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Bertolt Brecht in America
This colorful account of Bertolt Brecht's move from Germany to America during the Hitler era explores his activities as a Hollywood writer, a playwright determined to conquer Broadway, a political commentator and activist, a social observer, and an exile in an alien land.
Originally published in 1980.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Originally published in 1980.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
424 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1980
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19 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 16, 2020
It’s really fascinating to see Brecht in Hollywood. Come to think of it, it’s fascinating to see anyone in Hollywood. I lived there when I was 21. I’ll be on my deathbed wondering what the hell I experienced there. Check out my Wikipedia page for more about my successes in the film industry. Oh wait, i just googled myself and don’t seem to have a Wikipedia page.
May 2, 2021
Professor Lyon is unfailingly kind, insightful and multi-faceted in this book. It is a balmy and inspiring antidote to pedantry and ideological punctilio. He explores Brecht's views of the United States, his reception here and lack thereof, the German emigre community, the role of German public intellectuals and their take on German culture's responsibility for war crimes and communism.
I find his portrayal of Brecht as an individual, an artist and a public intellectual first-rate. It's sympathetic, enriched with telling and absorbing details, and unflinching.
The themes picked out in this book are more relevant than ever in today's world. For example, as a long-time student and small-time supporter of the Chinese human rights movement, I have yet to see a more illuminating book. The emigres' passionate disagreement over whether their people and culture are culpable for the state's misdeeds and deserving of punishment pertains, for example, to 1.4 billion people and more. Just look at the Chinese Communist Party's repression in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and mainland China, as well as their threat of war-making upon Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The Chinese exiles' infighting, mirroring a much more muted underground fight in China due to censorship, parallels those of 20th-century Germans in America faithfully.
Lyon documents Thomas Mann and Brecht's disagreement over the question of cultural and political guilt of the German people versus the Nazi state thus (note fragments):
"Mann had decisive influence in the US where Brecht had none. Brecht tried to get Mann to sign a declaration making the distinction between the German people and the Nazi state. Mann ultimately withdrew because he disagreed with such a distinction. They could not understand each other.
Brecht journal entry: “The inflexible wretchedness of these ‘bearers of culture’ crippled even me for a moment...they agree with Goebbels’s claim (picked up by the Hearst press) that Hitler and Germany are one...weren’t the Germans militarists before Hitler? Thomas Mann remembers how he himself, along with 91 other intellectuals, approved of the invasion of Belgium by the Kaiser’s armies in 1914. Such a people must be punished! ...For a moment, even I pondered how ‘the German people’ could justify tolerating not only the atrocities of the Hitler regime, but also the novels of Thomas Mann, the latter without twenty or thirty SS divisions over them.”
Lyon's impartial portrayal of the two towering frenemies is humorous wherever it can be helped: "Brecht never read the Magic Mountain except excerpts read by Mann himself. Mann initially introduced Brecht to America, but as the acrimony grew also won’t read Brecht’s complete works. Mann’s undocumented but oft-cited description of Brecht: “very gifted, unfortunately.” Others included the terms “monster” and “party-liner.” Brecht in turn selected epithets like “half-wit” or “reptile” and called Mann’s works “clerico-fascist.”
As an immigrant who has lived here since her teens, I am also tickled by Brecht's take on American society:
"Brecht’s wife bought some old furniture in the US. Brecht wrote a poem about his love of well-crafted objects reflecting age and human use. He praised “the splendid old tables with remarkable wood working and copper spittons that have been remade into lamps,” he used these artifacts to report a discovery, 'It seems evident that America once was a cultural nation...'”
Brecht is notoriously difficult to deal with, and downright baffling in his unwillingness to criticize the Soviets. Then we find his friendship with the American renaissance man Reyher where he allowed Reyher to sway him in certain things, such as his opinion of America:
Reyher was a brilliant raconteur who has been called “a walking encyclopedia of Americana": Reyher’s short stories from the twenties; his collaboration with Sinclair Lewis on that writer’s American labor novel; his personal acquaintance with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wallace Stevens…Reyher was “a brother under the skin” and highly unusual for Brecht. He was able to modify Brecht’s opinion about the US as a society, for example. Brecht was disgusted about American women being made up in middle age as a condition of capitalism; Reyher argued that America gave women a new lease of youth and did not simply cast them on a trash heap. Reyher also told Brecht a story about a judge who upon the fourth and imminent failure of an immigrant to pass the citizenship test fudged the test so the hard-working immigrant could pass.
