I’ve just started watching Babylon Berlin, and this poem took me straight into the streets of Berlin. It’s strange the connections we make and store, and how they wake at the whisper of the hypnotist’s voice, which is, essentially, our voice, but which to protect ourselves we project outside of ourselves..
I have never been to Berlin, but I feel its atmosphere, probably thanks to documentaries and old films. I once had (not ‘had’!) a German colleague who looked eerily like Marlene Dietrich. She absolutely hated looking like her because she attracted so much attention and not always nice comments. And to make thing harder, she was a very shy and decent person. However, to me and I think most of my colleagues she personified the lost time of pre-Nazi Berlin.
I don’t know this series I don’t have ITV here. Is it on Netflix?
G, it’s on Sky. I’m sure that we all have doppelgangers; once I was taken for a presenter on channel 4, and I went along with that so I could get into film premieres and rub shoulders with the A-listers. Didn’t last long though.
The only observation I have is that there are too many characters being introduced. I trust that their place in the story will grow and become clearer as the narrative progresses. Apart that this is a ripping yarn.
Nice piece. I saw an interview of Capote many years ago where he said that the inspiration for In Cold Blood was a cage filled with dogs about to butchered and eaten he saw while on a foreign trip.
Yes, he did embellish a lot on those old talk shows. He was a very sensitive soul who could easily be tormented over things. In this case the trapped puppies he claimed he saw as the condemned murderers.
Never intended to be a literary gem, Gee, – limericks rarely are – but a lighthearted verse can make a serious point and, from what I was hearing, Trump was miffed because of the direction the U.S. election was going and that was what I wanted to convey.
As far as I’m concerned Joe Biden is an unknown quantity and, who knows, maybe in the near future I will find a trait in his character that might deserve to be lampooned.
This sounds like such a perfect childrens book. I love the repetition in the last two lines. It’s exactly as a mother would say, emphasising the important parts.
I am not going to add to the already lengthy commentary on passive voice or the suitability of using brand names, only to say that I enjoyed reading this very atmospheric piece and to suggest you replace the clunky “passive voice removed I hope” with a simple “edited”.
Best, Luigi
Thanks Alison.
I tried to read the book he wrote on the murders. Hard going. Some opinion say it ruined his writing career.
His fiction work is interesting and much easier to read.
Glad you enjoyed it. x
I would disagree that writing “In Cold Blood” ruined his writing career’ I believe that his literary decline was more due to his dissolute living and the drug and alcohol abuse that eventually caused his death.
This was the object of the exercise< Alison. To raise a smile or even a laugh, not to express a personal opinion. From what I hear even the Americans are divided on who they want.
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