Berge Meere und Giganten

by Alfred Döblin

Альфред Деблін (1878–1957) належить до когорти найвидатніших німецьких письменників двадцятого сторіччя. Він відомий передовсім завдяки експериментальному роману «Берлін Александерплац» (1929), який сьогодні вважається одним із найважливіших німецькомовних прозових творів ХХ століття, а також не менш дивовижному роману «Гори моря і велетні» (1924), створеному на перетині футурології, фантастики, антиутопії та візіонерства.

«Гори моря і велетні» є унікальним новаторським романом не лише завдяки своєрідному авторському підходу до пунктуації, але й через загальну складну форму і стиль оповіді, тому жанр твору важко, та навіть неможливо визначити в рамках класичного жанрового поділу. Дослідники творчості Дебліна досі сперечаються, чи це філософська антиутопія, химерна наукова фантастика, а чи притча про майбутній апокаліпсис, який накликало на себе людство через власну деструктивну природу та ірраціональний потяг до самознищення. Проте всі погоджуються в тому, що «Гори моря і велетні» є непересічним явищем як для творчості самого Альфреда Дебліна, так і для німецької літератури загалом.

Експериментальний і дивовижний у всіх сенсах роман «Гори моря і велетні» Альфреда Дебліна стоїть окремішньо не лише серед німецької та світової прози загалом, але й радикально вирізняється з-поміж інших творів самого автора, оскільки це єдиний фантастичний текст Дебліна. Тим цікавішим є цей творчий експеримент і виклик, який Деблін кинув сам собі, створивши роман, що неможливо означити жодним із відомих нині жанрів, а лише можна окреслити приблизний периметр жанрового наближення – це антиутопія, футурологія, наукова фантастика і навіть есхатологічний трактат про апокаліпсис.

Дія роману відбувається у далекому майбутньому протягом п’яти сторіч, коли людство, як і саме життя на Землі, зазнають глобальних і докорінних змін. Велика Уральська війна як фінальний підсумок споконвічного протистояння Східної і Західної цивілізацій, розтоплення льодовиків Гренландії і вивільнення з вічної мерзлоти могутніх доісторичних рослино-тваринних гібридів, генна інженерія, трансгуманізм і відмова від технологій заради повернення до простого життя давно минулих і забутих епох, новітні химерні соціальні та геополітичні устрої, а можливо, навіть апокаліпсис як кінець старого світу і зародження світу нового, геть інакшого і чужого нашому сьогоденню, – Деблін широко й масштабно змальовує візії далекого майбутнього людської цивілізації, майбутнього, яке дивує і жахає, але яке, попри все, водночас є логічним продовженням і наслідком нашого непростого й буремного сьогодення.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, German Literature, Germany, Dystopia, Classics, Environment

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Bruno Alfred Döblin (August 10, 1878 – June 26, 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of literary movements and styles, Döblin is one of the most important figures of German literary modernism. His complete works comprise over a dozen novels ranging in genre from historical novels to science fiction to novels about the modern metropolis; several dramas, radio plays, and screenplays; a true crime story; a travel account; two book-length philosophical treatises; scores of essays on politics, religion, art, and society; and numerous letters — his complete works, republished by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag and Fischer Verlag, span more than thirty volumes. His first published novel, Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lung (The Three Leaps of Wang Lun), appeared in 1915 and his final novel, Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende (Tales of a Long Night) was published in 1956, one year before his death.

Reviews

[Mogilmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Після прочитання цієї книги, я майже впевнена, що в літературі мене, скоріш за все, вже нічого не здивує.
Це суміш жанрів, суміш стилів оповідки, суміш персоналій, суміш часу, суміш протиріч. Непроста література, але мені сподобалось, і тепер сумно, що нічого схожого я вже не прочитаю. Вже не буде цього ефекту вибуху мозку.
Історія про занепад людства і людини як виду. Ми можемо воювати між собою вічно, скоріш за все, так і буде. Але маємо остерігатися бажання повернути зброю проти природи, бо тут переможниця буде одна.

