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The Pages: A novel
Narrated in the voice of Joseph Roth's masterpiece Rebellion, Hugo Hamilton's stunning, formally inventive new novel tells the life story of that book, initially rescued from the Nazi book-burning in Berlin in May 1933. It recounts the life of its Austrian-Jewish author, a writer on the run, and his intriguing wife Friederike who fell victim to mental illness.
And it tells a multitude of other stories: of Adreas Pum, a barrel-organ player down on his luck; of a young German American woman who finds a small map drawn by hand on its own blank page in the back, a thrilling mystery which will lead her to Berlin, the book's birthplace.
The Pages carries profound echoes from the past into the present day and is an inspiring story of the survival of literature over a hundred years.
And it tells a multitude of other stories: of Adreas Pum, a barrel-organ player down on his luck; of a young German American woman who finds a small map drawn by hand on its own blank page in the back, a thrilling mystery which will lead her to Berlin, the book's birthplace.
The Pages carries profound echoes from the past into the present day and is an inspiring story of the survival of literature over a hundred years.
305 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2021
156 people are currently reading
5529 people want to read
About the author
Hugo Hamilton
38 books92 followersHugo Hamilton is an Irish writer.
Hamilton's mother was a German who travelled to Ireland in 1949 for a pilgrimage, married an Irishman, and settled in the country. His father was a militant nationalist who insisted that his children should speak only German or Irish, but not English, a prohibition the young Hugo resisted inwardly. "The prohibition against English made me see that language as a challenge. Even as a child I spoke to the walls in English and secretly rehearsed dialogue I heard outside," he wrote later.
As a consequence of this, he grew up with three languages - English, Irish and German - and a sense of never really belonging to any: "There were no other children like me, no ethnic groups that I could attach myself to".
Hamilton became a journalist, and then a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998.
Following a year spent in Berlin on a cultural scholarship, he completed his memoir of childhood, The Speckled People (2003), which went on to achieve widespread international acclaim. Telling the story through the eyes of his childhood self, it painfully evoked the struggle to make sense of a bizarre adult world. It "triumphantly avoids the Angela's Ashes style of sentimental nostalgia and victim claims," wrote Hermione Lee in the The Guardian . "The cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art," commented James Lasdun in the New York Times. The story is picked up in the 2006 volume, The Sailor in the Wardrobe.
In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel (The Talkative Island), in which Hamilton retraced the journey Heinrich Böll made in Ireland that was to be the basis of his bestselling book Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) in 1957. Hamilton's most recent novel, Disguise was published on June 6, 2008.
Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ham...
Hamilton's mother was a German who travelled to Ireland in 1949 for a pilgrimage, married an Irishman, and settled in the country. His father was a militant nationalist who insisted that his children should speak only German or Irish, but not English, a prohibition the young Hugo resisted inwardly. "The prohibition against English made me see that language as a challenge. Even as a child I spoke to the walls in English and secretly rehearsed dialogue I heard outside," he wrote later.
As a consequence of this, he grew up with three languages - English, Irish and German - and a sense of never really belonging to any: "There were no other children like me, no ethnic groups that I could attach myself to".
Hamilton became a journalist, and then a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998.
Following a year spent in Berlin on a cultural scholarship, he completed his memoir of childhood, The Speckled People (2003), which went on to achieve widespread international acclaim. Telling the story through the eyes of his childhood self, it painfully evoked the struggle to make sense of a bizarre adult world. It "triumphantly avoids the Angela's Ashes style of sentimental nostalgia and victim claims," wrote Hermione Lee in the The Guardian . "The cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art," commented James Lasdun in the New York Times. The story is picked up in the 2006 volume, The Sailor in the Wardrobe.
In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel (The Talkative Island), in which Hamilton retraced the journey Heinrich Böll made in Ireland that was to be the basis of his bestselling book Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) in 1957. Hamilton's most recent novel, Disguise was published on June 6, 2008.
Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ham...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
January 13, 2022
Call me INTRIGUED!
Initially….
The book synopsis describes this as a novel in which a book, Joseph Roth’s Rebellion, narrates its own story from when it was published in 1924, through the present day.
When the story begins, it is in the VOICE of a 1st edition copy, once in pristine condition, but now buried in its current owner’s handbag, along with a passport, a cell phone, a half eaten pastry and other assorted items. The book had been given to Lena Knecht, by her father, from his death bed-with explicit instructions to protect the book as if it were her little brother. She has no idea of it’s history.
Now, it is defaced with a hand drawn map, written on an empty page toward the back, and has some annotations written in the margins by its original owner, David Gluckstein, a Jewish Professor of German Literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin. The map leads to something buried for safekeeping on his wedding night-a mystery to be solved.
The book also smells faintly of smoke, from the night it was saved from being burnt, in 1933, one of the books banned by Hitler for having a Jewish author, in NAZI Germany.
Lena, an artist herself, has decided to return to Germany from the U.S., in hopes of inspiring her Art, and finding what is buried.
I was not familiar with the book “Rebellion” or Austrian journalist and author Joseph Roth, so I didn’t realize that this was inspired by an actual book or people. Only true book lovers would understand the lengths that people went to-to protect or destroy things that meant something to them-whether it was BOOKS, , or what was buried at the end of a map.
But, WORDS are so powerful.
Only writing kept Joseph sane during the War when he lost others he cared about to mental illness or worse, and his story is meaningful, as are all of the stories from this part of history, including that of the book’s first owner.
Unfortunately though, “The Pages” lost sight of the POV of our 1st edition copy of “Rebellion” which began the narrative, and it appeared only occasionally as the tale unfolded, so it didn’t QUITE deliver the format promised. I found myself tempted to skim.
Call me bored…
Still, it may offer a fresh take for readers who enjoy reading Historical Fiction from WW2.
A buddy read with DeAnn-be sure to check out her amazing review to see if she agreed! 💝
Available February 1, 2022
Thank You to the Knopf Publishing Group for the gifted copy provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!
Initially….
The book synopsis describes this as a novel in which a book, Joseph Roth’s Rebellion, narrates its own story from when it was published in 1924, through the present day.
When the story begins, it is in the VOICE of a 1st edition copy, once in pristine condition, but now buried in its current owner’s handbag, along with a passport, a cell phone, a half eaten pastry and other assorted items. The book had been given to Lena Knecht, by her father, from his death bed-with explicit instructions to protect the book as if it were her little brother. She has no idea of it’s history.
