A witty yet moving narrative worked up from sketched biographical fragments, 1913 is an intimate vision of a world that is about to change forever.
The stuffy conventions of the nineteenth century are receding into the past, and 1913 heralds a new age of unlimited possibility. Kafka falls in love; Louis Armstrong learns to play the trumpet; a young seamstress called Coco Chanel opens her first boutique; Charlie Chaplin signs his first movie contract; and new drugs like cocaine usher in an age of decadence. Yet everywhere there is the premonition of ruin - the number 13 is omnipresent, and in London, Paris and Vienna, artists take the omen and act as if there were no tomorrow. In a Munich hotel lobby, Rilke and Freud discuss beauty and transience; Proust sets out in search of lost time; and while Stravinsky celebrates the Rite of Spring with industrial cacophony, an Austrian postcard painter by the name of Adolf Hitler sells his conventional cityscapes.
A witty yet moving narrative worked up from sketched biographical fragments, 1913 is an intimate vision of a world that is about to change forever.
The stuffy conventions of the nineteenth century are receding into the past, and 1913 heralds a new age of unlimited possibility. Kafka falls in love; Louis Armstrong learns to play the trumpet; a young seamstress called Coco Chanel opens her first boutique; Charlie Chaplin signs his first movie contract; and new drugs like cocaine usher in an age of decadence. Yet everywhere there is the premonition of ruin - the number 13 is omnipresent, and in London, Paris and Vienna, artists take the omen and act as if there were no tomorrow. In a Munich hotel lobby, Rilke and Freud discuss beauty and transience; Proust sets out in search of lost time; and while Stravinsky celebrates the Rite of Spring with industrial cacophony, an Austrian postcard painter by the name of Adolf Hitler sells his conventional cityscapes.
From James Joyce to Coco Chanel, 1913 is an irreverent but poignant portrait of Europe on the brink of war, now in paperback.
Florian Illies was born in 1971. He has worked as literary editor for major German newspapers and magazines, and co-founded art magazine Monopol. His previous four books have sold over one million copies.
The best possible holiday read
*Irish Times*
A hugely enjoyable idiosyncratic month by month narrative, in which
the frenzy of artistic activity in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin,
and Trieste is conveyed with vigour and humour
*Daily Telegraph*
A vivid, richly textured book that chronicles a world crackling
with talent, energy and foreboding
*FT*
A brilliant game of original quotations and tracings
*Der Spiegel*
Illies shapes his material not as a scholar, but as a wordsmith, as
a story-teller with a strong sense for dramatic effect and
composition...the most enjoyable book I've read in years
*Die Welt*
Illies makes the hundred years between 1913 and his readers
disappear. A beautiful book.
*Süddeutsche Zeitung*
Illies is as astute a researcher as he is an observer of the
zeitgeist ... reads like something out of a magic realist
novel.
*Guardian*
I couldn't stop reading - Illies' stories are simply
magnificent
*Ferdinand von Schirach*
Thorough and fascinating
*Time Out*
An absolute gem of a book. His snapshot approach to the year,
recorded month by month, is the most original historical account
I've come across ... Illies's genius turn of phrase, beautifully
retained by Shaun Whiteside and Jamie Lee Searle's elegant
translation, can be found throughout ... The entries read like
history's footnotes, but as anyone who's read Freud knows, the
footnotes always tell the best story.
*Observer*
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