PODCAST: The Epic Worlds of Alfred Döblin – UPDATE #2!
We’ve released two more episodes this month (January 2024)! See below for link and transcripts.
Please share the link to the Podcasts with your friends and family!
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The long silence since the last post in August 2023 does not mean we’ve been idle. Two major new strands of work designed to broaden Alfred Döblin’s appeal to a wider readership have been taking shape.
The Podcast
First, our new podcast has launched! It was back in August that my daughter in law Katie suggested this venture. It took a month or two to investigate the technology requirements, hosting options, and the feasibility of recording in a house with dogs, cats, crowing roosters, and friendly neighbourhood hedge-cutters.
We persevered, and thanks to Katie’s superb organisational skills and willingness to be producer, interviewer, editor and technical support all in one, we have six episodes in the bag so far, which we’ll release at a rate of two episodes a month. (Any faster and the pressure of deadlines would throw us off track!)
Episode 1 which went live in early December 2023 provides a general introduction to Döblin and his importance as a major but little-known writer. Here’s the transcript of Episode 1.
Episode 2 , released on 15 December, explores what Döblin meant by the “epic”. Here’s the transcript of Episode 2.
NEW EPISODES IN JANUARY 2024:
Episode 3. Döblin’s early life, from his birth in 1878 to leaving school in 1900. How family crises and the Prussian State shaped his view of life and society. Here’s the transcript of Episode 3.
Episode 4. We discuss the several lines of pressure that converged in 1911-1912 to stimulate Döblin’s first great epic novel: The Three Leaps of Wang Lun – the most remarkable evocation of an alien place and time in all of European literature. Here’s the transcript of Episode 4.
And here’s the Adventurous Readers Guide to Wang Lun – It covers the Conception of this epic novel; an outline of its Construction; the Contraction of the manuscript on the advice of Martin Buber (several passages cut from the manuscript, included in the 2007 German critical edition of Wang Lun, are provided here in English for the first time); and its Reception, with several reviews of the original publication in 1916.
UPDATE: NEW EPISODES IN FEBRUARY 2024
Episode 5: Biography 1912-1922. The First World War; growing family; Wallenstein; polemical essays. Here’s the transcript.
Episode 6: Mountains Oceans Giants. The epic that almost cost Döblin a nervous breakdown. Here’s the transcript.
Episode 7: The Weimar Twenties: Döblin the writer, the activist, the family man. Here’s the transcript.
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Future episodes cover Döblin’s biography (in roughly decade-long chunks), and look into the circumstances in which each of his great epic fictions was conceived and written.
The podcast venture enables me to share some of the very large amount of translated material accumulated over the past decade, which otherwise would languish unseen on my hard drive. We hope the podcast will attract Adventurous Readers who can spread the word about Döblin’s epics!
Adventurous Reader Guides
Beta-versions of the first two titles were posted a while ago: .1. A Medley of Themes, and .2. Introductions and Reactions. Revised versions are being prepared.
The aim is to prepare a Guide for each of the Epics already available in English – not a “student’s guide” aimed at helping you to pass an exam, but a friendly aid to your greater enjoyment as you read Döblin!