[MJ Nicholls]

A mock-epic monster from the author of Berlin Alexanderplatz plump with apocalyptic visions of a future riven with medieval schisms and war-and-war and strange run-on sentences words lists things. No plot or narrative throughline binds the novel together, making each section a stand-alone vision of chaos and turmoil. The language is not as explosive or captivating as in his more famous work, making the completion of this 500-page behemoth not something I strive for in this corporeal realm. 100pp read.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What am I doing when I speak of you? I have a feeling I should not utter a single word about you, not even think of you too clearly. I call you “you” as if you were a creature, animal plant stone like me. Then I see my helplessness, and that every word is in vain. I dare not step closer to you, you monsters, you monster, that have borne me into the world, there where I am and how I am. I am just a scrap floating on water. You Thousand-named Nameless, you lift me, move me, carry me, grind me.”

In the 60 odd ears since his death, any Alfred Döblin novel not named Berlin Alexanderplatz has laid by the wayside and dustbin of history for the longest time.

What Alfred Döblin accomplishes in his 1924 science fiction epic Berge Meere und Giganten or Mountains Oceans Giants in the forthcoming English translation is one of the most extraordinary achievements in Modernism, almost as if James Joyce, Rilke, HP Lovecraft, and Bill Nye the Science Guy collaborated to write a Science Fiction screenplay.

Döblin manages to create an utterly pessimistic, visceral, and violent dystopian future history of the Earth stretching to the 27th Century that predicts with eerie prescience many of the issues that humanity faces today. As the Wikipedia article lists in the topics the novel covers: “…world war, urbanization, the alienation from nature, mechanization, the dehumanization of the modern world, as well as mass migration, globalization, totalitarianism, fanaticism, terrorism, state surveillance, genetic engineering, synthetic food, the breeding of humans, biochemical warfare, and others.”

His linguistic experimentation is unique in both German and English, listing nouns, verbs, objects, things, and places in strings of clauses without any punctuation to separate them, almost similar to a Miles Davis jazz solo:

“Fische Landtiere Vögel Ameisen Käfer Schnecken wuchsen und zerfielen.”

“Fishes land-animals birds ants beetles snails lived and died.”

One of the most extraordinary examples of Döblin’s sentence structure in Mountains Oceans Giants occurs early in Book Six where a description of a thunderstorm is given in both German and English:

“Drohendes Murren Rollen Strudeln Gurgeln Klatschen Shlingern Schlenkern Bersten Zerknattern Zerschellen loderndes Zerknallen unter der wolkenverhüllten Sonne, Plätschern Peitschen Schwingen an der Sonne, Aufheben in der Wärme, Aufdunsten Schmelzen wolkiges Vergehen an der weißen hochstrahlenden Sonne.”

“Menacing mutterings, rolling roiling gurgling plashing gulping swinging bursting rattling shattering artillery fire under a cloud-covered sun, licking whip-cracking swinging at the sun. Evaporating in the heat, steaming melting vanishing as clouds under the white radiant sun.”

The standout episode from Mountains Oceans Giants is the blockbuster melting of the ice of Greenland through harnessing the volcanic power of Iceland, unleashing a worldwide catastrophe, with which humanity is confronted by, seeming all too real with today’s modern day concerns with climate change and global warming, making it one of the first cli-fi novels. Döblin creates a philosophy of nature that shows the tension between Nature and Technology, a parable of Promethean hubris that cannot be more understated. Döblin is incredibly lyrical in his Expressionist usage of language, in an almost hymn like symphony of fire, light and darkness, achieving a poetry of fact through sheer accumulation of detail as witnessed in the final paragraph:

“Hordes of humans in peace and death, wooing and bride-winning through volcanic eruptions and floods. Holding fast to one another, fading away with tears, generation after generation, mother and child mother and child, lover and his beloved. And always the gases of the air yearning for the lung, the tiny cells, the nuclei, the soft protoplasm, forever inhaled and breathed out again. And when the heart stilled, cells separated and dissolved, they were new souls, decomposed Protein Ammonia Amino acids Carbon dioxide Water, water transformed to vapour. Greedy for sorrows and pleasures, always inclined to wander, soul-unions in snowy landscapes, on the vast heaving sea, in the roaring storm, stone-folk lifting the ground to make mountains.

