Customer Reviews

The Glimmer Palace

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin is one of the most engaging books I've read in a long time. From the first twenty pages I knew this was going to be a book I was going to want to read slowly, soaking in all of the details.

Lilly Nelly Aphrodite was born in the final moments of the nineteenth century in Germany. The book follows her life from a Catholic orphanage in Berlin and brings to life in fine detail her life over the course of the next thirty four years.

Poor Lilly constantly struggles with love, employment, poverty, and friendships while Germany struggles with it's own problems. Lilly's sweet innocence is eclipsed by the harsh world she lives in. Not having any family to help her out of difficult situations, she always finds a way to solve her problems, and maintains a long term, but sporadic friendship with another orphaned girl throughout the book.

I felt the first three hundred pages of this book were very well written, but the last quarter of the book becomes almost of summary of success mirrored by tragedy, written more as an accounting of events rather than a story. Regardless, the entire book is very well written.

Overall, this should be a very enjoyable book for readers who enjoy historical fiction, especially early twentieth century Germany, or for fans of the cinema, as much of this book revolves around the cinema.

The Glimmer Palace is one of those rare, immersive novels that fully transports the reader into a place and time far removed from this modern twenty-first century. Beatrice Colin's book took me back to Berlin at the beginning of the twentieth century, when that legendary city was blossoming and its film stars and cabaret performers were the most sought-after flowers of the entertainment world. At the dawn of this new world is born Lilly Nelly Aphrodite, the illegitimate daughter of a cabaret performer. Within a few months the little girl is orphaned, and she begins a life of restless transition and searching. Never sure of her identity, Lilly constantly reinvents herself as she seeks her place in the world: orphan, maid, poet's muse, bride, widow, barmaid, typist, and star of German film. Lilly's growth and happiness are implicitly tied to the city she calls home: as Berlin's star rises and falls, so does she.



Colin brings drama and bubbling, breathing life to every page. Lilly's flashing, lovely eyes are witness to some of the greatest changes the world has ever seen. She proves herself to be as delicate as a hothouse flower and tenacious as a weed as she survives a childhood in an orphanage and slow starvation in post-WWI Germany, yet rising to live the life of a glamorous film star in Berlin and Hollywood. Throughout it all I rooted for her. I wanted her to win. It is clear early on that she becomes a huge star (references are made to interviews conducted after she's "made it") but when she's fighting in the streets for horsemeat I was just dying to know HOW she was going to get through. Knowing that Lilly would be OK did absolutely nothing to dispense the tension and suspense. I just could not put this book down. As Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha brought Japan's floating world to life, The Glimmer Palace brings the mysterious world of Berlin and cabaret back from the hazy past like a shimmering dream.

The Glimmer Palace is historical fiction at it's best. It is a tale rich with imagery that take you to this time period and city. Lilly is an amazingly complex character who shows the tenacity and smarts to get her through the terrible hardships she endures. Some of the scenes are so heartbreaking you can feel her pain. We follow her life starting at the bottom trying to survive in an orphanage, to starvation during the depression, and then to her success as an actress. The author, Beatrice Colin did her research. It was so interesting to learn about the history of the silent films era. Her attention to detail shines. If you enjoy historical fiction then I recommend putting this book high on your list.

The setting is intriguing, and unstudied by most (including the author, before she researched and wrote the book, a candid admission in the credits). The author does a phenomenal job of describing Berlin and its atmospheres throughout the covered years. But the characters, and their stories, never seemed to get out of 1st gear. As the book progressed, I cared less and less about what happened to them. The characters never seemed to have anything but tragic outlooks on their lives. Part of this is due to the subject matter, time and place. I get that. But much of the story is interminably bleak. Also, there is very, very little actual dialogue in the book between characters. Plenty of exposition, but little dialogue. And thats part of what I usually enjoy most in a story, humans interacting with one another; a personal preference, admittedly. I hesitate to say anything disparaging about any published author, because it generally takes a great deal more work to get something like this accomplished than it does to simply write a review critiquing someone else's work. But Amazon requested my opinion, and here it is.

This is the first time I've ever written a review for a book, but I discovered a review and synopsis of the story in Bookpage and decided to "check it out" (literally, from a library).
Despite the book's heavy topic and length, I somehow read all 416 pages in a week. The last few chapters I couldn't put down. Even when I wasn't reading this book, I was still "reading" it in my head, thinking about the main character, her life, and her constant battle for survival and her endless search for love and peace. The author must have lived a former life as she manages to get the reader to truly travel with her through this historical time period with extreme clarity. I also learned a lot about the German point of view and experience of going through both world wars. I knew very little about World War I, and I got a bird's eye view of all of the elements that collided to create this war's lasting and devastating impact. I'm in awe of the historical world this writer created, and I hope she gets the recognition she deserves for such a masterful work. It would make a great movie!

I hesitate to call this historical fiction - although that's what it is - because the phrase implies creaking research, distance, and characters that are often two-dimensional. Colin's book is the opposite of all these things. Her research is woven so deftly into the story you only realize, if you read the bibliography, how many dry facts she breathed life into. The characters are complex, fully realized, and memorable. Although the literary reviews I read described this as being about the early German film industry, that's only the last quarter of the book. The real subject is Germany from 1900 to the late 1930s, revealed through the lives of a handful of characters who come together, drift apart, and re-encounter each over three decades. If you're looking for a cozy, comforting read, as we all are sometimes, set this book aside. If you're looking to delve deeper into the Berlin of the "Caberet" era in all its darkness, this is one you won't forget.

I found this an interesting novel for several reasons. Not certainly for the central story line, since it is somewhat melodramatic: orphan struggles to survive in Berlin prior to the first war, eventually becomes a famous movie personality, loses husband, gets new husband, and attempts to outwit Joseph Goebbels. However, what the author does accomplish, and a rare feat it is, is to paint a picture of Berlin during the first third of the 20th century that is highly authentic and conveys the stages and crises the city was experiencing during its early burst of growth prior to the first war, the impact of the war on the civilian population, the Communist Sparticist revolution after the war and the resulting street war that occurred in Berlin, the rise of the German movie industry, and the impact of the Nazi takeover of the government. The author, a Scot, has done impeccable research that conveys as authentic picture of the period as we are ever likey to get in a work of fiction (or perhaps even non-fiction). Sprinkled throughout are contemporary pictures from various Berlin achives that add a further touch of authenticity to the story. Each chapter is prefaced by a short essay that, while it does not involve the novel's characters, does add an interesting perspective to what is to come in the story. The book is long (at 400 pages), and the author takes her time in developing the story, but if you are interested in Berlin, folks like Brigette Helm or Marlene Dietrich, the first war's impact on the German civilian population, and the growth of a true "world city" (plus not a bad yarn to boot), you will enjoy this novel.

It had a decent story and the characters were actual people instead of caricatures. That said, it seemed the lives of Lilly and Hanne were just one miserable, terrible event after another. I get that it was a difficult time, but some more happiness would have been nice. I would probably recommend this to a book group or reader that would be OK with the seriousness and the lack of a happy ending.

How did this book find a publisher? Stock, two-dimensional characters act out a predictable soap opera. Writing is grammatically correct, nothing more. Historical background all but paraphrases Otto Friedrich's Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s. A total waste.

This book transports you to a different time era and makes you feel as if you were there. I couldn't put it down from the moment I picked it up. I would have liked a better ending but the ending was real and fit the sorrow of the story.