Now, it is defaced with a hand drawn map, written on an empty page toward the back, and has some annotations written in the margins by its original owner, David Gluckstein, a Jewish Professor of German Literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin. The map leads to something buried for safekeeping on his wedding night-a mystery to be solved.
The book also smells faintly of smoke, from the night it was saved from being burnt, in 1933, one of the books banned by Hitler for having a Jewish author, in NAZI Germany.
Lena, an artist herself, has decided to return to Germany from the U.S., in hopes of inspiring her Art, and finding what is buried.
I was not familiar with the book “Rebellion” or Austrian journalist and author Joseph Roth, so I didn’t realize that this was inspired by an actual book or people. Only true book lovers would understand the lengths that people went to-to protect or destroy things that meant something to them-whether it was BOOKS, , or what was buried at the end of a map.
But, WORDS are so powerful.
Only writing kept Joseph sane during the War when he lost others he cared about to mental illness or worse, and his story is meaningful, as are all of the stories from this part of history, including that of the book’s first owner.
Unfortunately though, “The Pages” lost sight of the POV of our 1st edition copy of “Rebellion” which began the narrative, and it appeared only occasionally as the tale unfolded, so it didn’t QUITE deliver the format promised. I found myself tempted to skim.
Call me bored…
Still, it may offer a fresh take for readers who enjoy reading Historical Fiction from WW2.
A buddy read with DeAnn-be sure to check out her amazing review to see if she agreed! 💝
Available February 1, 2022
Thank You to the Knopf Publishing Group for the gifted copy provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!
July 25, 2021
While watching documentaries showing the pyres onto which books were burnt during the Nazi regime, I sometimes wondered if there had been people courageous enough to save any book indexed by the Nazis. Mr Hamilton offers us a tale of a novel by Joseph Roth which escaped the fire and was given to a young American woman by her father with a request to take the utmost care of it.
The voice is given to the novel itself, The Rebellion, and this voice is poignant, especially during the scenes of the Nazi intrusion into the library. The book as the narrator is an original idea which results in intimacy between a reader and the narrator. The stories of the American couple, siblings from Chechnya rescued from the war, Joseph Roth and his wife, and a mysterious map drawn by the book's first owner, are all linked, and the author exqusitely blends the past with the present, the fiction with the real events.
An unputdownable read for me ...
*Many thanks to Hugo Hamilton, 4th Estate and William Collins, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
The voice is given to the novel itself, The Rebellion, and this voice is poignant, especially during the scenes of the Nazi intrusion into the library. The book as the narrator is an original idea which results in intimacy between a reader and the narrator. The stories of the American couple, siblings from Chechnya rescued from the war, Joseph Roth and his wife, and a mysterious map drawn by the book's first owner, are all linked, and the author exqusitely blends the past with the present, the fiction with the real events.
An unputdownable read for me ...
*Many thanks to Hugo Hamilton, 4th Estate and William Collins, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
April 1, 2022
German students under the Nazi regime burning thousands of books
Shortly before the pandemic I received a call at work. The embarrassed librarian on the other end wanted to know about replacing a book her library had borrowed from ours.
The book was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. The woman explained that one of their volunteers thought its title was indecent and thus wasn't proper reading material, not just for her but for everyone.
She ripped the book up and threw it away.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who think they can decide for everyone what should and shouldn't be read. Or listened to. Or looked at. Or even who should be loved.
Those who are afraid to think for themselves, or who think it's too hard, would love to abolish free thought. They want a set of parameters dictating not just how and what they should think, but how and what everyone should think.
Dictators of all kinds rely on these people: to control a population you must first control their thoughts.
This is why books are challenged and banned. This is why books are burned. This is why people are killed who refuse to give up their own thoughts.
The Pages is about one such book that the Nazis wished to destroy.
The narrator of this novel is Rebellion, or one copy of it in particular. Its owner, a Jewish professor, passed it on to a student of his for safekeeping. On May 10, 1933, this student smuggled it away from the university in Berlin where upwards of 25,000 books were burned (see photo above).
While that is historical fact, the journey of this copy of Rebellion is fiction. It is an incredible tale of one book and the various people whose hands it passed through over the decades.
It is extremely well written and when I first began reading, I thought this would be a five star novel. I was in love with the way Hugo Hamilton writes.
Had there not been a modern-day romantic element running through the story, I'm sure it would have been five bold, non-book-burning stars. Readers who enjoy, or at least do not mind, exploring women-man relationships might give it five stars, but for me, those parts just made my eyes roll and skim.
However, the fact that I'm still giving it four stars is a testament to how well written and engaging it is. How exquisite. The author's choice to have the copy of Rebellion narrate is genius. Its insights into the lives of the human characters are profound.
We are held witness to the Nazis destruction of not only books and ideas but of people too -- the Jewish, the disabled, those in the LGBQT+ community. We are reminded of the danger of "othering" and fearing differences.
It is a wonderful book, though unfortunately its message is all too prescient. Intellectual freedom is still at stake.
The thing I love most about the American Library Association is its commitment to academic freedom and freedom of information and its opposition to censorship. The volunteer who destroyed our book obviously had not read the ALA's Code of Ethics.
In contrast -- Two weeks ago a patron asked for a book that is not in our consortium. I don't recall the title but it was about homosexuality being a sin, against the Bible, an abomination, blah blah blah.
As a lesbian, I am offended by that. However, it is not my position nor inclination to say what someone else should think or read, and I happily got a copy of the book for him.
Okay, maybe "happily" is stretching it.....
February 1, 2022
2 not the book for me stars
I liked the idea of this book – the pages of a book telling us the story – but that’s about all I liked about it. I can’t really summarize the plot because I feel like it hopped around all over the place and unfortunately, I was not captivated to read it, in fact, I was bored. I had to put it down and pick it up later to finish.
I must admit I hadn’t heard of Joseph Roth nor his masterpiece “Rebellion” so that was something new to me. Roth is one of the characters and we learn a bit about his life and his wife’s struggle with mental health just at the outbreak of WWII.
Then there’s the mystery of the map drawn into the book and one of the characters wants to find the location.
I’m afraid that I just wasn’t the reader for this book, I’ve read some strong reviews of people that really liked it, so it might work for you. This was a buddy read with Jayme, be sure to read her review!
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for the chance to read and review this one.
