Babylon Berlin

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Fiction

Murder and sins of the flesh

BABYLON BERLIN

By Volkner Kutscher

Translated from the German by Niall Sellar

423 pp. Picador

Reviewed by Alan Goodman

I like this book as much for the style of writing (even in translation, not an easy accomplishment) as for the development of the story and characters. This is a story that keeps you turning pages until you run out of pages, at which time you wonder how you’ll find another book that will keep you similarly engaged.

Volkner Kutscher, the author, is a man who has apparently not bothered with the apocryphal shortest book in the world, “A History of German Humor.” Amidst the grimness of creating entertainment from the cruelest human activity one might imagine, Mr. Volkner manages to reveal a sense of humor – if not always for the characters themselves, then in a quite subtle manner for the march of human activity in general.

Here is one such moment describing a pornography bust by the Berlin Vice Squad:

The man was faintly reminiscent of Wilhelm II: the prominent mustache, the piercing gaze. Just like the portrait that hung in the parlour of every good German household during the Kaiser’s reign – and still adorned the walls of many, even though he had abdicated over ten years ago and been growing tulips in Holland ever since. The same mustache, the same sparkling eyes, but there the similarities ended. This Kaiser wasn’t wearing a spiked helmet; it hung alongside his sabre and uniform above the bedpost. In fact this Kaiser wasn’t wearing anything, save a twirly mustache and an impressive erection. Before him kneeled a woman, no less naked, and blessed with voluptuous curves, paying her dues to the imperial sceptre.

It is a neat balancing between the light and the dark that keeps the story from falling into the abyss of hopelessness – something that I imagine might easily happen as the narratives serves up numerous horrors inflicted upon the victims of the story.

And the action does indeed include some grim images:

They hadn’t tied him. After they had pulverized his hands and feet, they had simply hung him on the ropes so they could work on him again when the pain roused him from unconsciousness … He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, stretched out both arms. First his elbows and then his whole body lost their hold and the lumps of mash that were once his feet touched the ground first. He cried out even before his upper body smacked against the concrete floor, where he writhed until the pain finally began to subside. Now he could move, could crawl forward on his elbows and knees, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

The year is 1929 Berlin, a city robust in its numerous offerings for sins of the flesh, as well as for the sinister political undercurrents that hint at the rise of the Nazi Party. The protagonist/Detective is one Gereon Rath, a man who has a somewhat clouded past in his home city of Cologne. Rath finds himself assigned to the Berlin vice department, a demotion from his previous work on the Cologne Murder division.

The work is seedy, and Rath attempts to both fit in as the new man, and to piece together a mysterious crime that runs parallel to the normal criminal activity of his department, a crime which gradually takes on more and more importance to the reader, the story, and to the Berlin department of criminal investigation.

There is a romantic interest in a secretary working in the department, a comely – but world-savvy – young woman, Charlotte. The up-and-downs of the romance provide an integral element to the several threads of the story.

I did have trouble keeping track in the early going for the characters as the names piled up and the many people milling around the opening pages seemed to overwhelm my memory compass. That was, however, my only complaint, if it be such, for the telling of a somewhat involved (complicated) plot line.

I can hardly resist a comment on the Netflix version of Babylon Berlin,which my wife and I watched a bit – a short bit.

I don’t know why the mavens of Hollywood are compelled to take a very good story and change it. But change it they did. The most sensationalist aspects of the original story are expanded, glorified, and further sensationalized out of proportion to the original intent of the story. The main characters, Rath and Charlotte, seem trivialized. But … I’m not a movie critic – at least here – and I would highly recommend you detective/mystery buffs searching out the book before venturing to the celluloid.

The book, however? A great read. Really, very worth the effort.