What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933 (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Translator, Introduction) "The name "Weimar Republic" has a whiff of fragility, of scandal, of doom about it..." (more)
Key Phrases: very large department store, Frankfurter Zeitung, Neue Berliner, Third Reich (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A Roth revival must be occurring. The writer's best novels from the 1920s and 1930s (e.g., The Radetzky March, 1932) remain in print. And first his short fiction (The Collected Stories of Joseph Roth [BKL F 15 02]) and now his journalism have been gathered together. A literally peripatetic writer--this volume's original German subtitle translates as "a reader for walkers"--Roth ambled about 1920s Berlin with an incisive eye for the German society of the time. Disordered by a devastating war, its live-for-the-day side is snared by Roth, as is the widespread contempt toward the Weimar Republic. His capturing of the zeitgeist is so different from, and deeper than, ordinary journalism that modern, quotation-hunting reporters could learn much from him. He didn't tell you Weimar was doomed, he showed you: in descriptions of the cultured interior of an assassinated minister's house; in portraits of Berlin's Jewish district; in a trip to the city morgue. Eminently deserving of a renaissance, Roth's articles are written with novelistic technique and will impress those who respect good writing. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A singular achievement of both journalism and literature, a travel guide composed by a...poet who captured a city at its most cosmopolitan—and on the brink of collapse. (Thane Rosenbaum - Washington Post Book World )

A singular achievement of both journalism and literature. -- Thane Rosenbaum, Washington Post Book World

Nonstop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance. -- Jeffrey Eugenides, New York Times Book Review

Nonstop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance. (Jeffrey Eugenides - New York Times Book Review )

There is a poem on every page of Joseph Roth. (Joseph Brodsky )

There is a poem on every page of Joseph Roth. -- Joseph Brodsky

[Roth] is now recognized as one of the twentieth century's great writers. -- Anthony Heilbut, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393325822
• ISBN-13: 978-0393325829
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #195,280 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Journalism Can Be, April 20, 2003

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 (Hardcover)

Joseph Roth was a master journalist from Vienna who moved to Berlin on 1920 to investigate and report first hand on what he feared was a doomed megapolis. WHAT I SAW: REPORTS FROM BERLIN 1920-1933 is one of the most refreshingly original books to grace our shores in years. Roth was concerned with newspaper writing but he was also a poet of rare distinction and courage. These 'feuilletons' or short essays on observations reveal insights into the Berlin from the fall of the Weimar Republic to the rise of the Nazi reqime. Calling these small essays 'readers for walkers' Roth wanders the streets and mass transportation of Berlin, looking into the backyards of common day people, the Jewish neighborhoods/ghettoes, the photographs in the police files of the unknown dead victims found in the gutters, the high wired clubs of decadent diversions, buildings of history and of future, and all the while he maintains a beautiful descriptive, poetic style while keeping his eyes wide open to the pathetic prophecy of the doom of the great city of Berlin. His words: 'The story of how absolutism and corruption, tyranny and speculation, the knout and shabby real estate dealings, cruelty and greed, the pretense of tough law-abidingness and blathering wheeler-dealer stood shoulder to shoulder, digging foundations and building streets, and of how ignorance, poor taste, disaster, bad intentions and the occassional very happy accident have come together in building the capital of the German Reich...' are balanced on other pages of describing the beauty of the sky above Berlin, the pathos of the lonely and neglected poor people on the trains, and the wonder of the vaguely temporary air that surrounded the bulding of a city after The Great War.

Roth is able to tell us so much history in so brief a space. Here are the beginnings of Isherwood's BERLIN STORIES, the birth of the style of the recent works of WG Sebald's books, and even the writings of Edmund White in THE FLANEUR. Would that our newspapers could find the space AND the talent to place such insightful observations in our poetically vapid journalism of today! This is a rare book of beautiful writing and we are indebted to translator Michael Hofmann not only for his lyrical English style, but also for his own insightful essay about the man who wrote these 'feuilletons'. A sad parting note is that Joseph Roth died in Paris in 1939 from the effects of his alcoholism. Such was the influence of Berlin on many artists of thetime.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thirty-four well-written essays on Berliners, February 20, 2003

By	Joe McMahon (Long Island, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 (Hardcover)

Joseph Roth, What I Saw; Reports from Berlin 1920-1933. Translated by Michael Hofmann. I enjoy walking around cities, noticing people, activities, and places, especially the five boroughs of my New York. This new book collects and translates some thirty-four essays Joseph Roth penned for newspaper readers between 1920 and 1933. He was a young outsider from Lemberg (Lviv) and Vienna, but he is obviously a Berliner, a man fascinated by its people and scenes. We tend to know Berlin of this period from history books or "Cabaret." This book engaged me because each essay is a fresh look at an aspect of life in the German capital during this crucial period. For example, as U.S. newspapers now report the ever-growing Wal-Marts, Roth's essay, "The Very Large Department Store," looks at the trend as a poet does, with notice to the way crowds are swept upwards, almost against their will, to further displays. Moreover, the displays are so numerous that the multiplicity of the offerings devalues each item. Note also the essay, "With the Homeless" (1920), for his sensitive description of people. Roth observed well, wrote well. Whoever chose the accompanying photographs, added meaningful and helpful images, on theme, even if sometimes off-date. Dating some photographs was smart.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous, March 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 (Hardcover)

It's true, there's poetry on every page. Beautifully rendered portraits of a city and a culture. Roth's poetic imagination and powers of observation are only matched by his compassion. A must read-for anyone interested in the development of the 20th century human in Europe.