514
PARTISAN REVIEW
Creatively, however, it
is
still going in low gear. Its only genuine
achievement so far is in the field of the cabaret, this peculiarly con–
tinental
Gebrauchskunst:
the political
chanson,
the literary parody, the
topical sketch, always favored here, found an ideal forum in this
isolated town in which political life and strife affects everybody. Cabaret
is night club entertainment with a message: sharp, witty, effective,
nourished by the local brand of a grotesque and very earthy humor,
it aims at the absurdities in the eastern as well as in the western part
of this divided city (but always basically at the absurdities in
la condi–
tion humaine).
So far as serious literature is concerned, Berlin still suffers from
its isolation, the liquidation and dispersion of talent, and from that
ubiquitous German problem: a frustrated revolution. The 'twenties,
not so unlike the American 'twenties, were a time of much craziness,
jolly and not so jolly, and also of enormous creative ferment. Berlin
was at that time a center for the avant-garde and attracted talent not
only from Germany but also from Central and Eastern Europe, a very
considerable part of it Jewish. Altogether it was a vigorous attempt at
creating a truly modern, urban literature, which, to be sure, perished
partly from its own excess. The promising core in it was suppressed
after 1933.
Finally, in 1955, only two big bronze gods, strange survivors from
before the deluge, are still among us, both very much withdrawn from
the general public as well as the literary crowd: Gottfried Benn and
Berthold Brecht. Very appropriately one is in West and one in East
Berlin. Both are still writing, although with somewhat blunted pens.
Brecht is bridled by the Communist party line, doing his best work in
theater productions in East Berlin, of which, however, no press or public
notice is being taken in this western part of the city. Many of the
superbly staged plays are flat propaganda pieces. Gottfried Benn, M.D.,
is almost seventy now, and still a practicing dermatologist. In the
'twenties and before he was the great shocker, who wrote with singular
brutality, plus exact medical knowledge, about the putrefaction of the
flesh.
Flesh
and
Morgue
were titles, and indeed the subjects, of two of
his poetry collections. He is more mellow and resigned now, but can
still use language and ideas with a fencer's sharpness and elegance. He
is, after so many losses, the German poet with the finest ear for language,
and, above all, the only one besides the earlier Brecht with a truly
original, if controversial, vision. From the obsession about carnal decay
he has moved to the promotion of cerebration: "Provoked Life" is the
title of one of his very provoking essays, in which he advocates the
