Book Meme, Day 20

[selenak]

20. Favorite cover.

One of them, anyway, since I can’t narrow it down to only one. But here’s the original cover of Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive. Pure 1920s and Neue Sachlichkeit, but also playful, and the look remained associated with Erich Kästner novels for decades to come. The cover was created by Walter Trier, who as opposed to Kästner did go into exile and died there.



More Trier covers for Kästner I’m also fond of: Here’s Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer, and here Pünktchen und Anton.





1. Favorite book from childhood
2. Best Bargain
3. One with a blue cover.
4. Least favorite book by favorite author
5. Doesn't belong to me.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or tv tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Second hand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite Fictional Father
16. Can’t believe more people haven’t read it.
17. Future classic
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.

21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.

Comments

[sovay]

But here’s the original cover of Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive.

Oh, nice.

I have read that in English translation, though I would have been in elementary school and have no idea what the translation was like; I keep meaning to see the 1931 film because both Billy Wilder and Emeric Pressburger worked on it.

[selenak]

Re: the movie: worth watching, with the awareness thath this was an early, early sound movie, and you can tell. The dvd edition tried to clear up the sound, but it’s still tough for non-Germans to understand (and occasionally for Germans). Secondly, you can also tell this was an early sound movie by the way it’s constructed; very much still using the conventions of silent cinema (the opening sequence, for example, is entirely free of spoken words or human noises, it’s all music), and while it was fast paced then, it comes across as leisurely paced now. All this being said, I find it adorable. Director Gerhard Lamprecht had to work mainly with a bunch of kids without any acting experience, and he got good performances out of them, and historically speaking, it’s fascinating to see actual footage of Weimar Republic era Berlin, before both Nazis and bombs. And while later adaptions struggle to translate why the 140 Marks that get stolen from Emil are a big deal, or why his mother doesn’t send them via mail, it’s entirely understandable in depression era Germany. On a more sober note, most of the children you see in this film later died in WW II as Hitler’s cannon fodder. Käthe Haak, who plays Emil’s mother, went on to become a UFA star and survived. The movie was a hit and was still (re)running in German cinemas as late as 1937, when Billy Wilder had saved his life by emigrating to Hollywood and Erich Kästner had watched his novels burn and was forbidden to work (officially, see also: Münchhausen).

There's also a touching and eventually heartbreaking rl story connected to his first film version (re: one of the child actors), which was recently filmed, and here is my review.

[sovay]

Re: the movie: worth watching, with the awareness thath this was an early, early sound movie, and you can tell.

I watch a lot of movies from that era; I don't think it will scare me off. I am glad to know that you like it, however.

and historically speaking, it’s fascinating to see actual footage of Weimar Republic era Berlin, before both Nazis and bombs.

That is also of interest to me. One of the things I like so much about film noir is the cities (and sometimes the suburbs) it preserves.

There's also a touching and eventually heartbreaking rl story connected to his first film version (re: one of the child actors), which was recently filmed, and here is my review.

Thanks for the link!

[moon_custafer]

I think the version I read in translation had that same cover; it rings a bell. Were there also interior illustrations by the same artist? One of the details that caught my attention was the sign on the train that read DANGER: DO NOT SPIT ON THE FLOOR. At the time I could understand NO SPITTING signs, but DANGER seemed a bit over-dramatic, and as I think it was mentioned during a dream sequence, I finally decided it was a surreal exaggeration of something Emil had seen on the real train. In retrospect, I suppose the sign was probably real, and phrased that sternly because it was a warning not to spread TB germs.

I noticed when I googled Pony Hütchen that the character now has a vegan cosmetics company named for her.

[moon_custafer]

Oh God, I followed the link to your review, and then I googled Erich Ohse, and now I’m crying my eyes out over those little Vater und Sohn cartoons and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop.

[selenak]

I would apologize, but poor Erich O. deserves to have his work remembered.

Re: the sign in the train, beats me, I honestly don't know whether it was just satiric exaggaration or real. Could be either; TBC was still an issue, especially with the Spanish Flu that had ravaged post-WWI Europe just a few years away.

[vilakins]

He liked his yellow! Lovely simple covers, and I remember loving two of those books as a child; I never read Pünktchen und Anton. (Little Dot and Anton in English, perhaps?)

[selenak]

Wiki tells me the English title was "Anna Louise and Anton"; presumably the English translators didn't trust the bookstore visitors to get that Pünktchen/Little Dot was a nickname?