Reviews for Emil and the detectives

The average rating for Emil and the detectives based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-07-11 00:00:00 Larry Turner Emil Und Die Detektive = Emil And The Delectives, Erich Kästner Emil and the Detectives is a 1929 novel, for children set mainly in Berlin, by the German writer Erich Kästner and illustrated by Walter Trier. It was Kästner's first major success, the only one of his pre-1945 works to escape Nazi censorship, and remains his best-known work, and has been translated into at least 59 languages. The most unusual aspect of the novel, compared to existing children's literature at the time, was that it was realistically set in a contemporary Berlin peopled with some fairly rough characters, not in a sanitized fantasy world; also that it refrained from obvious moralizing, letting the characters' deeds speak for themselves. The story begins in Neustadt, a provincial German town which is the home to young schoolboy Emil Tischbein. His father is dead and his mother raises him alone working as a hairdresser. She sends Emil to Berlin with 140 marks (a hairdresser's monthly salary then) to give to his grandmother and 20 marks for himself, sums that have taken some months to save from her modest earnings. On the way he is very careful not to lose the money and uses a needle to pin it to the lining of his jacket. On the train to Berlin, Emil meets a mysterious man who introduces himself as Max Grundeis. This man gives Emil mysterious chocolate and Emil falls asleep. When he wakes up, the money and Max Grundeis are gone. Emil gets off the train in a different part of Berlin from where he intended. When he spots Max Grundeis, he follows him. Emil dares not call the police since the local policeman in Neustadt had seen him paint the nose of a local monument red, so he feels that he is "a kind of criminal" himself. However, a local boy named Gustav offers to help. Gustav assembles 24 local children who call themselves "the detectives". After following Grundeis to a hotel and spying on him all night, Emil and the gang follow the thief to a bank, where he wants to exchange the money for smaller bills. One of the boy detectives follows him into the bank and tells the bank teller that the money is stolen. Emil comes in and tries to tell the bank teller his story. He proves that the money is his by describing the holes left by the needle he used to pin the bills in the lining of his jacket. ... تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه نوامبر سال 1992 میلادی عنوان: امیل و کارآگاهان؛ نویسنده: اریش کستنر؛ مترجم: مژگان عبداللهی؛ تهران، هرمس، 1377، در 141ص؛ شابک 9646641369؛ چاپ دوم 1378؛ امیل برای گذراندن تعطیلات با قطار به نزد مادر بزرگ و خاله اش به برلین میرود؛ پدرش را از دست داده، و زندگی را با مادرش، که در یک آرایشگاه زنانه کار میکند، میگذراند؛ ثروتمند نیستند؛ باید برای خرج پولشان، برنامه داشته باشند؛ «امیل» درستکار است، و مهربان، و برای کار و تلاش مادرش ارزش قائل است؛ در کوپه ی قطار، او با وسواس، مواظب پولی ست، که به همراه دارد، اما در یک لحظه که خوابش میبرد، پولش را میربایند؛ «امیل» برای پیداکردن پول، درگیر ماجرای هیجان انگیزی میشود، تا دزد دستگیر شود؛ داستان «امیل و کارآگاهان»، آموزش وظیفه شناسی به نوجوانان است؛ همبستگی کودکان، برای پیداکردن دزد پولهای «امیل»، دنیای بی ریا، و بی غل و غش کودکانه را نیز، به زیبایی به تصویر کشیده است؛ یک دزدی ساده است اما نیاز به داشتن برنامه و برنامه ریزی، برای حل مشکلات را، به نوجوانان یادآوری میکند؛ داستان هیجان انگیز با درونمایه ی تربیتی-تفریحی از چگونگی کار بانک ها، چاپ خبر در روزنامه، اطاعت از قانون، و وظیفه شناسی پلیس نیز، به خوانشگر شناخت میدهد؛ ا. شربیانی

Review # 2 was written on 2015-07-04 00:00:00 Glenn Werstler I read this German children's classic while the Greek debt drama of July 2015 was unfolding; I would finish a chapter, go to the Daily Telegraph live blog, catch up on the latest news from Brussels, then return to Emil. The people reporting on the political story were eager to cast the Germans, particularly the hardline Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, as the villains. I read many pieces about how Schäuble was imposing unreasonable and humiliating conditions on the Greeks, and when one looked at poor Euclid Tsakalotos it was indeed difficult not to feel sorry for him. But as Emil's story progressed, I began to experience an odd sympathy for the Germans. Emil, a bright and responsible eight-year-old, comes from a poor home. His father is dead. His mother doesn't bring in much as a hairdresser, but by planning carefully she is just able to make ends meet and even save a little. She's finally scraped together 140 Marks so that Emil can go and visit his grandmother in Berlin for a week, and both she and Emil are very proud of this achievement. And then, while he's on the train, a heartless thief steals his money. Emil never cries, but he cries now, because he thinks of all the sacrifices his mother made to put that little capital together. And then he moves heaven and earth to get his stolen money back. I watched Schäuble requesting more and more outrageous conditions before he would consent to lend a third tranche of his country's money to Alexis Tsipras, and I suddenly saw him as a small boy reading Emil und die Detektive. He did now just what Emil does in the book: he made contact with a group of like-minded people, got them on his side, encircled the criminal who seemed to be on the point of making off with his assets, and forced him to capitulate. Greece will probably get its loans, but only when they've pledged suitable collateral. It was one of the toughest pieces of negotiation I've ever seen. There's something beautiful and terrifying about that Protestant work ethic.