Define Regarding Books Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2)
Title | : | Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2) |
Author | : | Jason Lutes |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 210 pages |
Published | : | September 16th 2008 by Drawn and Quarterly (first published 2002) |
Categories | : | Sequential Art. Graphic Novels. Comics. Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Cultural. Germany |
Jason Lutes
Paperback | Pages: 210 pages Rating: 4.12 | 2430 Users | 144 Reviews
Rendition Conducive To Books Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2)
The second installment of the epic historical trilogy
The second volume of Jason Lutes’s historical epic finds the people of Weimar Berlin searching for answers after the lethal May Day demonstration of 1929. Tension builds along with the dividing wall between communists and nationalists, Jews and Gentiles, as the dawn of the Second World War draws closer. Meanwhile, the nightlife of Berlin heats up as many attempt to distract themselves from the political upheavals within the city. The American jazz band Cocoa Kids arrives and quickly becomes a fixture. The lives of the characters within Lutes’s epic weave together to create a seamless portrait of this transitory city. Marthe Muller follows her lover Kurt Severing as he interviews participants in the May Day demonstration, but she moonlights in the city’s lesbian nightlife.Severing acts as a window through which the political shifts within the city and its participants can be seen. As with Berlin Book One: City
Mention Books Concering Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2)
Original Title: | Berlin: City of Smoke, Book Two |
ISBN: | 1897299532 (ISBN13: 9781897299531) |
Edition Language: | English |
Series: | Berlin #2, Berlin #vol. 2 |
Setting: | Berlin,1929(Germany) |
Rating Regarding Books Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2)
Ratings: 4.12 From 2430 Users | 144 ReviewsWeigh Up Regarding Books Berlin, Vol. 2: City of Smoke (Berlin #2)
I worried that I'd been reading too much British mysticism and imperial decline lately, felt I needed something about somewhere else to stop me going entirely squirrelly ahead of next week's moment of national madness. So instead I started reading something set in Berlin in the latter half of 1929, whose blurb quite fairly promises that it "creates a sense of anxiety and imminent doom".Sometimes I can be a complete idiot.Divisions harden, the well-meaning turn on each other while the thugsI want to write a few words about this volume 2 in the Berlin trilogy. Right now though, I'm expecting someone to arrive any minute. I will say I couldn't put it down. It was like watching a really good movie. A really sad movie too. A really great historical movie, basically. About the rise of Nazism during the Weimar era in Berlin, when Jazz was just making its way from America with and Josephine Baker had already become a Big Star and there were countless lesbian bars for women who liked to
In the second story of the trilogy - Berlin : City of Smokes, the clash between the Nazis and communist intensifies. However the story is meandering and not as crisp as the first edition. It however documents the diverse underground scene of Pre-WorldWarII Berlin and the misgivings of the different groups about each other. The story of Silvia - who becomes a street vagrant after the death of her mother in a communist protest is heartbreaking.The artwork is excellent as usual but the first
Quite likely one of the best graphic novels I've read.For some reason it's hard for me to put my finger on why this one was even better than the first one, but I guess it's that the stories gave me so much.Especially the jazz musicians were a good twist. They gave me a look into a whole nother aspect of the beginning of WWII and also through the storyline of the musicians there were quite a few different scenes and sides to the prevailing society that were shown which might not have been
As far as middle chapters go, City of Smoke runs pretty much better than expected. Second acts generally fend off some of the energy and presence of the first in order to properly explode into the final act. While maintaining his virtuosity over the form, Lutes does calm things down a bit after the May Day massacre that concluded the first act.City of Smoke largely explores two themes: the robust nightlife that ruled Berlin's hidden quarters and the growing political strife between factions of
Both Berlin volumes are great - panoramic historical graphic novels of Weimar Berlin, and the deterioration of life just as the Nazis were about to take over. Volume 2 - City of Smoke - follows the story of Marthe, but she is less of a protagonist than in volume 1; instead, the American jazz band takes center stage, as well as the heart-breaking story of Silvia, one of the children of Gudrun, who leads a street life once her mother is killed in a May Day demonstration, and her fascistic father
Together with the first volume its a formidable piece of the comics form I have ever come across . Mr. Lutes is really good at painting the atmosphere through the characters. His use of thought bubbles is an expression of virtuosity in itself; He uses varied fonts and outlines across the book to project the character and they transform them into such real beings.To be re-read.
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