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A review by joeytitmouse
Metropolis by Thea von Harbou
5.0
Well, that was good.
The use of personification, repetition, and vivid, vivid imagery make this quite an enjoyable read.
The repetition is like a coda, drilling into the reader the motifs, such as the blue linen of the workers, with the black caps pressed hard against the hair, and the hard soled shoes.
An interesting thought, is that although it is nearly exactly the same plot as the movie, it's a totally different story then I remember. Could be me growing up.
Some issues; the end is somewhat anti-climatic, and if you look deep enough you can see a mild emergence of early fascism (maybe I'm seeing this better after coming off of reading [b:The Coming Race|1014436|The Coming Race|Edward George Bulwer-Lytton|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348576687s/1014436.jpg|1926578]), as well as the reassurance of the religion of the mysterious house-builder ("the copper-red Seal of Solomon, the pentagram," repeated at least twenty times in middle of the book), is somewhat disconcerting. (Also, isn't the Seal of Solomon six-pointed?). In general, there is a lot more religious imagery here than in the movie.
But it's very enjoyable. Dark and gothic, with exciting action scenes. Great character development for Joh Fredersen. And the characters that needed to stay flat, did so. Definitely a key book in early science fiction. Very clearly related to the movie's style, of German Expressionism.
An interesting thought, I was trying to look up quotes in the original German, to compare or to see. But in Germany this book is still in copyright (pma +70), whereas it is not in Canada (and other pma +50 countries). So this is an interesting case where the translation of a book is available in the public domain [BUT NOT IN ENGLAND, HINT HINT], but not yet the original work (the rarity of interest for German-language publications outside of Germany being the driving factor there). Just a thought.
The use of personification, repetition, and vivid, vivid imagery make this quite an enjoyable read.
The repetition is like a coda, drilling into the reader the motifs, such as the blue linen of the workers, with the black caps pressed hard against the hair, and the hard soled shoes.
An interesting thought, is that although it is nearly exactly the same plot as the movie, it's a totally different story then I remember. Could be me growing up.
Some issues; the end is somewhat anti-climatic, and if you look deep enough you can see a mild emergence of early fascism (maybe I'm seeing this better after coming off of reading [b:The Coming Race|1014436|The Coming Race|Edward George Bulwer-Lytton|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348576687s/1014436.jpg|1926578]), as well as the reassurance of the religion of the mysterious house-builder ("the copper-red Seal of Solomon, the pentagram," repeated at least twenty times in middle of the book), is somewhat disconcerting. (Also, isn't the Seal of Solomon six-pointed?). In general, there is a lot more religious imagery here than in the movie.
But it's very enjoyable. Dark and gothic, with exciting action scenes. Great character development for Joh Fredersen. And the characters that needed to stay flat, did so. Definitely a key book in early science fiction. Very clearly related to the movie's style, of German Expressionism.
An interesting thought, I was trying to look up quotes in the original German, to compare or to see. But in Germany this book is still in copyright (pma +70), whereas it is not in Canada (and other pma +50 countries). So this is an interesting case where the translation of a book is available in the public domain [BUT NOT IN ENGLAND, HINT HINT], but not yet the original work (the rarity of interest for German-language publications outside of Germany being the driving factor there). Just a thought.