Black the ether overhead, with its little balls of sun, sparkling heaps of sintering stars. Breast to breast the blackness lay with these humans; from them light gleamed.”

Unheralded in its day, it’s forthcoming publication should make it stand in its proper place as one of the giants of science fiction and world literature.

Update 9/21/22

For those interested in knowing the exact publication date of Alfred Döblin’s Berge Meere und Giganten, a quick google search in the Catalog of Copyright Entries for 1924 reveals a date of January 24, 1924.

January 24, 2024 will therefore mark the 100th Anniversary of its publication.

https://books.google.com/books?id=O6E...

[Bones Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Один з великих, проте маловідомих широкому загалу романів 20 століття. Роман, який значно обігнав свій час і став джерелом, хай і невідомим, багатьох сюжетів та відкритих питань. Химерне переплетення футуристичної хроніки, владних інтриг і любовних драм, горору, фантастики та фентезі. Штучна їжа, експерименти над людьми та поява нових живих істот, тераформування, трансгуманізм, міграційні кризи та війни - проблеми, навколо яких мерехтять численні сюжетні лінії визначного твору, котрий захопить вашу увагу досить надовго.

[Olha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
«Те, що не живе, не може вмерти…»
Відразливо-божевільно-епічний твір. Декілька разів хотілося покинути читання цієї постапокаліптичної фантасмагорії, але рада, що дочитала.

Мінуси
У книзі багато расизму, навіть війни рас і цілих континентів, війни між чоловіками та жінками (буквально – це різні бойові армії), багато відразливих і жорстоких сцен.
Але найгірше – це максимально недолугі діалоги (власне, як і вчинки різноманітних персонажів) та сюжетно зайві, дивні любовно-еротично-невротичні потуги. Хоча, з одного боку, це схоже на спробу змінити фокус із епічно-глобальних подій і катастроф на особистості, які або мали до цього стосунок, або стали їх заручниками. Однак таких сюжетних вставок було якось забагато. Вистави аборигенів я просто прогорнула і не шкодую. :)

Плюси
Враховуючи, що Деблін написав свій твір у 1924 році, він є дуже прогресивним (якщо не акцентуватися на расизмі): автор описує вільні ЛГБТ-стосунки, емансипацію жінок, науковий прогрес і регрес, створення штучної їжі у промислових масштабах, кліматичні зміни, тераформування та його жахливі наслідки, мутації тварин і людей, війни, спровоковані диктаторами, і занепад західної цивілізації через жагу людства до саморуйнування.
Найцікавішим, безперечно, був розділ «Уральська війна». Жахливі події розгортаються також і на наших територіях.

Це книга, після прочитання якої вже мало що може здивувати, тому, перш ніж читати, варто задуматися, чи готові ви до цього.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across Mountains Oceans Giants while browsing the library sci-fi section and was immediately intrigued by the idea of an epic Weimar Republic-era future history. From the blurb I learned it had only just been translated into English, almost exactly a hundred years after publication, and that 'it can be seen as a literary counterpart to the painted dreams and nightmares of Hieronymous Bosch.' Who could resist that? The future history concept is akin to H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come or Olaf Stapledon's The Last and First Men. The style and content, however, are entirely distinct and reminded me of much later works (including but not limited to Neon Genesis Evangelion). The pervasive apocalyptic gloom was akin to The Purple Cloud of twenty years earlier, but that is a much more of an individual Last Man narrative.

