Conspicuous Absences

I would just like to state for the record that I really do not like Mondays. That said, I've been missing too much class lately, and I feel pretty bad. This is not the time to be slipping in classes, so I need to buckle down and finish the semester on a good note.

So: Berlin. Upon finishing the book, I noticed a few things that I hadn't earlier; namely, that this is the first book in a trilogy, and that it has the subtitle "City of Stones". I didn't realize that there were very many historical fiction graphic novels, let alone series of them. The subtitle takes on an ironic significance at the end of the story, when rioters throwing stones at the police cause them to open fire on the crowd. I get the impression that I would probably get more out of the story if I was a little bit better versed in my history. I always remember Berlin being associated with its infamous wall, and its subsequent destruction reuniting Germany and ending the Cold War. I'm not used to even thinking of its existence before World War II. Of course it makes sense that the city--very much a melting pot on the edge of Western European civilization--would have seen violent conflict between political factions long before the war broke out.

I'm still a little bit lost by all of the different characters and plotlines, even after finishing the book. I have to wonder if the same characters persist throughout the entire series. That would probably help my understanding of the story. I guess the whole point is to show the incredible variety of people that live in the city. Kurt Severing makes a good point about Berlin being incredible as a city where you can see all different kinds of people "rub shoulders" every day. It kind of reminds me of America, in a way, which reminds me--there is some weird dialect stuff going on throughout the novel. I mean, most of these characters are ostensibly speaking German, but most of them also have a sort of accent. It just feels kind of strange to be reading dialectically unique English speech while still feeling like I've been drawn into the city of Berlin. Also, the songs rhyme in English, even though they're supposed to be singing in German. I don't know why, but I guess stuff like that bothers me. It must be the inconsistencies between seeing a bunch of German names and titles, but then seeing heavily accented English. Maybe I'm just subconsciously questioning the authenticity of a contemporary American author writing a story about Berlin before World War II.