Bright Magic: Stories (New York Review Books Classics)

Synopsis

Alfred Doblin Was A Titan Of Modern German Literature. This Collection Of Stories--astonishingly, The First Collection Of His Stories Ever Published In English--shows Him To Have Been Equally Adept In Shorter Forms. Included In Its Entirety Is Doblin's First Book, The Murder Of A Buttercup, A Work Of Savage Brilliance And A Landmark Of Literary Expressionism. Mortality Roams The Streets Of Nineteenth-century Manhattan, With A White Borzoi And A Quiet Smile. A Ballerina Duels To The Death With The Stupid Childish Body She Is Bound To. We Experience, In The Celebrated Title Story, A Dizzying Descent Into A Shattered Mind. The Collection Is Then Rounded Off With Two Longer Stories Written When Doblin Was In Exile From Nazi Germany In Southern California, Including The Delightful Materialism: A Fable, In Which News Of Humanity's Soulless Doctrines Spreads To The Animals, Elements, And Molecules Of Nature-- Part 1: Early Stories: The Murder Of A Buttercup (written 1904-11, Published 1912) -- The Sailboat Ride -- The Ballerina And The Body -- Astralia -- The Immaculate Conception -- The Metamorphosis -- She Who Helped -- The Wrong Door -- The Murder Of A Buttercup -- Bluebeard The Knight -- The Other Man -- Memoirs Of A Jaded Man -- The Canoness And Death. Part 2: Late Tales: A Fiary Tale Of Technology (1935) -- A Little Fable (1937) -- Bright Magic (written 1940-45, Published 1948) -- Traffic With The Beyond -- Materialism, A Fable -- Five Incomprehensible Stories (1947-48) -- The Eruption Of Mt. Vesuvius -- The Origins Of Caviar -- The Library -- Max -- What People Mean By Cow's Cheese. Alfred Döblin ; Selected And Translated From The German By Damion Searls ; Introduction By Günter Grass.