1,370 words
To describe Jason Lutes’ masterful graphic novel series Berlin as enemy fiction would be harsh—but technically true. Sadly.
Lutes exhibits enough vision and artistry on every page to impress upon the reader his love of the sequential art medium as well as of his subject matter, which, in the case of Berlin: City of Stones (book 1 of his 3-part Berlin series, first published in 2000), is the eponymous German capital circa 1928.
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6 comments
More ham-fisted propaganda targeted at young people from the left. That is how they win, by controlling the popular culture. You can throw this graphic novel on the pile with Diary of Anne Frank and Hogan’s Heroes.
You can argue that it has lefty propagandistic aspects, but Berlin is not ham-fisted as you say. It’s a work of powerful vision which tool a talented person a lot of work to create. Lutes wrote, drew, inked, and lettered it himself. One reason why it is so effective at propaganda is because it is so well made. This gets lost on a lot of us on the Right I’m afraid.
I hope with this review that A) our people are at least aware of this work and B) we understand the high standards needed to make top notch propaganda with our artistic output.
I was speaking about the literary quality, not the visual production quality. From what you described, the reader is consistently clubbed over the head with the message “left good, right bad.” The characters seem to be one-dimensional. Very little art in that.
Nobody gets beat over the head with anything in this book. The messaging is subtle. I was vaguely aware of it 20yrs ago when I first read it. Now it’s much clearer because I have studied so much in the meantime.
Plus the characters are not one dimensional. I’m sorry my review led you to that conclusion.
Okay, so the propagandist was clever as a propagandist. What you describe in your last comment was exactly what he would want: you were only vaguely aware of any political bent when you were young and innocent, but it became obvious as you aged and became more knowledgeable. As the saying goes, “gotta get ’em while they’re young!”
I’m pretty sure, that if I were to read this book, I would indeed feel clubbed over the head:
“Lutes’ left-leaning bias never goes away. The Left is never as barbaric as the Right is portrayed above; and the Right is never as articulate as the Left is portrayed above.”
The leftist wife is the “sensitive, honorable one,” her rightist husband is “the cruel and impulsive one.” The Jews are always “long-suffering” victims, the Nazis are always thuggish Neanderthals. As you say, “Oy vey. It’s so boring.
And perhaps the most important characteristic of Weimar–the decadence– is purposefully left out: (“And, of course, the people most to blame for such perversion were the Jews.”)
“Unfortunately, you are not going to find any of this on the pages of Berlin: City of Stones. Jason Lutes is too concerned with telling a tasteful story about Weimar—a story which is ultimately too tasteful to be true.”
I’m still not convinced that the “tastefulness” was his goal. Rather, it seems more like a device to gain influence over impressionable minds. Yes, the author has talent, but clearly this piece of “art” makes a political statement above all else.
The Weimar Republic. I like this topic. I haven’t read this novel (Berlin: City of Stones), but it sounds like a good read. I assume it has value, despite its leftwing bias.
Everything about Weimar was interesting – its politics, its constitution, the various attempted coups, the chaotic economy, and the international diplomacy. But its decadent culture was fundamental and is often ignored by other writers. At least in this book, Jason Lutes did not ignore it, even if he downplayed & distorted it. I think Luigi Barzini’s 1983 non-fiction book, The Europeans, might be a much better one, however.
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