I liked the idea of this book – the pages of a book telling us the story – but that’s about all I liked about it. I can’t really summarize the plot because I feel like it hopped around all over the place and unfortunately, I was not captivated to read it, in fact, I was bored. I had to put it down and pick it up later to finish.
I must admit I hadn’t heard of Joseph Roth nor his masterpiece “Rebellion” so that was something new to me. Roth is one of the characters and we learn a bit about his life and his wife’s struggle with mental health just at the outbreak of WWII.
Then there’s the mystery of the map drawn into the book and one of the characters wants to find the location.
I’m afraid that I just wasn’t the reader for this book, I’ve read some strong reviews of people that really liked it, so it might work for you. This was a buddy read with Jayme, be sure to read her review!
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for the chance to read and review this one.
January 17, 2022
The premise, a book telling its history from its own point of view, had me hooked right away. And at first, I absolutely loved the fact that it was a character, telling the story in first person. But as more characters were drawn into the story, that pov quickly disappeared, only to resurface intermittently and that was a pity.
The story starts during the 30's in Germany, where the book "Rebellion" is saved from being burned at the stake, organized by right-wing students. It then travels from keeper to keeper, to end up in the States in the hands of Lena, who decides to return to Germany to find out about a map that has been drawn at the end of the book. This is a first thread; the second being the story of the author of "Rebellion", Joseph Roth, a third one is the story told in Rebellion. The main problem I had was that a lot of other characters were drawn in very shortly. We get little bits and pieces of one's mother, child, friend, colleague, landlord, etc. The list goes on and on, and every tidbit doesn't contribute to the story. I think the author did this to create a flow of writing mimicking the main theme of dislocation and confusion of the main characters. Roots and identity are broken and every one of them tries to get cohesion and belonging in other ways. There are some references to Ulysses, and I find the author to be influenced by James Joyce, an author I never managed to finish. So, I wasn't surprised that I almost DNF "The pages" half way through.
But nonetheless, I somehow still got pulled back, despite the disjointed storytelling and the horrible and flat characters, none of which pulled me in. But I got through to the end, which I found very anticlimactic. Maybe it's me and my subpar memory, but I didn't even know who the characters that are essential to the denouement were anymore; in my perception they just got swamped with all the others of which I thought they were just random little side-stories.
All in all, very intriguing and original to start with, but it didn't deliver what I was hoping.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Knopf Publishing Group and the author for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
The story starts during the 30's in Germany, where the book "Rebellion" is saved from being burned at the stake, organized by right-wing students. It then travels from keeper to keeper, to end up in the States in the hands of Lena, who decides to return to Germany to find out about a map that has been drawn at the end of the book. This is a first thread; the second being the story of the author of "Rebellion", Joseph Roth, a third one is the story told in Rebellion. The main problem I had was that a lot of other characters were drawn in very shortly. We get little bits and pieces of one's mother, child, friend, colleague, landlord, etc. The list goes on and on, and every tidbit doesn't contribute to the story. I think the author did this to create a flow of writing mimicking the main theme of dislocation and confusion of the main characters. Roots and identity are broken and every one of them tries to get cohesion and belonging in other ways. There are some references to Ulysses, and I find the author to be influenced by James Joyce, an author I never managed to finish. So, I wasn't surprised that I almost DNF "The pages" half way through.
But nonetheless, I somehow still got pulled back, despite the disjointed storytelling and the horrible and flat characters, none of which pulled me in. But I got through to the end, which I found very anticlimactic. Maybe it's me and my subpar memory, but I didn't even know who the characters that are essential to the denouement were anymore; in my perception they just got swamped with all the others of which I thought they were just random little side-stories.
All in all, very intriguing and original to start with, but it didn't deliver what I was hoping.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Knopf Publishing Group and the author for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 14, 2022
This book employs a very interesting device. The story is told by the book “Rebellion”, published in 1924 by Joseph Roth. This volume escaped being burned in Germany when a professor gave it to one of his students. It was passed down in the student’s family and eventually wound up with Lena, an American artist. Lena becomes obsessed with tracking down the location that is depicted in a hand drawn map in the back of the volume.
I found the execution of this book very confusing. It skipped around, without warning, among the story of Lena in Germany, two Chechen siblings Lena meets, Roth and his wife as she sinks into mental illness and the plot of Rebellion. There are also side stories, one of which figures in the poignant ending of the book. The author subtly draws parallels between the period between the world wars and today. I liked this book, didn’t love it. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
I found the execution of this book very confusing. It skipped around, without warning, among the story of Lena in Germany, two Chechen siblings Lena meets, Roth and his wife as she sinks into mental illness and the plot of Rebellion. There are also side stories, one of which figures in the poignant ending of the book. The author subtly draws parallels between the period between the world wars and today. I liked this book, didn’t love it. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
July 23, 2023
Ein Roman voller Tragödien.
March 5, 2021
A fascinating collage of a book, filled with echoes and connections. The stories that proliferate tend to be linked by suggestion rather than anything too obvious or contrived: the author Joseph Roth and his wife, both persecuted by the Nazi regime; the contemporary artist Lena and the Chechen Armin who face different kinds of dangers; the journalist, Anna Polikovskaya, murdered after reporting from Chechnya; a couple arrested and separated at their wedding. And the book itself - an edition of Roth's Rebellion- which is narrator of this story but also crucially implicated in it, as it is passed through history, contains a mysterious drawn map which links past and present, and, after escaping burning by the Nazis, ends up pierced by a bullet hole: 'the pagination of holes aligned themselves into a high-velocity tunnel that left behind the shape of hatred. It was part of my life story now.'
This is, for me, a book where the whole is greater than the parts: there are some technical issues where the book tells us what's happening to a character when it is somewhere else completely and so cannot have this knowledge; the writing is sometimes just a bit woolly; there are places where the pace drops, where the narrative thread feels like it's been lost - yet the sum of parts combine to say something meaningful about love and life, art and death, history and memory. Not, perhaps, as formally innovative as it might have been but with real heart.
Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
This is, for me, a book where the whole is greater than the parts: there are some technical issues where the book tells us what's happening to a character when it is somewhere else completely and so cannot have this knowledge; the writing is sometimes just a bit woolly; there are places where the pace drops, where the narrative thread feels like it's been lost - yet the sum of parts combine to say something meaningful about love and life, art and death, history and memory. Not, perhaps, as formally innovative as it might have been but with real heart.
Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
December 20, 2023
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Literary Fiction
"The Pages" by Hugo Hamilton is a story that spans both time and place and weaves together two different stories. At some point in the past, in 1933, Jewish novelist Joseph Roth wrote his final piece in Nazi Germany, surrendering his novel "Rebellion" to a hiding place within volumes that are prohibited from circulation. Meanwhile, in the current day, contemporary artist Lena Knecht inherits the book and finds a mysterious map hidden among its blank pages.
The concept of this novel is fantastic. The book itself acts as a character in the story and narrates everything in the past and present. The story is narrated in first person style, and through the book’s eye and experience with humans, we get to see how the book itself becomes a symbol of resistance against censorship and oppression. I think the author has done such a good job of highlighting the different ideologies that the book itself had to go through.
When it comes to the notion itself, the thought that lies behind it is quite good, and the prose that is written is exquisitely executed. On the other hand, I believe that the numerous characters that are present make it difficult to develop them through the course of a novel that is less than 350 pages long. And this is where the book is lacking in quality. Because I did not spend sufficient time with those characters, it was challenging for me to develop a sense of attachment to what they represented. In some respects, this plot brings to mind the novel Fahrenheit 451. They have similar concepts but different stories and executions. I am still of the opinion that you should read it and enjoy the rich themes it offers.
Genre: Literary Fiction
"The Pages" by Hugo Hamilton is a story that spans both time and place and weaves together two different stories. At some point in the past, in 1933, Jewish novelist Joseph Roth wrote his final piece in Nazi Germany, surrendering his novel "Rebellion" to a hiding place within volumes that are prohibited from circulation. Meanwhile, in the current day, contemporary artist Lena Knecht inherits the book and finds a mysterious map hidden among its blank pages.
The concept of this novel is fantastic. The book itself acts as a character in the story and narrates everything in the past and present. The story is narrated in first person style, and through the book’s eye and experience with humans, we get to see how the book itself becomes a symbol of resistance against censorship and oppression. I think the author has done such a good job of highlighting the different ideologies that the book itself had to go through.
When it comes to the notion itself, the thought that lies behind it is quite good, and the prose that is written is exquisitely executed. On the other hand, I believe that the numerous characters that are present make it difficult to develop them through the course of a novel that is less than 350 pages long. And this is where the book is lacking in quality. Because I did not spend sufficient time with those characters, it was challenging for me to develop a sense of attachment to what they represented. In some respects, this plot brings to mind the novel Fahrenheit 451. They have similar concepts but different stories and executions. I am still of the opinion that you should read it and enjoy the rich themes it offers.
July 19, 2021
If books could speak, what would they tell of the people in whose hands they have been? This is what happens in Hugo Hamilton’ extraordinary novel.
Our narrator is a rare copy of Joseph Roth’s 1924 Rebellion, a novella about Andreas Pum, a WW1 veteran with a prosthetic leg who lives contentedly playing the barrel organ in Vienna. His faith in the state is destroyed when he goes to jail for futile reasons. Its Jewish German author Joseph Roth documented the crumbling of the democratic ideals of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and emigrated to Paris where he died an alcoholic in 1939.
The book tells us of its adventurous life, of how it escaped the Nazi fire and was hidden inside a copy of Theodor Fontane’s 1894 novel Effi Briest, making it through Nazis and Stasi, how years later it got into the hands of Lena, its saviour’s granddaughter and an artist with a relationship in crisis, and was lost, found and returned by Armin, a Chechen refugee whose sister is a musician with a prosthetic leg. A mysterious map sketched inside the book and a ripped page with a swastika on it will bring the two together to solve the riddles and face the challenges.
This is the main plot, which is quite simple and a mere pretext for this polyphonic novel to skilfully bring together a number of different strands: Andreas Pum’s story, the tense story of the book itself and the DDR family that kept it, Lena’s father fate as a German immigrant in racist America, Armin’s tragic past, his sister’s relationship with a racist stalker. A particular place is occupied by Roth’s complex, attentively researched character, shown as both persecuted man, a confused individual and a womaniser who committed his sensual wife to an asylum. Closely intertwined with the theme of racist and fascist strains, the novel also offers a very nuanced exploration of toxic masculinity, guilt, and betrayal: it is not a coincidence that Rebellion was physically and symbolically encased inside Effi Briest, a seminal texts defining the 19th-century fallen woman plot (Effi is cast away by her husband for a kiss with a young officer many years earlier and dies in misery). References to this and other literary texts also feature in the novel, adding to the multivocality and multiplying meanings and making this an incredibly learned book.
The result is an amazing, timely novel that feels like a kaleidoscope, elegantly and carefully weaving the different stories into a complex narrative that is like a game of sliding doors, where the ills of the past are still haunting the present and the undercurrent of violence that plague European history reach us in different disguise, and books are here to remind us. What is incredible is how much Hamilton can pack in a short text: this happens because his writing is elegant, assured, scintillating and wonderfully accomplished.
I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Our narrator is a rare copy of Joseph Roth’s 1924 Rebellion, a novella about Andreas Pum, a WW1 veteran with a prosthetic leg who lives contentedly playing the barrel organ in Vienna. His faith in the state is destroyed when he goes to jail for futile reasons. Its Jewish German author Joseph Roth documented the crumbling of the democratic ideals of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and emigrated to Paris where he died an alcoholic in 1939.
The book tells us of its adventurous life, of how it escaped the Nazi fire and was hidden inside a copy of Theodor Fontane’s 1894 novel Effi Briest, making it through Nazis and Stasi, how years later it got into the hands of Lena, its saviour’s granddaughter and an artist with a relationship in crisis, and was lost, found and returned by Armin, a Chechen refugee whose sister is a musician with a prosthetic leg. A mysterious map sketched inside the book and a ripped page with a swastika on it will bring the two together to solve the riddles and face the challenges.
This is the main plot, which is quite simple and a mere pretext for this polyphonic novel to skilfully bring together a number of different strands: Andreas Pum’s story, the tense story of the book itself and the DDR family that kept it, Lena’s father fate as a German immigrant in racist America, Armin’s tragic past, his sister’s relationship with a racist stalker. A particular place is occupied by Roth’s complex, attentively researched character, shown as both persecuted man, a confused individual and a womaniser who committed his sensual wife to an asylum. Closely intertwined with the theme of racist and fascist strains, the novel also offers a very nuanced exploration of toxic masculinity, guilt, and betrayal: it is not a coincidence that Rebellion was physically and symbolically encased inside Effi Briest, a seminal texts defining the 19th-century fallen woman plot (Effi is cast away by her husband for a kiss with a young officer many years earlier and dies in misery). References to this and other literary texts also feature in the novel, adding to the multivocality and multiplying meanings and making this an incredibly learned book.
