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My Life is like a Fairy Tale
'Robert Irwin vividly and brilliantly blends the fictional life and all-too-real times of a film star of the Nazi era in this a narrative of diminishing options and the advance to death and destruction. Cultured, clever and funny at times, in a grim Charles Adams way, Robert Irwin's novel is engrossing and enveloping.
From a dull Dutch childhood in Dordrecht and a waitressing job, sexy Sonja Heda, cigarette in hand, wangles her way on to the film sets of various independent production companies making the films of the Weimar and Nazi eras. From The Blue Angel, The Gypsy Baron, Jew Suss, Habanera and Munchausen she lands the starring role in the Nazi screwball comedy Bagdad Capers.
Although German cinema became a key part of the Nazi war effort, the film industry continued to produce commercial films appealing to the varying film tastes of German filmgoers. Joseph Goebbels at the head of the Ministry of Propaganda propagated Nazi supremacist ideology and indoctrinate the population of Germany though film and radio, not unlike the way reality TV and social media are used today by populist politicians in the US and UK.'
Georgia de Chamberet in Ten Books for Independent Minds from Bookblast
From a dull Dutch childhood in Dordrecht and a waitressing job, sexy Sonja Heda, cigarette in hand, wangles her way on to the film sets of various independent production companies making the films of the Weimar and Nazi eras. From The Blue Angel, The Gypsy Baron, Jew Suss, Habanera and Munchausen she lands the starring role in the Nazi screwball comedy Bagdad Capers.
Although German cinema became a key part of the Nazi war effort, the film industry continued to produce commercial films appealing to the varying film tastes of German filmgoers. Joseph Goebbels at the head of the Ministry of Propaganda propagated Nazi supremacist ideology and indoctrinate the population of Germany though film and radio, not unlike the way reality TV and social media are used today by populist politicians in the US and UK.'
Georgia de Chamberet in Ten Books for Independent Minds from Bookblast
- GenresHistorical Fiction
350 pages, Paperback
Published February 14, 2021
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About the author
Robert Irwin
105 books134 followersRobert Graham Irwin was a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature.
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July 27, 2021
Those familiar with previous Irwin books will know that his works are often investigations of the relationship between fantasy and reality.
This book is no exception and is the story of Sonja Heda thinking about what to include in her memoirs as a minor actress. The highlight of her career was starring in the (now lost) Nazi screwball comedy 'Baghdad Capers'(1943) but had also appeared in 'The Blue Angel', 'Mucnchausen' and 'Jew-Suss'. She was acquainted (admittedly a little loosely but she would try and big it up) with varoius members of the film establishment including Marlene Dietrich and ‘that bitch’ Leni Riefenstahl. During the rise to power of the Nazis, she had also come into contact with many of the party elite, chatting with Albert Speer, having an affair with Goebbels and being at the ‘Eagles Nest’ with Hitler and Eva Braun when war was declared. Thus she is, in theory, perfectly placed to make observations of some great moments in history.
Except, of course, she doesn’t. Instead, prattling about her own ’stardom that never was’, gatecrashing parties for films she didn't appear in and spinning her own fantasies about her days in the Berlin ‘dream factory’ just as the Nazis were spinning their own fantasies for the masses. Being a self-obsessed airhead she is almost oblivious (or choosing to ignore) the events playing out around her. She is the only one that matters, and that on the most superficial level - it's her autobiography after all. “What was the point of political analysis? What will be, will be. But there was also all that marching in the streets and sometimes fights too. Then Hitler came to power. At least there were no more elections after that, but it did make things more difficult to buy in Jewish shops”.
A dark tragicomic tone plays throughout, mixing real and invented characters to allow Irwin to document the slide of Sonja's career and the German people into the chaos of war and genocide. Among them, we have the fanatical nazi convert, the opportunist capitalist and, as befits an Arabic scholar, an anarchistic trickster-style figure.