The tone of Mountains Oceans Giants is best described as delirious; there is a meandering narrative but little sustained attention to plot or characterisation. The most powerful passages are descriptions of nature, particularly geology. As the translator's note mentions, Döblin was heavily preoccupied with elemental forces. He was also prescient enough to foresee the environmental disasters that might result from humanity's attempts to control them. The style of writing and translation is more lyrical than I'm used to from the little 20th century German literature I've read. I enjoyed this, indeed it was the beauty of the writing that kept me going at times when actual events become turgid. For instance, this is perhaps the most poetic description of online advertising that I've come across:

Messages were spread. In the townzones they had manmade magical devices that broadcast to every other place what people were up to, what they were talking about, how they were modifying their surroundings, what distinctive changes were in progress. Tele-pictures sent out images of people and objects. Any stimulus that stood out was a firestorm that grew from a spark to a flame to engulf a whole neighbourhood, a town. In distant lands, on mountainsides, along wide rushing rivers, on sultry tropical animal-teeming plains dwelled people who kept themselves to themselves. Stimuli words images reached them. Images were there before their eyes, appeared again and again, tugged at them. Told them to leave the river behind, come away from the cradling heat. Like a shovel under a pile of stones lying mossy on the ground, the blandishments scraped at the people, lifted them, scattered them.

This translation trick of listing multiple synonyms was also used in Deep Wheel Orcadia; I liked the effect there and it worked well here too. The first half of Mountains Oceans Giants plays out concerns that were in the air during the 1920s: nationalism, eugenics, increasingly deadly weapons, industrialisation, racism, women's liberation, sexuality, self-destruction, and 'degeneration'. Where characters are evoked to lead and personify struggles around these issues, their interactions are so melodramatic and overwrought that it's hard to see them as more than mythic ciphers. This isn't really a novel about people as individuals, it's about people in aggregate and their interactions with the environment. I think the comparison with Bosch is apt, given the vivid and often horrible imagery that dominates the narrative. I have to wonder whether substances had any role in its composition, or perhaps Döblin was merely having a weird time.

I recently read Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, in which George Monbiot argues that agriculture is destroying Earth's ecosystem and we need lab-based food production (among other measures) to save it. Mountains Oceans Giants includes just such a development, including this lovely passage:

Wild beasts had been shot, tawny lion panther. Termites had been expelled, streams diverted, huts built, solid houses, villages with dogs, sheds for hens geese cows. In southern zones were regions that had been cleared deforested only a century or two earlier. Northmen in their iron glory had come, had torn ripped throttled the land, devoured mangled chewed plants and roots. Stones buried in the soil had been lifted and dumped in rubble heaps. In the black bed left behind by the corpses of trees and plants, they had sown pale delicate seeds by the million. The ground welcomed these, the seeds pushed green tips above the surface. Wide green fields, dense forests of stalks, ears of grain waving gently in the breeze. There they lay, beside the barns sheds living quarters that now were emptying. People returned to the vast cities. They encysted themselves in the cities. Left most of the Earth to itself. The soil rested.

However, in this vision of the future artificial food physically weakens the human race and ultimately there is a violent reaction against it. A movement of 'settlers' return to agriculture and destroy food factories. The legacy of the First World War hangs heavily over the book from the opening sentence: 'None were still living of those who came through the war they called the World War'. The accounts of subsequent pointless and confused wars could equally apply to WWI:

Images of dead landscapes appeared in every waiting clamorous town. There was no attempt at concealment. No defeat was declared. Only: nothing had changed. Youngsters, men and women, the leaders, flags held high, had cried their power. Fire from the Earth, in human hands, blazing up to the stars: there it is on the Russian Plain, from the Urals to the Valdai hills. Ground torn up, rivers drained, people trees animals devoured. Horrible dead land. This was the work of the youngsters with their flags. Their achievement. This was the secret of the devices, the marvellous powers of Nature harnessed to their retorts. Those returning from the fleet told that these were no mere fables, what the technologists and experts said about the air-squalls water-squalls long-wave and short-wave radiation fiery explosions. But nothing could be done with it. People in the cities went about as before, grew flowers in greenhouses, enjoyed sport and circuses. What were you supposed to do? The young ruling men and women had failed. Their ridiculous flags. Let them tear up the earth, poison cities. If they want, they can destroy our western lands as well.

