Guido in the Prater, Part I

All about Nightwood:

Following up on the introduction of Guido Volkbein in chapter one:

“burgundy, schlagsahne, and beer”  Granted, a bit obvious, but Guido, “a gourmet and a dandy,” enjoys his wines, whipped cream, and ale.

The Prater  Vienna’s grand park, the Prater, is located in the city zone known as Leopoldstadt, which made up a large part of the ghetto in the seventeenth century. In the 1920s, Joseph Roth wrote that the Leopoldstadt, the home of “immigrant Jewry,” acted as “a sort of voluntary ghetto” (Roth 55).

“the exquisite handkerchief of yellow and black linen”  The handkerchiefs represent the “Jew badge,” a medieval method of differentiating between Christians and Jews, which the Nazis appropriated and mandated  in 1939. The primary motivation of this edict lay in the prevention of accidental sexual relationships between “Jews and Saracens” and Christians (Kisch 111).