Bonus Book! Babylon Berlin

Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher
Crime (2016* - 518 pp.)

Babylon Berlin may be best recognized as a Netflix series now,** but it began its creative franchising as this first crime novel, built around its protagonist, Inspector Gereon Rath of the Prussian police force. The book's rapid-fire events span from April to June 1929, opening with a mysterious death scene and then a corpse being dragged from the Landwehr Canal. Rath starts the book in Vice, which allows for hilarious situations involving underground pornography rings and drug transactions. His transition to Homicide follows the path of the multiple interconnected murders that form the real crimes of Babylon Berlin's sordid story. Then, of course, there's the 80 million marks of ex-Tsarist gold making all the murders worthwhile, and the trail of lethal Russian mobsters who are looking for it.

Babylon Berlin's 1929 setting places it within a unique time in Germany, after the fall of the monarchy but before the rise of Nazism. The political uncertainty facing 1929 Germany bleeds through the entire book; Rath encounters Ernst Thalmann's communist followers, Brownshirts, and even - among the Russian gang members - Black Hundreds. Rath is vaguely liberal, likely someone whose political views would be mainstream today, yet he is constantly wary of the extremist propaganda that surrounds him. The political overtones, including Berlin having a Political police agency, are matched by undertones of Depression-era gangster films.*** Crime bosses lurk everywhere, dragging with them destructive quantities of cocaine they peddle openly in illicit nightclubs; the consistent presence of cocaine in Berlin's underground remains realistic today.

The flipside of Babylon Berlin's 1929 setting is the interwar culture that feels simultaneously so alike to now yet so different. Rath, his stenographer girlfriend Charlotte Ritter, and Rath's fellow police officers act convincingly like Law & Order stars would without ever lifting the suspended disbelief that they're indeed in 1929. Period pieces are the new way to make situations scary or mysterious that would not be so today; just like The Witch's colonial American setting shuts off the family from modern food production or contact with the outside world, so the lack of smartphones makes Babylon Berlin's characters genuinely difficult to reach. This is crucial in a book in which characters go suspiciously missing so often, not to mention the strain in the Rath-Ritter relationship.

Finally, Germany's physical shape in 1929 is relatively unique in that Germany's interwar borders were so short-lived. Characters cross the Polish corridor from East Prussia (Allenstein, now Olsztyn, Poland) to Berlin, which they would not have needed to do before WWI, and would not be able to do today unless they lived in Poland. Issues like this arise that are unfathomable during any other era, which complements Kutscher's character development. Having such normal, believable people discuss transit from East Prussia or the rise of local Nazi detachments makes the story feel like one that could have actually happened rather than as a jarring quasi-fantasy.

Rath is the focus character throughout most of the book. Kutscher lets the reader into Rath's background (Catholic, from Cologne), aspirations (Vice is seen as a substandard unit), insecurities (he lives in Berlin for work and knows basically no one there),  substance abuse (alcoholism and drugs were rampant in 1929 Berlin) and even his sex life (describing which would surprisingly be a spoiler!). Rath begins the story in a flat, but hilarity ensues when he is kicked out for having a female visitor in the aforementioned Ritter, then Rath stays with his colleague Bruno Wolter for a few nights before taking up in the Excelsior hotel. Rath's story is told with requisite German humour, leading me to frequent laughing fits that must have alarmed some of my fellow subway riders. Even the more mundane details of Rath's life, like his relations with his landlord, are dealt with entertainingly. I actually wanted to hear more about, say, Rath's name being stenciled onto his Homicide office door, Dick Tracy-style.****

The other characters have backstories, motivations, and good reasons to be wherever they're located at any given time. This should seem obvious in a well-written novel but can't be overstated here, as Kutscher is capable of throwing dozens of named characters at us without making any of them feel superfluous. Police Commissioner Zorgiebel is obsessed the force's public relations, and to a lesser extent with its continued popularity with the SPD. Wolter and his wife Emmi genuinely care about Rath while each hiding dark secrets. The gangsters act calmly and coolly. Babylon Berlin's arguable emotional peak is a tense scene when Ritter talks to Rath about crying - something a stereotypical reader wouldn't associate with either interwar Germans or police department employees in general.

Niall Sellar's translation is noticeably British, as opposed to Canadian or American, with terms like "whilst" and "whinging". The prose flows well, making Babylon Berlin a fast read. There are occasional cliches in the narration, which take the reader out of the story. However, as I haven't read the original German, I don't know which cliches represent Sellar being faithful to the original text, and which are simply attempts to smooth over whatever is being said in German.

Kutscher occasionally resorts to tired crime novel tropes, such as woefully unethical detective practices and having Rath get too many lucky hunches. Once, there's even a "Nilbog is goblin spelled backwards!" moment. I swallowed these as being emblematic of the genre, for better or worse. I would have liked to have seen more of Rath's technical prowess in putting together his cases, as he is clearly a gifted police officer, but most attempts to blow open cases are pursued incompetently. Rath is joined in these bouts of ineptness by his colleagues, Bohm and Wolter, Zorgiebel, and even some local Brownshirts. (Who shows up to a covert meeting in uniform?) It is Rath's flatmate, the journalist Weinert, who appears to be on top of everything.

In the interest of not spoiling Babylon Berlin, I haven't told you the name of a single murderer. I've omitted my usual page citations so you can't tell when in the book these events happen. Will Rath find the Russian gold? Will he and Ritter end up together? Will any important police officer character escape either reprimand or death?

Ease of Reading: 8

Educational Content: 3

*2007 is the original German publication date. 2016 is the English publication date. I read the English version, as my German isn't nearly good enough to read something that in-depth.

**According to the Wikipedia plot summary, the Netflix series is unfaithful to the book on a few key counts. Ritter, for example, would never be a prostitute in the book.

***Apparently, crime novels set during the interwar era are great fodder for this blog's bonus books. The Big Sleep (1939) was the same way.

****Bonus points if you can guess why I picked a door that has "J. Marlow" stenciled on it.