The apex of the book is a hubristic and disastrous act of terraforming: Iceland is destroyed in order to melt Greenland. This unleashes chaos and monsters. Döblin uses natural processes as extended similes for people, but also uses people as extended similes for nature. In this case, for the mountains of Iceland:

Like a people defeated and subjugated centuries before, its men and women scattered, their language banned, their tribe scorned, their customs held to ridicule; the men went as slaves into foreign service, let themselves be taken off to foreign wars. And some defected, shone among the foreigners who despised them. Like when young men and women, half-children, emerge covertly among such a people; angrily in private they confront the elders of their people and in secret rooms they say: we've had enough of cowardice, the appeasement that's fed to us, of being insulted and demeaned. They'd give their lives to wipe away the shame. And they go about, distribute leaflets, hold furtive meetings. A stir goes through the people, through every little family, through the young girls who must clean house for foreigners and fall prey to foreign men. And one day it's war. And one day the streets are empty. And one day a flag flies from the rooftops, a new flag. And processions fill the streets, rejoicing in a language - what language - the despised and now victorious language! Everyone weeps behind windows and in the streets. In this hour the dead of lost centuries stir in their graves, flutter in huge swarms to the living from their bare unmarked resting places, to join the jubilant procession. Thousands, thousands sing along, run ahead of the flags and hold the battle-streamers and kiss the muddy boots and caps of the young marchers.

Like these men and women and people, the rocks the mountain ranges the craters ridges the deathly silent ice-covered giant peaks were seized, gripped like a lock by the key, and had to yield. Followed thrumming, and around them everything exploded into light.

Loosened, great Dyngja Herðubreið Tögl Skjald-breiður.

That epic analogy isn't entirely coherent, but it's certainly vivid and arresting. The descriptions of Greenland's glaciers formed my favourite passages in the whole book:

Water had wedded itself to this swelling of the Earth at the North Pole; unlike the other continents water had not abandoned the land and withdrawn to the seas. It scrabbled hammered tore at primordial rock. Dropped swirling unceasing from dark and daylit air, snow, myriads of shimmering six-branched crystals stars motes, sprinkled pressed softly silently down on giant stolid domes peaks hollows. And as the motes sintered and froze they congealed, cemented together into greenish glacier ice that laid itself over the older ice sheet. And through its gaps new water flowed, froze again in the depths. The mountain of ice grew.

'As the motes sintered and froze...' is simply beguiling. Then some hubristic fools pick a fight with these glaciers and the whole world suffers. I appreciated such ecological fable aspects very much, but will not pretend that Mountains Oceans Giants is an easy book to read. It's long, despite being abridged by the translator, and took me a while to get into. The hectic power struggles of human beings are simply not as compelling as the environmental sequences. The latter half is focused on terraforming and its consequences, which I found much more involving. It's hard for me to say what the whole novel adds up to, though. The episodic structure weaves together anxieties of Weimar Germany and deeper conflicts between human industry and nature. While I came to appreciate the poetic writing and translation style, it takes some getting used to and occludes as much as it elucidates. I'm glad that I persisted with reading Mountains Oceans Giants as it was a unique experience, however I can only recommend it with cautions. After a fair bit of effort, it leaves you feeling rather befuddled.

[Matthias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written 1924, Berge, Meere und Giganten is an early and unusual Science Fiction novel. It predicts world wide migration, genetic manipulation, stealth technology, man caused climate change, genocides, and mass extinction.

The very long chapters form a stream of consciousness of the entire planet, following its future through several centuries, and consist mostly of repetitive enumerations of events. Topics are the destruction of the planet, of life and earth, and the decay of the human soul.