The result is an amazing, timely novel that feels like a kaleidoscope, elegantly and carefully weaving the different stories into a complex narrative that is like a game of sliding doors, where the ills of the past are still haunting the present and the undercurrent of violence that plague European history reach us in different disguise, and books are here to remind us. What is incredible is how much Hamilton can pack in a short text: this happens because his writing is elegant, assured, scintillating and wonderfully accomplished.
I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
September 11, 2022
This novel is narrated by a book -- a first edition of Die Rebellion (in English translation Rebellion) by Joseph Roth, published in 1924 in Germany. Part of the story is how this particular book survived the book burnings in May 1933 in Germany. David Gluckstein was a Jewish professor of German literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin who, on the night of book burnings, entrusted his copy of the book to one of his students Dieter Knecht. Dieter passed the book on to his son, who passed it on to his U.S.-born daughter Lena Knecht, with instructions to "Look after this book like a little brother." Part of the story is the biography of the book's author Joseph Roth (1895-1939) and his wife Friederike (1900-1940). Part of the story is the content of the novel Rebellion, telling of a World War I German war veteran Andreas Pum who has lost a leg in the war and becomes a licensed barrel organ player.
But the overarching story is that of Lena Knecht's travels with the book. Lena is a visual artist. "In artistic terms, Lena Knecht would describe herself as a thief. Her work makes use of images selected at random from other media." She is intrigued by a map hand-sketched into the back of the copy of Rebellion that she received from her father. Not long after her marriage to Mike, at the age of 29, she sets off from New York to Germany thinking to uncover whatever the map might reveal to inspire her art. And here is where the story wraps into the plot of intertwining cultures and backgrounds and individual character histories that lead to a single afternoon in a rural area of the former East Germany. To say more would spoil the story.
But the overarching story is that of Lena Knecht's travels with the book. Lena is a visual artist. "In artistic terms, Lena Knecht would describe herself as a thief. Her work makes use of images selected at random from other media." She is intrigued by a map hand-sketched into the back of the copy of Rebellion that she received from her father. Not long after her marriage to Mike, at the age of 29, she sets off from New York to Germany thinking to uncover whatever the map might reveal to inspire her art. And here is where the story wraps into the plot of intertwining cultures and backgrounds and individual character histories that lead to a single afternoon in a rural area of the former East Germany. To say more would spoil the story.
September 8, 2021
Fantastic story told by a book: Rebellion by Joseph Roth. I thoroughly enjoyed the set up and the biographical pieces about Roth's life.
November 10, 2022
A first-edition of Joseph Roth’s short novel, Rebellion, was rescued from a Nazi book-burning in 1933 and passed down as a precious family artifact to young artist Lena Knecht by her German-born grandfather and father. Intrigued by a hand-drawn map in the book, Lena travels to Germany hoping to unearth its meaning. The narrator of Hugo Hamilton’s wonderful novel is the book itself, a risky but rewarding literary choice that weaves past and present and includes heartbreaking passages about the life of “my author,” Joseph Roth himself, and his wife Friedl. The publisher’s blurb calls this a book for book lovers. I agree.
May 15, 2022
The narrator in this compelling novel is a first edition book, written a hundred years ago by Joseph Roth and called Rebellion, about a man who loses his leg in the first world war and is given a license to become a barrel organ player, his sole means of livelihood, allowing him to feel useful and part of his city, Berlin. This very edition was saved from a Nazi book burning in Berlin in 1933 and now is in the hands of Lena Knacht, a NYC artist who inherited it from her father. At the back of the book is a hand-drawn map and Lena, looking for a new avenue for her art, wants to go to Germany and find out what the map relates to. The Pages is many things - a quest novel, a love story, and variants of love stories, a biography of Roth, the writer, and his mentally ill wife, as well as providing bits of the story contained in Rebellion, a multiplicity of narrators demonstrating the interconnectedness of time, the relationship between past and past, nationalism, identity, and the resemblances between one bad nationalistic time and another. I was completely immersed in the story, in the fine writing, I felt this story deep in my bones and my heart.
April 18, 2022
Tre stelle per le pagine sulla vita di Joseph Roth, uno dei miei scrittori preferiti.
Bella l'idea iniziale di far parlare il libro, poteva essere una bella storia ma l'autore proprio non ce l'ha fatta.
Non mi e' piaciuto il parallelo fra la II Guerra Mondiale e la guerra in Cecenia, non mi e' piaciuta la scrittura, molto piatta, non mi e' piaciuta la storia: sinceramente, penso che questo libro sia molto furbo ma molto brutto, mi stupisce che qualcuno che ha cosi' tanto a cuore Roth possa scrivere cosi' male (forse e' per questo che sono cosi' dura nel mio giudizio, per me Roth e' un grandissimo scrittore, quindi mi sembra quasi un sacrilegio scriverne mischiandolo in una storia che non c'entra niente con lui).
Se fosse stato un libro di carta e non digitale l'avrei proprio buttato via.
Bella l'idea iniziale di far parlare il libro, poteva essere una bella storia ma l'autore proprio non ce l'ha fatta.
Non mi e' piaciuto il parallelo fra la II Guerra Mondiale e la guerra in Cecenia, non mi e' piaciuta la scrittura, molto piatta, non mi e' piaciuta la storia: sinceramente, penso che questo libro sia molto furbo ma molto brutto, mi stupisce che qualcuno che ha cosi' tanto a cuore Roth possa scrivere cosi' male (forse e' per questo che sono cosi' dura nel mio giudizio, per me Roth e' un grandissimo scrittore, quindi mi sembra quasi un sacrilegio scriverne mischiandolo in una storia che non c'entra niente con lui).
Se fosse stato un libro di carta e non digitale l'avrei proprio buttato via.
August 1, 2021
“Wherever they burn books they will end up burning human beings”
The German Jewish writer Heinrich Heine has a character in one of his plays speak a version of this statement. The author of this absorbing book, Hugo Hamilton, turns the statement round, in his author’s note afterword : “Wherever they save a book from burning, they will end up saving human beings”
The Pages is a book narrated by a book. The narrator of The Pages is the book Rebellion, by the Jewish writer Joseph Roth. Confused? Don’t be. Intrigued? I hope so, because this is an entrancing, immersive read, which within its pages recounts Roth’s own complex life, that of his wife, Friedl, the story of Rebellion itself, an interwar book about the ravages of the First World War, and its aftermath. Also entwined, are the fictional stories of a Professor and a student who saved a copy of Roth’s book – which was indeed, one which which was proscribed and burned. Other books also sit alongside Roth’s, its companions, particularly Effi Briest. Hamilton’s book is not though, absolutely not, a book which vaunts its cleverness and literacy (or those of its readers) in a self-congratulatory way. You don’t have to have read the cited books to absorb, understand, enjoy and surrender to this one
(I haven’t)– all will be explained by our narrating book.
The long arm of human prejudice and brutality reaches out across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to follow the story of Lena, a descendent of the fictional student who saved the narrating copy of ‘Rebellion’. Lena, an American artist, returns to Germany on an adventure. Drawn onto the back pages of her passed-down-to-the-third-generation copy, is a mysterious map. Where this is, and why this is, is the mystery she wants to unravel, as part of her proposed exhibition. The ensuing narration will tie up modern demonisations of outcast nations, ethnicities and ideologies.
Despite the darkness and horror of the subject matter, Hamilton writes with a light, sure -and even playful touch
I was delighted to have journeyed with this story, and will read more by Hamilton. Thankyou to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me this enchanting ‘tell me a story’ which is an absolute vindication of all the pleasures of reading fiction.
Highly recommended
The German Jewish writer Heinrich Heine has a character in one of his plays speak a version of this statement. The author of this absorbing book, Hugo Hamilton, turns the statement round, in his author’s note afterword : “Wherever they save a book from burning, they will end up saving human beings”
The Pages is a book narrated by a book. The narrator of The Pages is the book Rebellion, by the Jewish writer Joseph Roth. Confused? Don’t be. Intrigued? I hope so, because this is an entrancing, immersive read, which within its pages recounts Roth’s own complex life, that of his wife, Friedl, the story of Rebellion itself, an interwar book about the ravages of the First World War, and its aftermath. Also entwined, are the fictional stories of a Professor and a student who saved a copy of Roth’s book – which was indeed, one which which was proscribed and burned. Other books also sit alongside Roth’s, its companions, particularly Effi Briest. Hamilton’s book is not though, absolutely not, a book which vaunts its cleverness and literacy (or those of its readers) in a self-congratulatory way. You don’t have to have read the cited books to absorb, understand, enjoy and surrender to this one
(I haven’t)– all will be explained by our narrating book.
The long arm of human prejudice and brutality reaches out across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to follow the story of Lena, a descendent of the fictional student who saved the narrating copy of ‘Rebellion’. Lena, an American artist, returns to Germany on an adventure. Drawn onto the back pages of her passed-down-to-the-third-generation copy, is a mysterious map. Where this is, and why this is, is the mystery she wants to unravel, as part of her proposed exhibition. The ensuing narration will tie up modern demonisations of outcast nations, ethnicities and ideologies.
Despite the darkness and horror of the subject matter, Hamilton writes with a light, sure -and even playful touch
I was delighted to have journeyed with this story, and will read more by Hamilton. Thankyou to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me this enchanting ‘tell me a story’ which is an absolute vindication of all the pleasures of reading fiction.
Highly recommended
March 29, 2022
This was a community read for patrons of the #strongsenseofplace podcast and we'll have a book discussion in a couple of weeks. I love when a book is dropped into my lap from outside of my orbit. Unfortunately this one did not land for me.
The story is told by a book, Rebellion by Joseph Roth. This copy of the book was saved from book burning by the Nazis and has returned to its homeland with the granddaughter of the man who saved it.
It's a charming device to have a book tell its own story. Unfortunately the carry through of that device is uneven at best. There are things that book knows that it couldn't possibly get from its surroundings. It's clearly omniscient and can take it more than it experiences.
It tells not only its present story and not only its past story but also the story of its author. It's too many stories for one book to tell. It often gets confusing as to which story we were in.
The central story - of Lena traveling to Germany with the book to figure out the story behind the map written into the back pages of the book - is compelling enough, but the book was not always the best storyteller. There are long sections of the novel where the book is describing these long, very thorough conversations that Lena has with her friend Julia that is about a conversation she had with Armin and often about what Armin told her about his sister Malina. Such third hand reporting is first of all not authentic. We just don't have conversations where we give monologues reiterating conversations about third parties. And it's extremely distancing besides.
The end gets almost exciting, but by that point there have been so many different threads that I just didn't care. I didn't really like any of the characters and was not invested in their troubles.
Side note: the author discussed male vs female points of view - and interestingly, I felt this story was told from a very male POV!
The story is told by a book, Rebellion by Joseph Roth. This copy of the book was saved from book burning by the Nazis and has returned to its homeland with the granddaughter of the man who saved it.
It's a charming device to have a book tell its own story. Unfortunately the carry through of that device is uneven at best. There are things that book knows that it couldn't possibly get from its surroundings. It's clearly omniscient and can take it more than it experiences.
It tells not only its present story and not only its past story but also the story of its author. It's too many stories for one book to tell. It often gets confusing as to which story we were in.
The central story - of Lena traveling to Germany with the book to figure out the story behind the map written into the back pages of the book - is compelling enough, but the book was not always the best storyteller. There are long sections of the novel where the book is describing these long, very thorough conversations that Lena has with her friend Julia that is about a conversation she had with Armin and often about what Armin told her about his sister Malina. Such third hand reporting is first of all not authentic. We just don't have conversations where we give monologues reiterating conversations about third parties. And it's extremely distancing besides.
The end gets almost exciting, but by that point there have been so many different threads that I just didn't care. I didn't really like any of the characters and was not invested in their troubles.
Side note: the author discussed male vs female points of view - and interestingly, I felt this story was told from a very male POV!