To my surprise, Irwin has Sonja paying a visit to the former best-selling author Hanns Heinz Ewers, lying drug-addled on his deathbed. If you don’t know who Ewers was, you would think Irwin made him up as he rambles on and on about his own greatness, dreaming of his own former glory. If you do know who he was, it’s both a funny and moving portrait, very much in keeping with the overall tenor of the book.
We also have an overview of German cinema. Although she almost gets to perform in a ‘talkie’ version of ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari’ she prefers joyful films such as 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', 'The Thief of Baghdad', and 'Gone With The Wind' as they generally have nice dresses and happy endings compared to say 'Vampyre' and 'Dr Mabuse'. “Why should she pay money to be afraid?” This must have been a lot of fun to research and we get amusing descriptions of various films as seen through Soja's eyes; "[Olympia] was immensely long and it was silly, watching men run after a ball or after each other. A dog could do those things"
If you like the type of thing I review you will probably have guessed that I found this all hugely entertaining stuff. It's pacy and well written, amusing and dark with plenty of references to my interest in Weimar, silent cinema and weird fiction. It is my new favourite Irwin book.
This book is no exception and is the story of Sonja Heda thinking about what to include in her memoirs as a minor actress. The highlight of her career was starring in the (now lost) Nazi screwball comedy 'Baghdad Capers'(1943) but had also appeared in 'The Blue Angel', 'Mucnchausen' and 'Jew-Suss'. She was acquainted (admittedly a little loosely but she would try and big it up) with varoius members of the film establishment including Marlene Dietrich and ‘that bitch’ Leni Riefenstahl. During the rise to power of the Nazis, she had also come into contact with many of the party elite, chatting with Albert Speer, having an affair with Goebbels and being at the ‘Eagles Nest’ with Hitler and Eva Braun when war was declared. Thus she is, in theory, perfectly placed to make observations of some great moments in history.
Except, of course, she doesn’t. Instead, prattling about her own ’stardom that never was’, gatecrashing parties for films she didn't appear in and spinning her own fantasies about her days in the Berlin ‘dream factory’ just as the Nazis were spinning their own fantasies for the masses. Being a self-obsessed airhead she is almost oblivious (or choosing to ignore) the events playing out around her. She is the only one that matters, and that on the most superficial level - it's her autobiography after all. “What was the point of political analysis? What will be, will be. But there was also all that marching in the streets and sometimes fights too. Then Hitler came to power. At least there were no more elections after that, but it did make things more difficult to buy in Jewish shops”.
A dark tragicomic tone plays throughout, mixing real and invented characters to allow Irwin to document the slide of Sonja's career and the German people into the chaos of war and genocide. Among them, we have the fanatical nazi convert, the opportunist capitalist and, as befits an Arabic scholar, an anarchistic trickster-style figure.
To my surprise, Irwin has Sonja paying a visit to the former best-selling author Hanns Heinz Ewers, lying drug-addled on his deathbed. If you don’t know who Ewers was, you would think Irwin made him up as he rambles on and on about his own greatness, dreaming of his own former glory. If you do know who he was, it’s both a funny and moving portrait, very much in keeping with the overall tenor of the book.
We also have an overview of German cinema. Although she almost gets to perform in a ‘talkie’ version of ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari’ she prefers joyful films such as 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', 'The Thief of Baghdad', and 'Gone With The Wind' as they generally have nice dresses and happy endings compared to say 'Vampyre' and 'Dr Mabuse'. “Why should she pay money to be afraid?” This must have been a lot of fun to research and we get amusing descriptions of various films as seen through Soja's eyes; "[Olympia] was immensely long and it was silly, watching men run after a ball or after each other. A dog could do those things"
If you like the type of thing I review you will probably have guessed that I found this all hugely entertaining stuff. It's pacy and well written, amusing and dark with plenty of references to my interest in Weimar, silent cinema and weird fiction. It is my new favourite Irwin book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review