Chicago Alexanderplatz: Alfred Döblin's Mountains Oceans Giants Part 1
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Please join us in an Alfred Döblin seminar over the next two years where we will try to tackle and read all of Alfred Döblin's writings
Chicago Alexanderplatz is a subgroup of Modernist Fiction that will inaugurate a new series of Meetups dedicated to German Literary Modernism and exploring the life and work of Alfred Döblin, author of the 1929 German Modernist Classic—Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Alfred Döblin is widely known for only this one novel, which has overshadowed all his prior and subsequent work. In recent years, there has been a renaissance of sorts in the reception of Döblin in English, thanks to the pioneering new translation of Berlin Alexanderplatz by Michael Hofmann published by NYRB Classics in 2018, and the launch of Beyond Alexanderplatz by the translator Chris Godwin, a website dedicated to exploring Döblin’s lesser known work and nonfiction.
In this Meetup we will read his 1924 climate fiction novel Mountains Oceans Giants over the course of 4 Meetups. For this Meetup please read the Dedication and Books 1-2.
Berge Meere und Giganten (Mountains Seas and Giants) is a 1924 science fiction novel by German author Alfred Döblin. Stylistically and structurally experimental, the novel follows the development of human society into the 27th century and depicts global-scale conflicts between future polities, technologies, and natural forces, culminating in the catastrophic harvesting of Iceland's volcanic energy in order to melt Greenland's ice cap. Among critics, Berge Meere und Giganten has the reputation of being a difficult and polarizing novel, and has not received nearly as much attention as Döblin's following novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929).
Online German Text Link:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75838
Amazon Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Oceans-Giants-Epic-Century/dp/191291624X