June 8, 2021
What a marvellous novel! The rather tumultuous life of the great Austrian writer Joseph Roth told with lots of pathos & humor by a very resilient copy of one of his novels, Rebellion, whose extrordinary and incredible odyssey over an eventful century is at the center of this compelling narrative feat. From its survival of the evil & fiery literary auto-da-fe orchestrated in 1933 by Goebbels in Vienna to the sometimes menacing and dangerous streets of contemporary Berlin, we follow the captivating and peripatetic journey of one small and very smart book through the tremendous upheavals and diffcult challenges that have profoundly scarred and ultimately transformed the European landscape since the 30s, and the many unresolved issues that are still plaguing its moral fiber today, such as racism and intolerance. Hugo Hamilton has given us a fascinating gift with a bittersweet and very poignant homage to one of our best 20th century wordsmiths overhere in Europe. An elegantly written and unforgettable fictional tapestry totally reminiscent of the poetic & luminous prose of the late W.G. Sebald. A delicious treat that all readers should definitely enjoy without any moderation! Many thanks to Netgalley and 4th Estate/William Collins for this terrific ARC
February 5, 2022
A tattered old copy of Joseph Roth's, Rebellion, narrates its own history - from 1930's Germany, to the story itself about a barrel organ player, all the way to modern day New York. The novel's story weaves between readers of this particular first edition to a mystery included in it by one of the book's very first owners. The current owner of Rebellion, Lena Knecht, knows from her father that this edition was saved from a book burning in Nazi Germany and it is one of her prized possessions. She is determined to discover where the hand drawn map at the back of the book leads. When Lena misplaces the book it finds her way back to her via an unlikely ally and thus the book crosses another path. Rebellion delights in jumping timelines and telling the stories of those who have held this book in their hands. Some feature prominently and others are fleeting characters, just barely passing by - but all have been impacted by the book or have impacted the book itself. Brilliantly narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith, who delights in bringing a myriad of accents to life. At times, the narrative appears to get in its own way - but overall, a unique book about a book that bibliophiles will delight in.
February 27, 2022
A clever, original and immersive novel about the power of literature, about memory, resilience and courage – narrated by a book. This so easily could have turned into something quirky and whimsical but in Hamilton’s expert hands it becomes a compelling read with its multiplicity of narrative threads all wonderful interwoven into a satisfying and absorbing whole. Lena Knecht is an artist of German-Irish descent, living in Manhattan, who inherits a first edition of Joseph Roth’s 1924 novel Rebellion. It is this book that is our narrator, taking us through its own odyssey from narrowly escaping the Nazi book-burning in Berlin to arriving in Lena’s custody. At the back of the book is a hand-drawn map which Lena feels compelled to investigate. It’s a complex novel but never difficult to follow. There are many references to other works of literature, especially to Fontane’s Effi Briest, and it certainly enhances the reading to recognise these references, as does some knowledge of Roth himself, but it’s not essential as the book stands perfectly well on its own merits. A wonderfully absorbing and haunting read.
May 5, 2022
I don't give a lot of 1 star reviews and I really hate doing it, but I can't remember the last time I was so happy to be done with a book. Usually I quit before I get this far but for some reason, I kept hoping it would turn it around. It likely helped that it was a relatively short book. This story meanders excessively and you get very little sense of character. I found myself wondering what the point was often. The end felt very similar to the end of Citizen Kane when we found out what Rosebud was and it left the world (or at least me) feeling extraordinarily unfulfilled.
September 14, 2021
- [ ] Exquisite
- [ ] Brilliant
- [ ] Thrilling
- [ ] Soul Searching
- [ ] Fantastic
- [ ] Heartwarming
- [ ] Heartbreaking
- [ ] This is told through the POV of a book, and boy did I enjoy this, if you love books and all things bookish, then this is one for you to read.
- [ ] The characters are magical and feel real and vivid
- [ ] Based on real people and a real book saving, this book tells a tale of hate and hope, despair and joys.
- [ ] Brilliant
- [ ] Thrilling
- [ ] Soul Searching
- [ ] Fantastic
- [ ] Heartwarming
- [ ] Heartbreaking
- [ ] This is told through the POV of a book, and boy did I enjoy this, if you love books and all things bookish, then this is one for you to read.
- [ ] The characters are magical and feel real and vivid
- [ ] Based on real people and a real book saving, this book tells a tale of hate and hope, despair and joys.
December 2, 2021
This was a very unique story told from the perspective of a book saved from the book burnings in Nazi Germany. Spanning over a century, our narrator guides us from the past to the present and warns us of the dangers of repeating history.
I can’t help but compare this to The Book Thief due to the unconventional narrator and the subject matter of book preservation. The author clearly spent a lot of time doing research, and he writes in a way that makes the reader feel like they are there.
Overall, this is a solid book with a clear message. However, the multiple timelines ended up crowding the overall story for me. I still have a lot of respect for what Hamilton was able to accomplish.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this advanced copy.
I can’t help but compare this to The Book Thief due to the unconventional narrator and the subject matter of book preservation. The author clearly spent a lot of time doing research, and he writes in a way that makes the reader feel like they are there.
Overall, this is a solid book with a clear message. However, the multiple timelines ended up crowding the overall story for me. I still have a lot of respect for what Hamilton was able to accomplish.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this advanced copy.
January 12, 2024
4,5/5 ⭐️
May 1, 2022
The story of a book, Rebellion by Joseph Roth, which survived a Nazi book burning in 1933.
January 9, 2022
"It's hard to believe things that make no effort to be true." And in sounding excessively false at times, this novel ends up a disappointment, frustrating in how easy it is to picture a superior version.
To start with, this might be more distinctive than expected, depending on where you live – getting a download of an American copy I found it centre-aligned, unusually, although other editions from elsewhere might not be. It is distinctive to start with, however, and not just in layout, as it is narrated by a book. A copy of a Joseph Roth novel, it's been adorned with professorial marginalia and a diagram that might just well be a treasure map if it can ever be read successfully, and it was smuggled away from the Nazi book burning staged in Berlin. Now it's back in the city, in the hands of a prior owner's artist granddaughter, who's been charged with looking after it as an heirloom, and who is intrigued by the map. Throughout it will tell us about her and her story, it and its story, and the life and times and works of Herr Roth, a Jewish author hounded out of Germany between the wars.
What is most distinctive, however, is that it is much more engaging and more lifelike when it is the book talking to us, and not it reporting on human dialogue. Chunks of this are where Lena the artist talks about her evening out to her hostess in Berlin, and while the German woman speaks English perfectly, Lena here dictates the night in a style no human has ever used. And veracity and reality are supposed to be key here – the book is supposed to know how to tell its story (the one printed in its pages) to all readers, and should also manage its story (the one it's enacting, with Lena et al in Berlin), so why is it a struggle for it?
