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savaging's review
4.0
"People who understand everything get no stories." -- from Brecht's story "Java Meier"
A perplexing change of tone across time: the early stories are drenched in vice -- pirates and thieves -- and then Brecht civilizes, it seems. The early ones were horrible for their off-hand reference to nauseating violence, and yet I felt like I could trust something about them -- there wasn't anything that was unsayable, at least. Later it's the hijinks of Socrates or an ichthysaurus, and I'm charmed but not entirely trusting.
I haven't read anything else by Brecht -- I understand that his short stories are not considered his real mastery.
A perplexing change of tone across time: the early stories are drenched in vice -- pirates and thieves -- and then Brecht civilizes, it seems. The early ones were horrible for their off-hand reference to nauseating violence, and yet I felt like I could trust something about them -- there wasn't anything that was unsayable, at least. Later it's the hijinks of Socrates or an ichthysaurus, and I'm charmed but not entirely trusting.
I haven't read anything else by Brecht -- I understand that his short stories are not considered his real mastery.
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