Time seems to be reversed: Forms of government and human interaction regress to those of centuries ago, the planet itself undergoes transformations towards prehistoric times, giants roam the earth, and the last chapter feels in part like a description of a perverted biblical paradise.

This is not an entertaining read. It might work better when read as a soundtrack to an apocalyptic film, using multiple speakers to read different parts simultaneously, because the content doesn't really matter that much. It is likely the most pessimistic dystopia I have read.

[Jörg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed Döblin's Wallenstein before so I knew about his experimental style of writing. In terms of theme, Berge Meere und Giganten could have been a fifties' SF story but it was already written in the twenties and the author is on the opposing end of complexity and depth compared to an average SF writer.
All of this contributed to my fascination and willingness to tackle this book. I made it through more than 500 pages out of 628 before I gave up. I just couldn't follow his stream of consciousness anymore. Terraforming Iceland to gain masses of fire to melt Greenland's ice, freeing some ancient creatures that only could be countered with biotechnologically created giants finally dooming civilization and returning to a life in coherence with nature? Just wow, just too much for me.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been hoping for years that someone would translate this strange novel by Alfred Döblin, author of Berlin Alexanderplatz, one of my favorite books of the years between the wars. Descriptions of its plot hardly seem believable: an epic SF story of mankind's future, including pre-kaiju giant monsters attacking Europe. The book itself lives up to those descriptions and covers a lot more ground, all of it strange.

Döblin was aggressively modernist and the narrative here partakes heavily of the Expressionist school of fiction that flourished in the Weimar era, but it also includes traces of other "SF" works of the early 20th Century -- Wells' Things to Come and Stapledon's Last and First Men come to mind -- though Mountains Oceans Giants is probably more speculative philosophy and history than a meditation on humanity's technological future. The prose often becomes surreal reverie, especially in the sections on the melting of Greenland which precede the monstrous assaults and the rise of the human giants, a lyrical flood that vividly conveys the apocalyptic events.

Interspersed with the high drama are stories of human tribes reduced to savagery, folk tales, and a variety of doomed, decadent romances. The translator chose to abridge the novel but kindly posted the excerpted bits on his website. I would recommend any buyer taking the time to download and read them. The translator is correct that they slow down the novel but they also provide a human subtext, albeit a melodramatic one, to a narrative that is considerably larger than mere humanity.

[Pascal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klimawandel, Massenmigration, Informationsgesellschaft, Transhumanismus und ein schier ewiger Ost-West-Konflikt – all das aus der Linse der Weimarer Republik um 1924.

Berge, Meere und Giganten lebt von seiner visionären Natur. Und damit auch vom Zeitkontext, in dem der Roman geschrieben wurde. Anders als andere spekulative Science-Fiction (wie sie einige Jahrzehnte später äußerst populär wurde), hat Berge, Meere und Giganten allerdings nur wenige andere Qualitäten.

Doch ist Berge, Meere und Giganten nicht nur thematisch visionär, sondern auch erzählerisch experimentell. So wie der Roman sich der Zukunft widmet, ist auch seine Sprache zeitlos. Was wir hier lesen, widersetzt sich jeder zeitlichen Einordnung.

Durch Auslassungen und Eigenbegriffe entzieht sich der Roman jeder beliebigen Gegenwart. Auf der einen Seite stiftet die Sprache Verwirrung, auf der anderen Seite stellt sie fiktionale Konzepte als selbstverständlich dar. Was ist zum Beispiel die Technologie des „Lichtanstrichs“, die irgendwann ums 25. Jahrhundert alles verändert?

Der Text erklärt die Technologie nur, als wären wir bereits eingeweiht. Seine Zielgruppe liegt schließlich jenseits des 28. Jahrhunderts. Und lassen sich radikale technologische Umwälzungen sich nicht grundsätzlich immer erst im Nachhinein erklären?

