Käsebier Takes Berlin – Gabriele Tergit (tr. Sophie Duvernoy)

I’m on a break from blogging for a week starting tomorrow and thought I’d squeeze in one more review. This piece is on Käsebier Takes Berlin by Gabriele Tergit, an “NYRBWomen24” book I began reading in March but spilled over in April…

Set in 1920s Berlin, Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier Takes Berlin, is a lively, zesty satire of the excesses of the period highlighting the power of the press, the transitory nature of the latest news and fads, overhyped personalities, consumerism, and the inevitable downfall fuelled by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. A novel bursting with a slew of characters, it is difficult really to focus on any one, but the essence of the plot is essentially this:

In the newsroom of Berliner Rundschau, on what has been a slow news week, editor-in-chief Georg Miermann pushes one of his key reporters, a sarcastic man, Emil Gohlisch to publish his article on an upcoming folksy singer. Gohlisch initially haws and hums, but eventually gets his story on Käsebier printed as front page news. Soon, another noted journalist but struggling poet Otto Lambeck writes his piece on a Käsebier show and the breadth of his talent in a rival newspaper, Berliner Tageszaitung, and in the blink of an eye, Käsebier becomes a raging sensation.

On the face of it, Käsebier is an unremarkable man performing on a cheap stage in a kind of vaudeville, but the series of news articles on him in these leading publications catch the fancy of the upper-class set. Soon he is invited to perform at the prestigious Wintergarten, and the who’s who has begun to sing his praises. Thereafter, follows a champagne party held by wealthy socialite Margot Weissman that becomes a fertile ground for discussing murky business ideas, all centred on the aura of Käsebier.

In the spirit of the happening, buzzing nature of news, the vast stream of characters flit in and out of the novel’s forty chapters, and it is often difficult to keep track of them. But as translator Sophie Duvernoy, in her introduction writes, this book is more about the medium of the press, and taken in that context, it perhaps makes sense that this vast array of characters only adds to the buzz and noise of the novel as Tergit intends them to rather than dwell on deeper character development.

But even then there are some notable characters presented here – the tongue-in-cheek Gohlisch, the lovelorn young Miss Kohler in love with a flighty man with commitment issues, the dubious and opportunistic Frachter who eventually takes over the reins of Berliner R and alters its personality from a newspaper publishing serious political views and essays to one now showcasing the banality of the everyday, the cautious, risk-averse but profit-seeking banker Mr Muschler who gets embroiled in the financing of a construction project of luxury apartments despite not having a nose for business; the beautiful Kate, an independent woman with her own business and numerous lovers, and the intellectual and culturally inclined Miermann, a man of the old school and at the helm of things at Berliner R for a larger chunk of the novel. Ironically, Käsebier despite his name being the talk of the town is barely visible as a character as he is away most of the time on shows; it’s as if the phenomenon has eclipsed the person.

The novel is an evocative portrayal of 1920s Berlin – wining and fine dining, pearls and champagne breakfasts, theatre and dancing, the vibrant café culture, the frivolity and insouciance that envelops the chic and stylish jet set crowd.

The asphalt shimmered. The street lamps cast a haze of light over the spring trees. The longing of the many couples lounging on benches drifted from the Tiergarten. Ladies in fresh pale suits sat in front of cafés, wearing little hats on their little heads, drinking iced coffee and iced chocolate with straws. They were superbly manicured and massaged and creamed and rouged and whitened. Lambeck took in the air scented with freedom, brashness, and benzene.

Berlin is very much a character in the novel, a city that transitions from the excesses of the 1920s to depression and the alarming rise of fascism in the 30s; in one fell swoop we see something of the aura of Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel being felt here in the early pages, and then maybe a wee bit of the somber nature of Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Oppermanns in the final few chapters when the Nazi party begins to gain ground.

Some wonderful set-pieces elevate the novel – the one in which Otto Lambeck indulges in a bit of people-watching sitting at a cafe to get a feel for the spirit of Berlin; another one which singularly focuses on the last-minute frenzy of Gohlisch’s Käsebier article getting published; a later Kafkaesque chapter where one of the minor characters experiences the full force of government bureaucracy as he flits from one room to another asking for some important set of documents, and a slew of chapters that dwell on the discussions between Muschler, and a set of architects and builders as they try to construct a theatre for Käsebier on Muschler’s plot of land, a project characterised by incompetency, cost cutting, bad design, and numerous delays. Meanwhile, throughout the novel, different characters converse on a variety of topics ranging from business and politics to art, culture, and feminism, from declining work ethics to the expensiveness of real estate in Berlin. 

“There’s poverty, and otherwise there’s just a big old march to bed. We’ve been let down. No, don’t deny it—we’ve all been let down, all of us who longed for the education, knowledge, and skills of men. We learned how life can open up when the search for truth becomes your guiding star. The next generation is a disappointment. Every day I see it in my office hours. I don’t miss anything, I feel fulfilled, but the generation after us forgot everything. It’s rotten.”

In a classic case of “the emperor’s new clothes”, we see how the viral quality of news catapults mediocrity to unforeseen heights so much so that most people prefer to swim with the tide rather than speak out the truth. The economics of undertaking construction projects is also spot on – corrupt builders, nebulous negotiations, rampant bureaucracy, and cost cutting mean quality work is given the boot. We see the proliferation of excesses and crass consumerism – once Käsebier becomes a sensation, everybody wants to cash in on his name from building theaters, and publishing books to manufacturing cheap merchandise and products. But history often uncannily repeats itself, what rises meteorically must eventually fall, old fads make way for new ones, and the Käsebier aura, unsurprisingly, begins to fade…a cycle that has repeated endlessly throughout the centuries highlighting the prescience of Tergit’s themes, how relevant they are today as they were in the early 20th century.

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. The novel particularly becomes absorbing in the second half when the focus narrows down to certain plot points and is not all over the place. Overall, Käsebier Takes Berlin is an excellent novel well worth reading.