured and controlled

Leftcoastzen It was one of my nominees for the #NYRBbookclub I guess now I‘ve been warned.😀 5y
Liz_M I almost bought this at the Brooklyn Book Festival, but asked if it was similar in style to the tagged book. When the nyrb staff member said yes, I couldn't put the book down fast enough. 😂 5y
LeahBergen Too bad. It has a great cover! 5y
See All 8 Comments
LeahBergen @Liz_M And now I‘ve been warned away from that one, too. 😆 5y
BarbaraBB @LeahBergen Me too, while I have Berlin Alexanderplatz on my shelves too.. 5y
sisilia @Leftcoastzen @Liz_M @LeahBergen @BarbaraBB Grand Hotel by Vicky Baum is a much better, enjoyable Weimar story set in the same era. I have Berlin Alexanderplatz, too 🙈 I‘ll keep that for when I‘m in extremely good mood haha 5y
QuintusMarcus Berlin Alexanderplatz is no easier, FYI...if you‘re feeling Weimar, Man Without Qualities is immense but superior. 5y
sisilia @QuintusMarcus Will check it out 🤩 5y
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balletbookworm
Käsebier Takes Berlin | Gabriele Tergit
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Pickpick

A dry, satirical look at the Berlin intelligentsia and upper class of 1930 and what happens when a mediocre Jewish Everyman becomes an overnight cabaret sensation (look, it was a slow news day). Tergit skewers the capitalist drive to make as much money as possible off the hot shit for the moment - a drive that still exists in ever-increasing amounts of media tie-in rubbish and branding in the 21st century.

balletbookworm An interesting book for me to read and contrast with the Germany of Fritz Lang‘s M (a favorite movie) and Isherwood‘s Berlin Stories. 5y
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