(In dieser Hinsicht (und vielen anderen Punkten) erinnert mich Berge, Meere und Giganten an die Terra Ignota Reihe von Ada Palmer – eine ebenso ambitionierte und komplexe Romanreihe, die ganz explizit als retrospektive Chronik der Zukunft verfasst ist.)

Obendrein bedient sich Berge, Meere und Giganten einer distanzierten, äußerst schnellen lyrischen Sprache, die zusätzliche Entfremdung schafft. Dieser narrative Flug auf 10 Kilometer Höhe entfremdet zugleich von jeglichen Figuren und Einzelhandlungen der Geschichte.

Viele Leser*innen sagen, das mache den Roman schwer verdaulich; ich finde ihn über die knapp 640 Seiten geradezu unlesbar.

So hochspannend wie die Geschichte rein konzeptuell ist – ihre immense Komplexität bei gleichzeitig geringer Tiefe befinden sich in konstantem Widerstreit. Unentwegt schwenkt der Fokus zwischen langweiliger Mikropolitik und spannender Makropolitik. Letztere taucht nur gelegentlich auf; wie als Orientierungspunkt, um abzusichern, dass noch alle an Bord sind.

Dabei ist die Makropolitik das, was Berge, Meere und Giganten im Kern ausmacht: Wieso fliehen so viele Menschen von Afrika nach Europa? Was passiert, wenn das Eis in Grönland schmilzt? Das sind die Fragen, die uns interessieren und die eigentlich zum Weiterlesen anregen sollten.

Doch erfordert es zu viel Zeit uns Muße, diese Fragen erst einmal zu finden, zwischen 640 Textwand. Letztendlich ist man mit einer ausführlichen Zusammenfassung viellecht besser bedient.

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich glaube, das ist der deutschsprachige post-humane, öko-geo-spekulativ-fiktionale Roman schlechthin - auch weil das Ding dermaßen erratisch in der Literaturlandschaft steht, dass es bis kaum Nachahmer*innen gefunden hat. Es ist aber auch ein nicht leicht zu lesender Brocken, denn im Gegensatz zur meisten Spekulativfiktion, die ich so kenne, baut sich Döblin auch eine Sprache, mit der sich die im wörtlichen Sinne globale Welt- & Naturordnung stürzenden Ereignisse der 500 Jahre, in denen der Roman spielt, auch erfahrbar machen lassen. Hybridisierung, Ent-Wesentlichung, Evolution auf Speed, das Zusammenschrumpfen geologischer Zeit in die Lebensspanne nur zwei, drei Generationen von Menschen - das passiert auch alles in der Sprache bzw. vor allem da: expressionistisch-avantgardistische Syntaxzerschmetterung trifft auf einen erstaunlich gut getroffenen epischen Ton und naturhistorisch-verne-artige Beschreibungsgenauigkeit. Darauf muß man sich als Leserin einlassen können, sonst wird’s schwierig. Weil vieles so aktuell wirkt (schmelzende Eiskappen, ökologische Katastrophen, Globalisierung, Technisierung & Industrialisierung aller reproduktiver Prozesse), fällt die Herkunft mancher Formulierungen & Konzepte aus dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert besonders auf, inkl. rassifizierender & ethnifizierender Sprache & diversen Rückfällen in Gender-Essentialismus (den der Roman selbst mit seiner Hybridisierungs- & Vermischungsfaszination konterkariert). Ob man Berge Meere & Giganten als Dystopie oder als Utopie liest, entscheidet die jeweilige Leserin. Wahrscheinlich ist das aber immer noch zu „human“, anthropozentrisch gedacht. Eigentlich ist der Roman der Versuch das Ineinanderfallen von Technik & Natur zu Ende zu denken, in dem auch „der Mensch“ im Angesicht der Erde verschwindet & lokale Ökosysteme zurückbleiben.