In short, this book is a personal gem for me. And isn't it wonderful that for history titles one doesn't have to worry about detonating spoilers?
I find his portrayal of Brecht as an individual, an artist and a public intellectual first-rate. It's sympathetic, enriched with telling and absorbing details, and unflinching.
The themes picked out in this book are more relevant than ever in today's world. For example, as a long-time student and small-time supporter of the Chinese human rights movement, I have yet to see a more illuminating book. The emigres' passionate disagreement over whether their people and culture are culpable for the state's misdeeds and deserving of punishment pertains, for example, to 1.4 billion people and more. Just look at the Chinese Communist Party's repression in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and mainland China, as well as their threat of war-making upon Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The Chinese exiles' infighting, mirroring a much more muted underground fight in China due to censorship, parallels those of 20th-century Germans in America faithfully.
Lyon documents Thomas Mann and Brecht's disagreement over the question of cultural and political guilt of the German people versus the Nazi state thus (note fragments):
"Mann had decisive influence in the US where Brecht had none. Brecht tried to get Mann to sign a declaration making the distinction between the German people and the Nazi state. Mann ultimately withdrew because he disagreed with such a distinction. They could not understand each other.
Brecht journal entry: “The inflexible wretchedness of these ‘bearers of culture’ crippled even me for a moment...they agree with Goebbels’s claim (picked up by the Hearst press) that Hitler and Germany are one...weren’t the Germans militarists before Hitler? Thomas Mann remembers how he himself, along with 91 other intellectuals, approved of the invasion of Belgium by the Kaiser’s armies in 1914. Such a people must be punished! ...For a moment, even I pondered how ‘the German people’ could justify tolerating not only the atrocities of the Hitler regime, but also the novels of Thomas Mann, the latter without twenty or thirty SS divisions over them.”
Lyon's impartial portrayal of the two towering frenemies is humorous wherever it can be helped: "Brecht never read the Magic Mountain except excerpts read by Mann himself. Mann initially introduced Brecht to America, but as the acrimony grew also won’t read Brecht’s complete works. Mann’s undocumented but oft-cited description of Brecht: “very gifted, unfortunately.” Others included the terms “monster” and “party-liner.” Brecht in turn selected epithets like “half-wit” or “reptile” and called Mann’s works “clerico-fascist.”
As an immigrant who has lived here since her teens, I am also tickled by Brecht's take on American society:
"Brecht’s wife bought some old furniture in the US. Brecht wrote a poem about his love of well-crafted objects reflecting age and human use. He praised “the splendid old tables with remarkable wood working and copper spittons that have been remade into lamps,” he used these artifacts to report a discovery, 'It seems evident that America once was a cultural nation...'”
Brecht is notoriously difficult to deal with, and downright baffling in his unwillingness to criticize the Soviets. Then we find his friendship with the American renaissance man Reyher where he allowed Reyher to sway him in certain things, such as his opinion of America:
Reyher was a brilliant raconteur who has been called “a walking encyclopedia of Americana": Reyher’s short stories from the twenties; his collaboration with Sinclair Lewis on that writer’s American labor novel; his personal acquaintance with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wallace Stevens…Reyher was “a brother under the skin” and highly unusual for Brecht. He was able to modify Brecht’s opinion about the US as a society, for example. Brecht was disgusted about American women being made up in middle age as a condition of capitalism; Reyher argued that America gave women a new lease of youth and did not simply cast them on a trash heap. Reyher also told Brecht a story about a judge who upon the fourth and imminent failure of an immigrant to pass the citizenship test fudged the test so the hard-working immigrant could pass.
In short, this book is a personal gem for me. And isn't it wonderful that for history titles one doesn't have to worry about detonating spoilers?
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews