Our Philosopher

by Gert Hofmann, Eric Mace-Tessler (Translator), Michael Hofmann (Introduction)

A powerful novel about prejudice, violence, and complicity in Nazi Germany, this spare and evocative work interrogates shows how a group of people can slip towards extremism and barbarity in the blink of an eye.

The time is the 1930s. Our philosopher is Herr Veilchenfeld, a renowned thinker and distinguished professor, who, after his sudden dismissal from the university, has retired to live quietly in a country town in the east of Germany. Our narrator is Hans, a clever and inquisitive boy. He relates a mix of things he witnesses himself and things he hears about from his father, the town doctor, who sees all sorts of people as he makes his rounds, even Veilchenfeld, with his troubled heart. Veilchenfeld is in decline, it’s true—he keeps ever more to himself—but the town is in ever better shape. After the defeat of the Great War and the subsequent years of poverty, things are looking up. The old, worn people are heartened to see it. The young are exhilarated. It is up to them to promote and patrol this new uplifting reality—to make it safe from the likes of Veilchenfeld, whose very existence is an affront to it. And so the doctor listens, and young Hans looks on.

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Germany, Historical Fiction, Classics, Novels, Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Gert Hofmann (1931 – 1993) was a German writer and professor of German literature.

He was the father of poet Michael Hofmann, who translated some of his father's works into English.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

OUR PHILOSOPHER has died suddenly, begins this novel. So we know immediately how the story ends and, mostly, that it will not be happy.

It's Germany, before the War, in a small town. The PHILOSOPHER is Herr Bernhard Israel Veilchenfeld.* He moves to the town "after his release" and is "without connections." The citizens of the town begin to display a collective animus toward Veilchenfeld.

The underlying reason for this animus is never stated, but is obvious. As the author's son writes in the obligatory nyrb INTRODUCTION: Here are some of the words that do not appear in Our Philosopher: Jew, Nazi, Brownshirt, Blackshirt, Hitler, Nuremberg, Kristallnacht, victim, pogrom; nor, for that matter, minority, immigrant, race, persecution, lynching, Lives Matter, ethnic cleansing . . . But we have only to look at the time and the place and the philosopher's middle name.

Two of the very few people who are overtly kind to Veilchenfeld are the town's doctor and his young son, Hans. It is Hans who observes, hears, and narrates this story for us. This device is the book's artfulness. Through the innocence of a child we see the pieces of a picture puzzle come together in all its final truth.

Without comparing times and places (I am not doing that), I find the device nonetheless perhaps instructive. What would be reflected in a child's eyes of this year, and yesterday and today?

It isn't true that history can teach nothing; it is merely that there are no students.

Veilchenfeld, by his nature and his circumstances, preferred the company of his books to people. With the hope of relocating to Switzerland, Veilchenfeld has this discussion with Hans:

What does one take along, and what does one leave at home, asked Herr Veilchenfeld, and pulled more books off the shelves.
Surely you can't take all of them with you? I asked.
No, I can't carry all of them.
Then just take the ones you need with you.
But lad, said Herr Veilchenfeld, I actually need them all.

__________
*Translated into English as field of violets. Nice, but I'm not sure I got that as much as I should have. The translator added a translation key at the end of the book, translating German names into English because the words would have "additional meaning for anyone reading the novel in German." So we know of the citizens there is a plasterer, a vulture, an oats steward, a salvager, a bricklayer, a new man, a rich man, and a lamp cleaner. One man is just evil, or ice. Hans' sister, by the way, is nicknamed Gretel. Perhaps they have left clues on how to get home.

[Bogdan]

Ich habe schon von Beginn dieser Erzählung an erraten, dass ein bestimmtes Wort – ich glaube, das traurigste, das man auf Deutsch sagen oder schreiben kann –, im Grunde nur der Name eines Volkes, das von der Hauptfigur so still und schattenhaft verkörpert wird, nicht da sein, verschwiegen werden würde. Dieses Wort fehlt, wie viele andere, seine, sozusagen, entgegengesetzten Worte: die berühmten Verben, Ausdrücke, Adjektive, Gattungs- und Eigennamen, die auch viele von denen, die kein Deutsch können, kennen; Schreckworte, die in der jüngsten Geschichte schrill schreien und die noch in unseren Zeiten als Echos in zahlreichen Synonymen und Euphemismen gemein und perfide wiederholt und verwandelt werden. In Hofmanns Geschichte werden auch diese Worte verschwiegen.

Veilchenfelds „Verschwinden“ wird – charakteristisch für Hofmann (siehe auch Blindensturz) und sehr zutreffend für eine solche Geschichte, in der alle passiv oder aktiv involviert sind – von einem kollektiven Erzähler betrachtet: zwei Kinder, die ja mit einem begrenzten Wortschatz gesegnet sind.

Wenn wir ihn aber doch einmal auf der Straße gehen sahen, auf der Bordkante wie auf einem Seil, grüßte er uns zwar, aber wie auf der Folter, und sagte jedesmal: Bitte, keinem sagen, daß Sie mich gesehen haben. Je weniger von mir die Rede ist, um so besser. Oder: Ich bin bloß eine Erscheinung, pst, ich werde gleich verschwunden sein. Oder einfach: Vergessen Sie mich.“

(S.9)

Ich war tief berührt von Veilchenfelds demütiger Selbstironie. Ich glaube, dass seine Worte hier und anderswo in dem Buch von irgendwo jenseits menschlicher Weisheit kommen, von seinem Verstand, dass er niemandem und nie mehr für seine Mitmenschen sein muss. Er bietet ihnen sein Verschwinden an, da dies das Einzige ist, was sie sich von ihm wünschen.

Hofmann hat eine fast subliminale Weise, den Leser in die Pluralität der Erzählung einzumischen – „wir“ sind Zeugen und können sogar auch Komplizen sein. Die Kinder sagen weiter und geben wieder, was die anderen, die Erwachsenen, sagen und tun, und wir fühlen uns gefangen in einem Kleinstadt-Netzwerk, in dem die Einheimischen sich manchmal sehr rasch und leicht zu einer Meute zusammenschließen. Dort kann der Leser plötzlich zum passiven Zuschauer einer öffentlichen Verfolgung und Demütigung werden und die Schuld daran erleben.

Der erwachsene Leser kann aus der naiven Erzählung der Kinder sehr vieles erraten, die Lücken der Geschichte mit Fakten und mit der bekannten, ungeheuren Realität auffüllen. Sie wird aber dadurch nicht wirklicher und auch nicht relevanter. Die Geschichte wirkt, weil sie einfach und direkt erzählt wird von denen – den Kindern –, zu denen – nicht allen Erwachsenen –, die noch lernen können.

Es ist nicht wahr, daß die Geschichte nichts lehren könnte, ihr fehlen bloß die Schüler“, sagt Veilchenfeld.

(S. 23)

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The element of complicity, how a whole society can do unimaginable evil — and Nazi Germany is not the only example — is well told and made this short book an easy one to keep reading as I was interested to see how the characters react to the progression of events. Despite the book from the 1980s about a well-covered genocide from the angle of an individual in one small village, it isn’t hard to see the same apathy and anonymous complicity in our collective silent witness to current persecutions of Palestinians in Gaza, Armenians in Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Uyghurs in China, women in Afghanistan, homosexuals in Uganda, climate change, and sanity in the United States.

[Samuel Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was not just gas chambers. For some, it was death by a thousand cuts.

[Taylor Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little masterpiece. Harrowing, to be sure. More than stylistically competent.

[Fiona Erskine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down, though I didn’t want it to end.

This book was a gift from my 93 year old father-in-law who recommended it.

We know from the start how things will play out which makes the skill of the author all the more impressive. Narrated by a child who only half understands what is going on around him but is curious and attentive.

Utterly moving in its simplicity,

If you (like me) loved Perreira Maintains by Tabucchi then you might want to take a look. I can think of no higher praise.

[Adam Ferris · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the human head, even the modern one, everything, the most dangerous nonsense, is stirred in. After some time everything is accepted as natural, like shrubs and flowers."

[Clara Peng · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought every sentence of this was beautifully written. That’s my commentary.
“Sometimes, usually at night, a certain thought comes to a person, first as an obsession, then as a conviction, that doesn't let him sleep, Father says to us. The thought is hardly in his head when sleep is no longer possible. But at least for a couple of weeks it works for the person to push aside the thought, that will now always be there in the background, or at least not let the thought come near while falling sleep, and thus create a balance between thought and sleep. But in time, the thought becomes stronger and grows in meaning, consequence and significance, until it fills the room completely, including the bed. Of course then the thought is also lying within the breast of he who has it. Then the bed gets moved around from one corner to another in the hope that in this way you'll escape it, but the thought is everywhere. Meanwhile the strength to resist the thought diminishes and becomes weaker and finally hangs from the ceiling as a thin thread, and sleep hangs on the thread. So that the person then sleeps less and less and becomes convinced that he will never be able to sleep again, says Father to Mother and to me.”

[Evan Bertschy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reminded me of the film (based on the memoir), Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. Such an interesting and ever so real concept of taking the perspective of a young child during rapidly changing times. Seemingly they are less susceptible to propaganda and prejudice that is deeply learned in adults.

[Anh · Rating 5 out of 5]

But if a person doesn't think about somebody any more, surely he forgets him, I say.

[...] but few would notice the loss, so that one had to wonder if it was a loss at all.

from the perspectives of a kid, our philosopher's spirit (with its gradual decay) is simultaneously harrowing, heart-warming, and humorous, but never pitiful. But indeed it was very sad to say the very least.

The style of narration, of dialogue between the characters, in addition, lends a vibe (a confusion) midway between reported and directed speech.

Little gems, oh so many—

When one has not spoken at all for so long, despite a great compulsion to speak, says Herr Veilchenfeld, one would most like to use one's nails to scratch off oneself everything which has thus developed and matured in the course of time and fling it into one long sentence and wrap it around the unsuspecting audience. Hence, around you, he says.

It feels soothing somehow...

Do you know the feeling of losing yourself? Herr Veilchenfeld asks Father. Do you also lose yourself sometimes?
Without a doubt, Father says, stroking his beard.
In the landscape or in your thoughts?
In both, now and then, says Father.
Indeed, says Herr Veilchenfeld. The strength needed even just to cross the street, the strength to keep to something.

There is nothing that I could draw, it's all not worth it. There's no need to hold onto the world as it is, there's no point in that.

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published as Veilchenfeld in the original German, the book has appeared in several translations with both the French and English opting for the title Our Philosopher, or its equivalent, rather than the surname of the philosopher. The noun Veilchenfeld translates as “violet field” in English, which—certainly—would make for a clunky vague title. Additionally, the Herr is prominently missing from the German title. An unsuspecting German reader might well suspect that the book concerns a violet field and not a person, more specifically the philosopher Herr Bernhard Israel Veilchenfeld and a narrative of his persecution during events leading up to the Holocaust in the late 30’s.

Those with a background in German language or culture can surmise at names that are—at least to a German speaker—“Jewish.” These names are often common nouns rather than more “Germanic” names which indicate professions or where a character is from. Thus, a German speaker will immediately infer that Herr Veilchenfeld is Jewish, without being aware that his middle name is Israel. I mention this because the translator Eric Mace-Tessler saw fit to include an afterward, a “Note on the Text,” or rather a glossary of all the translations of German names that appear in the work. While these “Notes” may seem extraneous, they allude to the fact that German readers have natural cognitive associations with names, and—though the translator doesn’t say so deliberately because that would be too revealing—the name “Veilchenfeld” stands out as Jewish sounding especially compared to the other names in the novel, most of which are good German names or a Grimm villain-like varietion of a good German name.

Gert Hofmann’s novel presents a masterclass in utilizing an unreliable narrator, the 10-year-old Hans, the son of the town doctor, to relate the unfolding atrocities that he both sees and hears his parents discussing concerning their neighbor, the “retired” Herr Veilchenfeld, who was dismissed from his university position. Hans’ innocence and naiveté make him a perfect vehicle for presenting an understated narrative in which the persecution and physical assaults of Herr Veilchenfeld are related without judgement or horror. Hans, and his sister, the apt-named, Gretel, are not in a Brother Grimm Fairy tale, but in an east German industrial town where the natives are manifesting their anti-Semitism in brutal assaults. The narrator has no sense of his place in history or a real comprehension of the criminality and horror he is amid.

Gert Hofmann is known for radio plays as well as his novels. His ear for dialogue is exact, and it works to his favor in this work as the siblings ask obvious kid questions and are spoken to in the imperative by the parents, emphasizing just how young the narrator is and how unaware and relatively sheltered he is from the National Socialist and fascist reality around him. All the lacunae in the tale are due to the narrator’s age.

British author Ian McEwan wrote a blurb for the work and the author’s son, the translator Michael Hofmann, writes in his forward how much the book impressed McEwan. This makes perfect sense since McEwan’s best-known work, Atonement, also has a protagonist who is an unreliable narrator. Our Philosopher is as compelling as some works by Walter Kempowski and the diaries of Victor Klemperer.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another story of Nazi atrocities, but a well-crafted one. Told from the point of view of Hans, a precocious little boy, this novella chronicles the last three years of a Jewish professor of philosophy who takes his own life after a series of humiliations culminating in the withdrawal of his German citizenship. Expelled from his university, Herr Veilchenfeld has a brief respite in the unnamed small town where he hopes against all hope to be left alone. In fact, from the get-go he is ostracized by everybody except Hans's father, a doctor and a man of principles who carries on ministering to him even after it becomes dangerous to do so. For a while, Hans even takes drawing lessons with the old gentleman. When Veilchenfeld understands that he won't be even allowed to emigrate to Switzerland because German authorities have torn his passport to shreds in front of his eyes, he asks Hans to buy some vermin killer from the pharmacist for him. Hans fulfill his mission and becomes "very cheerful afterwards". Some readers seem to think that Hans is unaware of the connection between his purchase at the pharmacy and Veilchenfeld's death the following day, but I believe that on the contrary what makes Hans cheerful just after he has delivered the poison to his friend is his understanding that he has done all he could do for him.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a slim and melancholy read, and I feel as if I am missing quite a bit of context. The author is German, and although it was written in 1993, is set in the mid-1930s, and so mid-wars Germany. There is nothing overtly political about the plot, but it is impossible to ignore what is looming ahead for Germany as well as the rest of the world.

The setting is a quiet country town in the eastern German countryside, and the titular character is a suddenly (and apparently involuntarily) retired university professor. The narrator is a young boy, who admires the old man. Even when the rest of the townspeople look down on the dethroned professor, he still maintains a private smile and wink for the young lad, as if they have a secret understanding. The boy’s father is the village doctor, and one of the few who maintains connect with the old man, as he is a patient of his.

But the townfolk insist that he leave, and yet he cannot leave without papers, which are denied to him. So begins the vicious circle. The boy and his father do what they can, but it is not enough, and it does not end well.

Which leads me to wonder why a mid-century German author would write this? He wrote very few books in his lifetime by the way. We were not all monsters? Things just sort of happened? I really don’t know, but I feel something is here that I don’t get.

[Kristopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthy of a Forms of Fiction syllabus. A masterclass in both frame narrative and show-don’t-tell, the latter of which hits especially hard with the specter of the Holocaust hanging overhead.

“It isn’t true that history can teach nothing, it’s merely that there are no students.”

“In philosophizing, one is not above the people, but rather stands at their side.”

“Herr Veilchenfeld, Father says, can sit over a book all day and, connected through the book with centuries and millennia, he can listen into the past. He sits at his table, his hand on his forehead, squints into his room, leans forward, then back, then closes his eyes and hears the voices of the past, not with his ears, but with his head, each voice clearly distinguished from the others, entire choruses of the past, and, with his own silent voice, he calls through his study and into the corridor and out the open bedroom window and, at apple tree height, over his rear garden and our Amselgrund away into landscapes and times and he makes himself heard from his chair, with his slightly Saxon accent.”

“And he sat in the cold and in the dark and let the time pass by and he saw his philosophy dissolved amidst his boredom and his fear of death, Father says. He hardly even drummed on the empty tabletop with his frozen fingers, so that he could at least hear himself in the surrounding silence.”

[Kim Shively · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes a little time to realize what's going on. The philosopher and the narrator's father have a philosophical conversation, and it's inconclusive in the way such conversations often are. I thought this would just go on for a while, but suddenly, a rock crashes through the window and voices outside demand that the philosopher come out and face the mob. It just gets more intense from there.

The book provides a child's eye view of the increasing violence against Jews in Germany at the end of the 1930s. It starts with the individual acts of violence, but the roles of institutions in antisemitic attacks becomes ever clearer. It doesn't end well - and one wouldn't expect it to.

I was sometimes a little irritated by the narrator's voice. I appreciated how he got his information piecemeal, through snatches of overheard conversations or glimpses through windows. But the voice didn't sound like a 10-year-old's most the time. It's a small criticism.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently purchased an annual membership to the NYRB bookclub, which indicate their mission is provide an eclectic selection of books from various eras, and this is the first edition I received. This book was a compelling read, describing the rise of fascism in Germany specifically focusing on a child's recollection of a certain professor's death. The child's fragmented recollection of events were horrifying because the reader knows the child is revealing the collective behaviour that resulted in the Nazis' "final solution". I think Hofmann's juxtaposition of an innocent child versus horrific behaviour was possibly the most effective tool I have encountered in a fictionalized account of a shameful time in human history.

[Loocuh Frayshure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rock solid 9/10. Intelligent, impeccable writing that astonishingly, delicately, painstakingly captures the events of the story via a child narrator. Hans has only inklings of what is going on, and despite this novel being set in 1930s Nazi Germany, Hofmann trusts you as a reader to not be a fucking idiot and doesn’t once say Hitler, Nazi, Jew, or anything like that.

Simply put, this is probably one of the best Holocaust novels I’ve encountered. For its form, its pain, and its deliberate capture of the insanity that so often grips those whose wits are dull with hate. The scene of the father with the injured farmer/woodworker was absolutely phenomenal.

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

The point of view is that of a young boy whose physician father is caring for a relocated retired academic. As the boy watches, the man, Veilchenfeld, is isolated and made an outcast. Although no historical mention is made, it is apparent that this takes place in Nazi Germany.

The German title is Veilchenfeld, the name of the philosopher, which means "field of violets." There is a glossary of German words in the back that should be consulted as the names of the people and places have layers of meaning in German.

This was the Oct. 2023 selection of the NYRB Classics club.

[Salela · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very creative approach to describing the subjective experience of the persecuted and the persecutors as seen through the eyes of a child. It demonstrates how a person can be destroyed/erased by fully rendering them invisible. I doubt this novel would have much meaning, however, for those who are not already well versed in the history of the Nazi’s systemic approach to brainwashing an entire society.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our Philosopher by Gert Hoffman is so unlike something l've read... A peculiar scene of philosopher Herr Veilchenfeld's life in the 1930s is painted and i'm so completely overcome by the series of events he endures. At times it is incredibly sad and morally inadequate which is what i think elicited such empathy within me. Heavily intertwined with the naïveté of the young boy narrator and the recounted events it creates a highly reflective tone to the book. The art of observing and questioning the nature of individuals is (imo) perfectly executed here and i def want to re-read this.

[Lizzy Frykman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sickening portrayal of how a community blatantly excludes and villainizes a man to the point of death. A tale of the holocaust, of the treatment of Jewish individuals, of a whole nation buying into an ideology, all told through the eyes of a child.

Some of the book moved slowly and I’m not sure that the narrative style was my favorite, but it certainly added a childlike frame for such a sad story, and further extended the tragedy of the events.

[Herb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally written in 1986, this odd little novel about the persecution of a Jewish professor by "Brown Shirts" in a small 1938 German town is a portrait of the inter-war years and the lead-up to the mass extermination of the Holocaust. It held my interest well, but is probably not for evrybody.

[Louise Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant -- almost a parable-- showing how society descends into a kind of folly little by little by little until it is violent and utterly mad. And who knew Gert Hoftmann was the father of Michael Hofmann the translator. Wonderful

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this super interesting. Dunno if I wish I had or wish I hadn’t read the intro first. Finding out what the book is about, through admittedly quite obvious clues, is so fun, maybe more fun when you aren’t prepared for it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

[Chr*s Browning]

October 2023 NYRB Book Club Selection
Don't have much to say about this one, midcentury German lit remains hard to parse for me, but certainly tragic in its way.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable short novel, restrained in its language (and translation), in which the truth and reality of what’s happening slowly emerges to the reader. Lots to unpack here.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

In terms of narrative, it’s closer to four stars than five. However, the power of the story, and the twist towards the end, make this inarguably (IMHO) a great and powerful book.

[Desmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting perspective on a heavy topic.

[Ejansand · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sad but rewarding little novel of the rise of Nazism from a child’s perspective. Vielchenfeld is fraught with a palpable sadness.

[Michael]

Why the novel has this title in English, which isn’t so catchy that it should usurp the novel’s lovely actual title, Veilchenfeld, is beyond me. It’s the sort of thing that makes me want to write someone a strongly-worded letter.

Hofmann pulls off something remarkable here. Refracting the progress of the Third Reich’s persecution of Jews through the ambivalent consciousness of a German child, he does in under 200 pages what Hans Fallada cannot do in 500: he places us in hell immediately and keeps us there, without a hint of melodrama and precious little sentiment. Hofmann has an interesting, porous narrative strategy: the boy’s awareness seems, at times, to encompass or pass through that of his parents or other Germans, but never Professor Veilchenfeld himself. The boy is perhaps more kindly disposed toward the old philosopher than anyone else in the novel; that the door is barred to the professor’s consciousness is therefore a powerful touch, and it creates a vacuum around the hapless, kind, civilized victim—the “field of violets” in the midst of scorched earth—who gives the novel its true name.

Touching, suffocating, little-read, and really good.