Tag: 1920s

Der Papalagi, Erich Scheurmann
Eco-Cultural-Travel

Samoan “Chief Tuiavii” on European Decadence in ‘The Papalagi’

In 1920, Erich Scheurmann translated into German the speeches of Samoan Chief’ Tuiavii from the village of Tiavea, a work called The Papalagi (The White People) that describes his impressions of European culture formed during a tour as part of a traveling show. Tuiavii’s depictions of the greed and hypocrisy of the civilized Europeans has become a post-hippie inspiration for a counterculture movement to break out of the rigid confines of corporate capitalism.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Monte Shulz
Literary

Monte Schulz’s Beautiful Jazz Age Tragedy in ‘Crossing Eden’

Monte Schulz’s literary novel Crossing Eden (Fantagraphics Books), sweeps across the Midwestern U.S. landscape through the story of a family pulled apart in the Jazz Age summer of 1929. A failed businessman, seduced by city lights and the dream of wealth and power, divides himself from his wife and children, while a troubled farm boy runs away from home in the company of a gangster.

Metropolis, Fritz Lang, dystopia
Film

H. G. Wells on the Futurist Dystopia of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”

“Metropolis” hallucinates a futuristic city, a paradise of glass and steel, where underground workers toil endlessly at the giant machines that run the world above. Controlled by the autocratic industrialist, his spoilt son falls for the working class prophet who envisions some mediation between workers and managers. Noted science fiction author H. G. Wells reviews the controversial 1927 masterpiece.

Cover from Fantagraphics
Literary

Monte Schulz: Dreaming Jazz America in “The Big Town”

“Monte Schulz’s *The Big Town* exposes decadence, wealth and consumption in Jazz Age America as spiritual myopia — where desperate, haunting characters hinge their lives on impossible dreams. This lyrical, gripping novel is as close to 1920s America as it gets, and penned with such frightening realism that the chaos of a bygone era erupts from its pages.” – Simon Van Booy