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Heidegger's Glasses
Heidegger’s Glasses opens during the end of World War II in a failing Germany coming apart at its seams. The Third Reich’s strong reliance on the occult and its obsession with the astral plane has led to the formation of an underground compound of scribes –translators responsible for answering letters written to those eventually killed in the concentration camps.
Into this covert compound comes a letter written by eminent philosopher Martin Heidegger to his optometrist, a man now lost in the dying thralls of Auschwitz. How will the scribes answer this letter? The presence of Heidegger’s words--one simple letter in a place filled with letters--sparks a series of events that will ultimately threaten the safety and well-being of the entire compound.
Part love story, part thriller, part meditation on how the dead are remembered and history is presented, with threads of Heidegger’s philosophy woven throughout, the novel evocatively illustrates the Holocaust through an almost dreamlike state. Thaisa Frank deftly reconstructs the landscape of Nazi Germany from an entirely original vantage point.
Into this covert compound comes a letter written by eminent philosopher Martin Heidegger to his optometrist, a man now lost in the dying thralls of Auschwitz. How will the scribes answer this letter? The presence of Heidegger’s words--one simple letter in a place filled with letters--sparks a series of events that will ultimately threaten the safety and well-being of the entire compound.
Part love story, part thriller, part meditation on how the dead are remembered and history is presented, with threads of Heidegger’s philosophy woven throughout, the novel evocatively illustrates the Holocaust through an almost dreamlike state. Thaisa Frank deftly reconstructs the landscape of Nazi Germany from an entirely original vantage point.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
43 people are currently reading
1075 people want to read
About the author
Thaisa Frank
22 books127 followersThe fiction of Enchantment is Thaisa Frank’s third collection of short fiction and includes two semi-autobiographical novellas as well as thirty-three stories. Her most recent novel, Heidegger’s Glasses, takes place in the mythical haven of an underground mine during WWII, the safety of which is threatened forever. It was published in 2010, reissued in paperback in 2011 and sold to ten foreign countries before publication. She is also the author of Sleeping in Velvet and A Brief History of Camouflage, both on the Bestseller List of the San Francisco Chronicle. Thaisa has received two PEN awards and her stories have been widely-anthologized, Upcoming are in Nonrton's Micro Fiction and Bloombury's Creative Short Forms. Others are in A Dictionary of Dirty Words, Harper/Collins Reader’s Choice and Rozne Ksztatly Milocsi. She has published critical essays on writing and art and is the author of the Afterward to Viking/Penguin’s most recent edition of Voltaire. Her poetry, which she writes secretly, appears in small publications. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto.
Thaisa has also co-authored Finding Your Writers Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction, translated into Portuguese and Spanish, and used in writing programs. She has taught writing in the graduate departments of San Francisco State, the University of San Francisco and the University of California as Visiting Associate Professor of Creative Writing.
Thaisa grew up in the Midwest and the Bronx, the granddaughter of a Presbyterian theologian and a Rumanian Chassid, who consulted each other about Aramaic texts. Her fiction, sometimes characterized as “domestic magical realism,” draws on a bi-cultural childhood, in which she lived in a sedate suburb of Illinois for two-thirds of the year and the colorful, immigrant world of New York for the remaining third. In her stories a child has too many mothers to remember, a woman orders an enchanted man from a mail-order catalogue, a circus performer has feet that can see, and a lonely vampire adjusts to life the heartlands. Her novellas are about the journey of a daughter and her parents.
Thaisa wrote her first story when she was eight—an “unremarkable story, except it made me feel connected to a vast world, far beyond my family.” She majored in philosophy of science and perfected her writing privately, turning down fellowships and working as a copy-editor, ghost-writer, and psychotherapist. One interviewer has claimed she once gave psychic readings, but this was only a rumor, started by one of her characters.
You can follow her on Twitter and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thaisafrankb....
Thaisa has also co-authored Finding Your Writers Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction, translated into Portuguese and Spanish, and used in writing programs. She has taught writing in the graduate departments of San Francisco State, the University of San Francisco and the University of California as Visiting Associate Professor of Creative Writing.
Thaisa grew up in the Midwest and the Bronx, the granddaughter of a Presbyterian theologian and a Rumanian Chassid, who consulted each other about Aramaic texts. Her fiction, sometimes characterized as “domestic magical realism,” draws on a bi-cultural childhood, in which she lived in a sedate suburb of Illinois for two-thirds of the year and the colorful, immigrant world of New York for the remaining third. In her stories a child has too many mothers to remember, a woman orders an enchanted man from a mail-order catalogue, a circus performer has feet that can see, and a lonely vampire adjusts to life the heartlands. Her novellas are about the journey of a daughter and her parents.
