I've just finished Alfred Döblin's "Berlin Alexanderplatz". In spite of its reputation as a difficult book, it gripped me, and I can quite see why it sold well when it was first published in 1929. I was reminded of John Dos Passos' "Manhattan Transfer" and "USA' trilogy. Read it if you have any interest in modernism, modernity, cities, Berlin, crime, Weimar Germany, the world between the wars...don't read it if you can't deal with stomach churning scenes of violence against women.

My German is not and never will be anywhere good enough to deal with the original text, so I turned to the 1931 translation by Eugene Jolas. This version has been much criticised for its rendering of Berlin working class speech into the colloquial American English of the twenties, but that choice struck the right note with me. The Berlin of the twenties does seem to me much more like Chicago or New York than Paris or London - a city without centuries of history but bursting with the sounds of streetcars, boxing commentators, ads, wisecracks...the sounds of modernity. US English does seem to be the English of the twentieth century city.

I looked at the more recent and widely praised Michael Hofmann translation, which employs a vaguely cockney sounding English - perhaps I am being unfair, because I only read brief extracts, but I found myself thinking of Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins"!

Although the novels that Döblin wrote before "Berlin Alexanderplatz" don't sound like my cup of tea, I would be interested to read his tetralogy "November 1918: A German Revolution". Is a good translation of those books available?

Image: Mario von Bucovich -- Berlin --Kaufhaus Tietz -- Alexanderplatz -- 1928 -- Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain

They knew a thing or two about windows and interiors, those folk from the Bauhaus.

St John the Evangelist, Hatfield

1958-60

Peter Bosanquet

All Saints Church, Feltham, Hounslow
1952
N.F. Cachemaille-Day

https://www.modernism-in-metroland.co.uk/all-saints-feltham.html

Strathclyde University's Livingstone Tower in Glasgow. Built in the 1960s, it was designed in an International Modern style by Covell, Matthews & Partners.

1 Finsbury Avenue

1982-84

Peter Foggo of Arup Associates

http://www.modernistlondon.co.uk/1-finsbury-avenue.html

"Sunday Afternoon in the Country," Florine Stettheimer, 1917.

Stettheimer (1871-1944) was a Modernist painter and theatrical designer, as well as a pioneering feminist, poet, and salonniere.

While at first glance this seems rather mundane, the colors are strange; check out the red tree. Some of the characters seem to be doing bizarre, random things, and some appear to be sitting in upholstered armchairs.

In reality, this is her memory of a picnic she held; in the upper right, hardly visible, she paints herself working at her easel. In the lower left, photographer Edward Steichen points his camera at Dada founder Marcel Duchamp. leaning on a table, while Ettie Stettheimer (the artist's sister) stands behind him in the red coat. Other real-life people are depicted, but in a strange style reminiscent of Chagall.

Stettheimer refused to identify with any group or school; her work is Modernist by default for the time she worked in and her style. Not taken seriously in her liftetime, her work was donated to museums and rediscovered in the 1990s, and now she is hailed as a great American artist.

From the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Smithfield Poultry Market

1961-63

T.P. Bennett & Son with Ove Arup & Partners

http://www.modernistlondon.co.uk/smithfield.html

Approaches to Annotation: Insights & Challenges Editing Hogg & Woolf
15 May, University of Glasgow – free

Dr Megan Coyer & Dr Annie Strausa will reflect on two major textual editing projects. What are the different challenges faced by editors annotating modernist short fiction versus short fiction (& poetry) from a late Romantic-era periodical?

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/approaches-to-annotation-insights-and-challenges-editing-hogg-and-woolf-tickets-1313601550599