What's more, such struggles really impact on the purpose of the whole conceit. It has before then dropped hints that it wants to foretell of future struggle, as if book burning, lies in the press believed to be the truth, and the kinds of bigotry and abuse and more that Roth was witness to, are coming back. And so Berlin becomes an unappealing city of petty crime (although to be fair, Stroud comes out of things just as badly), and the homeless and immigrant become key as they would have been on the pages of Roth in the 1920s. This might well be the theme of the book, that we're dissolving into our own Weimar kind of mindset of hedonism (someone complains about too many happy superlatives being banded about) and hatred.
But that theme just doesn't make for an interesting read. It clouds the fun to be had with the book informing us about Roth – and the bleakness in informing us about his wife. It gets in the way of the book's telling us about its owners, and the love triangle of more recent events. That's what I should have taken from these pages, not just spurious mentions of random thievery, racism and discrimination. While the Roth narrative and the main story concerning Lena should have been brightly memorable, the patchy eggwash gained from discussing 2020s society makes this a disappointment, and doesn't allow it to hang together – just as Lena's unearthly reportage failed to do. Two and a half stars.
To start with, this might be more distinctive than expected, depending on where you live – getting a download of an American copy I found it centre-aligned, unusually, although other editions from elsewhere might not be. It is distinctive to start with, however, and not just in layout, as it is narrated by a book. A copy of a Joseph Roth novel, it's been adorned with professorial marginalia and a diagram that might just well be a treasure map if it can ever be read successfully, and it was smuggled away from the Nazi book burning staged in Berlin. Now it's back in the city, in the hands of a prior owner's artist granddaughter, who's been charged with looking after it as an heirloom, and who is intrigued by the map. Throughout it will tell us about her and her story, it and its story, and the life and times and works of Herr Roth, a Jewish author hounded out of Germany between the wars.
What is most distinctive, however, is that it is much more engaging and more lifelike when it is the book talking to us, and not it reporting on human dialogue. Chunks of this are where Lena the artist talks about her evening out to her hostess in Berlin, and while the German woman speaks English perfectly, Lena here dictates the night in a style no human has ever used. And veracity and reality are supposed to be key here – the book is supposed to know how to tell its story (the one printed in its pages) to all readers, and should also manage its story (the one it's enacting, with Lena et al in Berlin), so why is it a struggle for it?
What's more, such struggles really impact on the purpose of the whole conceit. It has before then dropped hints that it wants to foretell of future struggle, as if book burning, lies in the press believed to be the truth, and the kinds of bigotry and abuse and more that Roth was witness to, are coming back. And so Berlin becomes an unappealing city of petty crime (although to be fair, Stroud comes out of things just as badly), and the homeless and immigrant become key as they would have been on the pages of Roth in the 1920s. This might well be the theme of the book, that we're dissolving into our own Weimar kind of mindset of hedonism (someone complains about too many happy superlatives being banded about) and hatred.
But that theme just doesn't make for an interesting read. It clouds the fun to be had with the book informing us about Roth – and the bleakness in informing us about his wife. It gets in the way of the book's telling us about its owners, and the love triangle of more recent events. That's what I should have taken from these pages, not just spurious mentions of random thievery, racism and discrimination. While the Roth narrative and the main story concerning Lena should have been brightly memorable, the patchy eggwash gained from discussing 2020s society makes this a disappointment, and doesn't allow it to hang together – just as Lena's unearthly reportage failed to do. Two and a half stars.
May 2, 2022
Much of this book is narrated by a book. Don't let that lead you to think this is not a serious, and deep story. The book in question was saved from a book burning in Berlin. It eventually comes into the possession of a young German American woman, Lena. Lena is an artist and she travels to Berlin with the book, motivated to learn more about the book, and its history.
There are three parallel narratives - Lena's story, the books narrative, and the story of the writer of the book, and what happened to him under the Nazis.
Above all, it is a book about loss, the destruction and resurrection of art, and of love. It possesses a melancholy that captured me from the beginning. Old Europe, new Europe, contemporary racism, migrants, and the past and present. This is a unique novel, and to describe too much would rob readers of discovering the depth and beauty of this story for themselves.
There are three parallel narratives - Lena's story, the books narrative, and the story of the writer of the book, and what happened to him under the Nazis.
Above all, it is a book about loss, the destruction and resurrection of art, and of love. It possesses a melancholy that captured me from the beginning. Old Europe, new Europe, contemporary racism, migrants, and the past and present. This is a unique novel, and to describe too much would rob readers of discovering the depth and beauty of this story for themselves.
Read
March 9, 2022A book narrates this novel about its life. The book was written by a Jewish author but escaped the Nazi book burning when it was secreted away by a literature student. The book was then hidden away and subsequently passed down from grandfather to his artist granddaughter, Lena. Lena takes the book from NY to Germany to try and track down the story of a hand drawn map in the back of the book. While in Germany, the book is stolen, left in a park and then recovered. In between these travels, the book tells it's author's story, the story written in it's pages, and the stories of all the people whose lives have interacted with it. This multi-layered (understatement there) novel, read for the audio by Nicholas Guy Smith, makes for a clever and worthwhile listen.
December 27, 2021
I really enjoyed the story a lot: the idea of letting a book speak about itself through history is brilliant. However, in my opinion Hugo Hamilton tried to fit too much in. There are too many very detailed subplots that don't add to the story, but distract and take potential away from the main stories. I would have loved to learn more about Lena, Armin, Joseph and Friedl, their stories, thoughts and feelings, there is so much still to tell, but instead all the detailed back stories that don't move the plot forward take up precious time.
September 2, 2023
Faszinierend und fesselnd - ein umsichtiger Blick von Hugo Hamilton auf ca 100 Jahre europäische Geschichte und Schicksale Einzelner von der Weimarer Republik in die Gegenwart.
Mit einem Buch als Erzähler - Joseph Roths Roman "Die Rebellion". Und das funktioniert! Als ein Erzählstrang wird Joseph Roths Leben dokumentiert und vor allem auch das seiner Frau Friederike.
Ein bewegendes Buch, das sowohl Tragik als auch Hoffnung vermittelt.
Mit einem Buch als Erzähler - Joseph Roths Roman "Die Rebellion". Und das funktioniert! Als ein Erzählstrang wird Joseph Roths Leben dokumentiert und vor allem auch das seiner Frau Friederike.
Ein bewegendes Buch, das sowohl Tragik als auch Hoffnung vermittelt.
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