Alexanderplatz, Berlin
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Alexanderplatz, Berlin
Buy Now for £6.99
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Lane
About this listen
Alexanderplatz has long survived as the symbol of a city burdened by its ruinous past. In 2012, twenty-year-old Jonny K. was beaten to death on this infamous Berlin square - and Germany's first multicultural murder brought another shock to a country that’s seen its share. Before the trial, the question of guilt already had an ideological slant: Was Alexanderplatz itself to blame? Was the socialist architecture? The brutality of capitalism?
Georg Diez pursues the mystery of Alexanderplatz in a narrative at once contentious and sincere. He portrays a city shaking free of the cultural pathos that defined it, even as its citizens wrestle with the legacies of Hitler and an East German regime that isolated the square before the Berlin Wall fell.
In imaginative prose, Diez describes a historical icon unleashed in modern Germany, fueled by unbridled enterprise and consumerism. Along the way, he takes the status quo to task and unveils a provocative view of the German capital in a troubled era.
©2013 Georg Diez Translation © 2014 by Steve Anderson. (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reservedWhat did you like most about Alexanderplatz, Berlin?
This seems to be the theme of this monograph. It's dystopian, wonderfully opinionated and the translation bubbles along like water trhough rapids. The topic is Platz as a petri-dish. Once a thieves nest, it became, largely inert in the communist era, and now it is bursting with globalisation. In a slightly bizzare chapter, it obsessively lists all of the designer labels you might encounter there, the reader dealt with this change of rhythm admirably.What other book might you compare Alexanderplatz, Berlin to, and why?
American Psycho - anomie miced up in an obsession with designer labelsWhich scene did you most enjoy?
Not applicable, this is a behind the scenes sort of bookAlexanderplatz never had a soul to sell
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It’s a critique of German attitudes and the impact of both past regimes and capitalism and their impacts on people and behaviours. Compelling but also depressing.
Superb narration and only some 100 mins long
A critique of Berlin after the DDR
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