[Francesco Fantuzzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esperienza interessantissima la lettura di questo testo. Le motivazioni? L'esperienza inconsueta con la scrittura espressionista, tutto sommato così lontana da noi, ma che non ha esaurito nella storia il suo potenziale destabilizzante. Altro motivo di interesse: una particolarissima lettura del mondo, con riflessioni decisamente anticonvenzionali e non filtrate dal velo del conformismo. Terzo, e non ultimo, il confronto filologico con un testo che ci permette di scendere, guidati dalle stesse parole dell'autore nel prezioso "Epilogo", nell'officina dello scrittore, che sempre suscita interesse e curiosità. Dopo la lettura di "Berlin Alexanderplatz", mi sono confrontato con un testo che può sembrare molto meno coinvolgente ed affascinante, ma dall'innegabile valore letterario ad anche storico. A questo punto sarebbe prezioso il confronto con la prima stesura, "Berge, Meere und Giganten", che però in italiano non è mai stata resa disponibile optanto invece per questa successiva edizione.
Un'ultima curiosità: ho inseguito questo testo con tenacia (l'ultima volta fu pubblicato in Italia nel 1994, mi pare), perché suggerito e citato massicciamente durante il mio secondo corso di Letteratura italiana all'Università di Bologna, tenuto dal prof. Ezio Raimondi ("Il Novecento e l'idea d'Europa", a.a. 1995-1996), il quale fu una sorta di congendo, l'ultimo corso prima della pensione. Me ne sarei mai potuto sottrarre? Data la difficoltà a reperire il testo, sono disposto a metterlo a disposizione di lettori (studiosi) seriamente interessati. :-)

[Lee Klein]

I'm about 350 pages into it. Read the first 200 pages but then started skimming. A masterpiece in terms of a novel that can be read without conventional comprehension. Need to really commit to it and I'm not able to, in part because I just don't sense enough cohesion. Ecstatically written sometimes, sometimes reportorial, commas removed from adjectival lists make it interesting cool unique. Might return to it at a later date.

[Lenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

geil geil geil

[rybkaponi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Все ж таки дуже дивна історична хроніка близького майбутнього
Діалоги ну дуже всраті, але описові частині дуже гарні, особливо на завершальній частині роману, ґренландія, велетні, вуалі і все таке. Добре

[Dmytro Khomiak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Спочатку поставив одну зірку і написав відгук: «Абсолютна нелогічна не продумана хтонь з поганою структурою, не продуманою мотивацією описаних персонажів. Немов марення від гарячки»
Але потім, дивлячись що є в соціальних мережах і новинах, я зрозумів, що описане в книжці - це просто реакція (може і не до кінця здорова) автора на ті зміни в епосі, які він спостерігав у час написання книги. Змінив оцінку на трійку.
UPD: після кожного «сеансу» перегляду новин, краще розумію книгу. Книгу - як рефлексію на погані прикмети. Тому 4 зірки

[Ahmet Cihat Toker · Rating 5 out of 5]

phenomenal.

[V S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exceptionally weird style. It feels like chronology written after future Dark Ages. It’s hard to read slowly, but reading quickly—without focusing on the words and simply picturing the scenes in your head—makes it much easier to take in.

Amount of prophetic insights into the fate of civilization is tremendous (migration and fertility crises, synthetic food, stem cell cultivation, the comeback of bio/organic food, decline of scientific achievements by the uneducated masses, terraforming, biohacking and so on).

Some episodes are underdeveloped (for example, easy access to key vital systems and their low resilience, the development of religious fanaticism, human sacrifices to machines). Some plots feel like disconnected but exceptionally detailed branches from the main storyline, though they are still short enough to not make the whole epic story be perceived as disrupted.

Still, the book doesn't free from slip-ups (e.g., listing mostly acidic and neutral substances as basic substances), but it doesn't ruin the mood due to the style used.

The ending is unexpected, like the first page of the new but the very same saga.

[RCyx]

Interrotto. Inutile ostinarsi.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much to digest the first read through. Society, downfall, culture. What is it that makes us human?

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

did not finish