Thaisa wrote her first story when she was eight—an “unremarkable story, except it made me feel connected to a vast world, far beyond my family.” She majored in philosophy of science and perfected her writing privately, turning down fellowships and working as a copy-editor, ghost-writer, and psychotherapist. One interviewer has claimed she once gave psychic readings, but this was only a rumor, started by one of her characters.
You can follow her on Twitter and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thaisafrankb....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews
April 5, 2012
I wasn't sure I was going to connect with this story at first, due to its absurd premise. Patience is definitely an asset, and the payoff is exceptionally rewarding. The surreal, unique conceit takes the Holocaust as background and purpose and weaves a persuasive tale. Frank's oblique narrative approach is strange, and myth-like, so that the reader is initially at arm's length, bemused at what appears to be an inconceivable plot. However, it all comes together in a compelling, tender, plausible, and richly woven testament to humanity, hope, and love. Moreover, the themes are powerful and wholly relevant today.
In northern Germany, in the thick of the woods and ten meters below the ground, is a mineshaft converted into a Compound. Sixty people who were headed for the death camps in Nazi Germany were spared because of their multilingual talents. Instead of deportation, they are ordered to the Compound to answer letters written by people in the camps, even though the senders and receivers are likely dead.
Himmler and Hitler were obsessed with the occult and the astral plane. Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, has reasons for going along with it. Propaganda is crucial at this time when Germany is creating an atmosphere of denial, especially after their failure at Stalingrad. They want the letters for a twofold reason--to conceal the truth of the Final Solution via bogus documentation of life at the camps, and to pacify the dead. The Reich's preoccupation with orphic beliefs opens channels for this novel to make credible sense, as odd as that may seem, and for profound metaphors about the unearthly, concealed, hidden, and recondite to take form. What presents as fantastical myth transcends into sound verisimilitude.
Elie Schacten, a Polish blonde beauty, is the central character in the book, and the Scribe that tethers the Compound to the world-at-large. She exchanges flirtations with SS officers in return for supplies and food for the Scribes, and when possible, assists refugees to escape from death. Her lover, Lodenstein, the Oberst of the Compound, is torn between concern for her safety aboveground and jealousy at her contrived flirtations with Nazis.
Dieter Stumpf is the only member not a Scribe, because he doesn't know any foreign languages. He's a pitiful but dangerous buffoon who was demoted from Oberst to patrol guard, and who is outwitted by the Scribes at every turn. Stumpf dreams of decorated heroism and recognition by the Reich.
The sense of place is riveting, from the Compound below the earth to the vast and midnight sky at night. I saw billions of stars and the changing phases of the moon, heard the footfalls in the snow, the crunch of crackling ice, and felt the dense wood of trees in the dark and haunting Black Forest.
"It's a strange world...But we can never fall out of it because we live in it all the time."
"...what it felt like to fall out of a world made safe by human meaning. A fragile world...poised to fall apart."
This is not a history lesson, although the Holocaust is the catalyst for everything that happens. It is also an elegiac love story, a suspense thriller, a philosophical inquiry, a brush with the Cabala and a timeless, thought-provoking meditation on how the dead are remembered. It is darkly enchanting, intellectually stimulating and emotionally spellbinding. This will undoubtedly be one of the most mesmerizing books I've read this year.
In northern Germany, in the thick of the woods and ten meters below the ground, is a mineshaft converted into a Compound. Sixty people who were headed for the death camps in Nazi Germany were spared because of their multilingual talents. Instead of deportation, they are ordered to the Compound to answer letters written by people in the camps, even though the senders and receivers are likely dead.
Himmler and Hitler were obsessed with the occult and the astral plane. Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, has reasons for going along with it. Propaganda is crucial at this time when Germany is creating an atmosphere of denial, especially after their failure at Stalingrad. They want the letters for a twofold reason--to conceal the truth of the Final Solution via bogus documentation of life at the camps, and to pacify the dead. The Reich's preoccupation with orphic beliefs opens channels for this novel to make credible sense, as odd as that may seem, and for profound metaphors about the unearthly, concealed, hidden, and recondite to take form. What presents as fantastical myth transcends into sound verisimilitude.
Elie Schacten, a Polish blonde beauty, is the central character in the book, and the Scribe that tethers the Compound to the world-at-large. She exchanges flirtations with SS officers in return for supplies and food for the Scribes, and when possible, assists refugees to escape from death. Her lover, Lodenstein, the Oberst of the Compound, is torn between concern for her safety aboveground and jealousy at her contrived flirtations with Nazis.
