![]() ![]() ![]() Though the narrative may seem disjointed at first, readers will continue to turn the pages to see what becomes of Thomas Mann and his brother or to see Carl Jung daring to challenge Freud’s theories. Illies happily neglects all the political stirrings that would lead to war the following year. Among the many events that occurred during that year: Franz Kafka wrote bizarre letters to his love, Felice Bauer the Die Brücke group of expressionist artists stumbled toward collapse Hitler sold a few watercolors Stalin remained in exile the Mona Lisa was still missing James Joyce was teaching English in Trieste, Italy and Gustav Mahler’s widow, Alma, was refusing to marry Oskar Kokoschka unless he painted her in a masterpiece. He explains their ideas and snatches quotes and tosses them apparently willy-nilly into chronological chapters. However, due to the author’s creative talent, the structure of the narrative works like a charm. The author uses excerpts from journals of now-famous people in the capitals of modernism, including Vienna, Munich, Paris and Berlin. In his first English-language translation, German author Illies scours the landscape of the year 1913, making a leap into a fascinating new structure of writing. ![]()
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