Book Post -- The Artificial Silk Girl
The Artificial Silk Girl was a happy surprise.
I've been on a book-buying fast – another thing I would once have thought impossible – but I was low the other day, and I knew a trip to Russell Books would bolster me.
In the fall, Russell is moving across the street into the old Staples location, which has two expansive floors and an escalator. Normally I worry for small businesses that scale up. However, since the titular books are already scattered through four downtown locations (three in a cluster and one a couple of streets over), this might actually be downsizing. It must be easier to administrate.
Obviously, I'm dead excited at the idea of a mega-used-bookstore here in town on the model of Powell's. If there's also a coffee shop, my twenty-eight years of slouching about this town doing very little will not have been in vain.1
Anyway, Russell is still in its current location, which is perfectly good for wandering. I fetched up with a copy of Cider with Rosie. Then I happened to put my hand up to a small pinkish hardcover, and that was The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun, translated by Kathie von Ankum. The book was published in Germany in 1931. It was banned and destroyed in 1933.
( Here's a bit from the publisher's blurb. )
When I began reading, I immediately thought of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and it appears (at least from the blurb) that the author was inspired by that book. Another obvious touchstone is Isherwood's Berlin Stories. I would add to this mix the novels of Jean Rhys, with their desperate female protagonists struggling to find some way to support themselves or to be supported.
Doris, the protagonist, is more self-aware than Lorelei Lee – poorer, less successful, with fewer offers of rescue. The book is more forthcoming about the sexual transactions she negotiates and her ambivalent feelings about them. Still, I did not love the first quarter or so of this book. It felt like a series of set pieces of cringey faux pas in the Blondes vein, but more labored.
However, ( here be spoilers )
This novel was a really interesting artifact, an observation of the uncanny moment just before horror breaks through. It was written by someone who seemed at least partly aware that the prospects were bad, even if this is communicated through romantic rather than political collapse.
{rf}
I've been on a book-buying fast – another thing I would once have thought impossible – but I was low the other day, and I knew a trip to Russell Books would bolster me.
In the fall, Russell is moving across the street into the old Staples location, which has two expansive floors and an escalator. Normally I worry for small businesses that scale up. However, since the titular books are already scattered through four downtown locations (three in a cluster and one a couple of streets over), this might actually be downsizing. It must be easier to administrate.
Obviously, I'm dead excited at the idea of a mega-used-bookstore here in town on the model of Powell's. If there's also a coffee shop, my twenty-eight years of slouching about this town doing very little will not have been in vain.1
Anyway, Russell is still in its current location, which is perfectly good for wandering. I fetched up with a copy of Cider with Rosie. Then I happened to put my hand up to a small pinkish hardcover, and that was The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun, translated by Kathie von Ankum. The book was published in Germany in 1931. It was banned and destroyed in 1933.
( Here's a bit from the publisher's blurb. )
When I began reading, I immediately thought of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and it appears (at least from the blurb) that the author was inspired by that book. Another obvious touchstone is Isherwood's Berlin Stories. I would add to this mix the novels of Jean Rhys, with their desperate female protagonists struggling to find some way to support themselves or to be supported.
Doris, the protagonist, is more self-aware than Lorelei Lee – poorer, less successful, with fewer offers of rescue. The book is more forthcoming about the sexual transactions she negotiates and her ambivalent feelings about them. Still, I did not love the first quarter or so of this book. It felt like a series of set pieces of cringey faux pas in the Blondes vein, but more labored.
However, ( here be spoilers )
This novel was a really interesting artifact, an observation of the uncanny moment just before horror breaks through. It was written by someone who seemed at least partly aware that the prospects were bad, even if this is communicated through romantic rather than political collapse.
{rf}