Seeing Berlin Alexanderplatz....
I did. I watched all fifteen or so hours of it, plus the extra material. I guess I should read the book, but I already have a pretty good idea of where that was going... to the insane asylum.
There is an interesting jutxaposition going on in Mann's short stories, many written during the period. There are the domestic upper middle class scenes, like Disorder and Early Sorrow, or the realy up beat and positive, Bashan---about taking his dog for his daily run in some stretch of the Frankfurt suburbs, near the end of the trolly lines of the period. Bashan does the park.
This last story was very popular and Mann noted in his journal that his publisher and friends wanted him to do more like it. This great positive cord is echoed especially in the sciences and mathematics. David Hilbert was having the time of his life as were the rest of the giants at Gottingen and elsewhere.
Well anyway so then you turn to Doctor Faustus... or Alfred Doublin's BA.
In other words, I have what I is a pretty good feel for the strange and alternating dynamics of the period. It's the dumb, boring facts that I need for reference...
CG