Döblin, Alfred
Entry updated 4 January 2019. Tagged: Author.
(1878-1957) German physician and author who began publishing before World War One, in which he served as a physician; in exile because of his Jewish background 1933-1945. Die Ermordung Einer Butterblume und andere Erzählungen ["The Murder of a Buttercup"] (coll 1913; exp 1962; trans Damion Searles as Bright Magic 2017) assembles hectic fantasies and parables, some powerful. In the surreal abruptions and mechanized distortions of its "epic" narrative structure, Döblin's first novel, Die Drei Sprünge des Wang-lu: Chinesischer Roman (1915; trans C D Godwin as The Three Leaps of Wang Lun: A Chinese Novel 1991), evokes the Futurism of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and was probably a direct influence on Roberto Bolaño, who cites the author in general (along with Franz Kafka). Döblin is best known in English-speaking territories for Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929; trans Eugene Jolas as Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf 1931; vt Alexanderplatz Berlin: The Story of Franz Biberkopf 1931; new trans Michael Hoffmann as Berlin Alexanderplatz 2018), whose hallucinated portrayal of Weimar Berlin edges into the prophetic.
Of direct sf interest is Berge Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Seas and Giants"] (1924; cut vt Giganten ["Giants"] 1932), an extremely ambitious Future History, which extends from the aftermath years following the Great War into the twenty-seventh century CE. In the later years of the twentieth century the world, already plagued by Overpopulation and racism due to worldwide economic migrations, becomes a rigid, polarized Dystopia, a fixity (see Roderick Seidenberg) only to be shaken centuries later, when an indolent but restive underclass, locked into a Machine-driven culture that fails to supply its needs, inadvertently foments a world War whose advanced Weapons cause huge damage. Meanwhile, the Japanese have occupied much of North America, and the focus of the History shifts westward from Eurasia. A campaign to settle Greenland results in the melting of its icecap, and attendant Disasters; connected to this, giant Mutations in plant and animal life threaten the human world, and Monsters roam the transfigured islands that have emerged from what was once Greenland. As in more recent Zombie Apocalypse tales, contact with these Mutants is instantly fatal, and Homo sapiens moves Underground, constructing at the same time giant quasi-living defensive towers. Eventually humans and others tentatively join together to begin to reinhabit the Ruined Earth. [JC]
Bruno Alfred Döblin
born Stettin, Pomerania, Germany [now Szczecin, Poland]: 10 August 1878
died Emmendingen, West Germany: 26 June 1957
works (selected)
- Die Ermordung Einer Butterblume und andere Erzählungen ["The Murder of a Buttercup"] (Munich, Germany: Georg Müller, 1913) [coll: hb/]
- Die Ermordung Einer Butterblume: Ausgewählte Erzählungen 1910-1950 ["The Murder of a Buttercup"] (Olten, Switzerland: Walter-Verlag, 1962) [coll: exp vt of the above: binding unknown/]
- Bright Magic (New York: New York Review Books, 2017) [coll: trans by Damion Searles of the above: pb/Kurt Schwitters]
- Die Ermordung Einer Butterblume: Ausgewählte Erzählungen 1910-1950 ["The Murder of a Buttercup"] (Olten, Switzerland: Walter-Verlag, 1962) [coll: exp vt of the above: binding unknown/]
- Die Drei Sprünge des Wang-lu: Chinesischer Roman (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1915) [hb/]
- The Three Leaps of Wang Lun: A Chinese Novel (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991) [trans by C D Godwin of the above: hb/uncredited]
- Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine ["Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam-Machine"] (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1918) [hb/]
- Berge Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Seas and Giants"] (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1924) [hb/]
- Berlin Alexanderplatz: Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1929) [hb/George Salter as Georg Salter]
- Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (London: Martin Secker, 1931) [trans by Eugene Jolas of the above: hb/]
- Alexanderplatz Berlin: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (New York: The Viking Press, 1931) [vt of the above: published in two volumes: hb/]
- Berlin Alexanderplatz (London: Penguin Classics, 2018) [new trans by Michael Hoffmann of the above: pb/]
- Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (London: Martin Secker, 1931) [trans by Eugene Jolas of the above: hb/]
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