Dieter Stumpf is the only member not a Scribe, because he doesn't know any foreign languages. He's a pitiful but dangerous buffoon who was demoted from Oberst to patrol guard, and who is outwitted by the Scribes at every turn. Stumpf dreams of decorated heroism and recognition by the Reich.
The sense of place is riveting, from the Compound below the earth to the vast and midnight sky at night. I saw billions of stars and the changing phases of the moon, heard the footfalls in the snow, the crunch of crackling ice, and felt the dense wood of trees in the dark and haunting Black Forest.
"It's a strange world...But we can never fall out of it because we live in it all the time."
"...what it felt like to fall out of a world made safe by human meaning. A fragile world...poised to fall apart."
This is not a history lesson, although the Holocaust is the catalyst for everything that happens. It is also an elegiac love story, a suspense thriller, a philosophical inquiry, a brush with the Cabala and a timeless, thought-provoking meditation on how the dead are remembered. It is darkly enchanting, intellectually stimulating and emotionally spellbinding. This will undoubtedly be one of the most mesmerizing books I've read this year.
November 9, 2011
Heidegger's Glasses is based on a premise borne of occult leanings of top members of the Hitler's German Reich, that the dead must not be ignored. For this reason, in this "otherworld" Germany, there is a compound of Scribes, all people chosen from transports because of their language skills to live in a compound and write letters that will never be read by a living eye. Goebbels is the mastermind.
At first I wasn't sure about my feelings for this book and where it was heading and put it aside for quite a while. That may have been partly getting used to the e-reader format which was new to me and partly confusion on my part with the set up of the novels agenda.
Now that I've completed reading the book, I've found that I've come to like it better than I expected. It's still a strange book with a very unusual approach to its subjects of the Holocaust, the Nazis, war, betrayal and death. But such absurd circumstances may call for a strange response. Whatever weakness I may have experienced in the beginning seem mitigated by a strong finish.
This is not a history. This is a what if story of another possible aspect of the horrors of the Nazi era and the effects on Jews, Germans and other Europeans--some of whom tried to resist, or at least stay alive, in very individual ways.
At first I wasn't sure about my feelings for this book and where it was heading and put it aside for quite a while. That may have been partly getting used to the e-reader format which was new to me and partly confusion on my part with the set up of the novels agenda.
Now that I've completed reading the book, I've found that I've come to like it better than I expected. It's still a strange book with a very unusual approach to its subjects of the Holocaust, the Nazis, war, betrayal and death. But such absurd circumstances may call for a strange response. Whatever weakness I may have experienced in the beginning seem mitigated by a strong finish.
This is not a history. This is a what if story of another possible aspect of the horrors of the Nazi era and the effects on Jews, Germans and other Europeans--some of whom tried to resist, or at least stay alive, in very individual ways.
December 16, 2015
This review also posted on my blog.
I really enjoy reading stories about the Holocaust and about the people who have lived through it. I suppose that in a way, it helps me to gain perspective in my own life, and reminds me that there is goodness to be found in everything. The suffering of the Jewish people during WWII was immense, yet they continue to hope and live. That means something to me.
Heidegger's Glasses takes a different path, a surreal and philosophical and almost mystical one, and is a very different, but no less moving or beautiful story, because of it. We are told in the beginning that the leaders of the Reich were believers in the occult, and felt that winning the war hinged on answering letters to the dead. To do that, the Compound was formed underground, and multi-lingual Jews were placed there as Scribes to answer the dead's letters. When a letter comes in from a well-known person close to the Reich to a close friend who is currently in Auschwitz, the order comes down to answer the letter, even though the recipient is still alive -- the Final Solution must be kept secret, so the letter must not come from Auschwitz.
This throws a huge wrench in the lives of the Scribes, and the people assigned to run the Compound. Elie Schacten is close to the Reich, and has the ability to move freely throughout Germany as few do, and uses this freedom to help people as she can. Gerhardt Lodenstein the Oberst, is a good-hearted man who finds safety for the Compound in flying under the radar. Stumpf, the former-Oberst of the Compound is a believer in the occult and takes the letter writing to the dead very seriously, but is a bit of a fool, and so tends to bungle everything he touches. The letter is written, delivered... and goes very badly wrong.
I think that what I enjoyed most about this book is that we get to see the war and the Reich from people inside it that hate it. They don't believe and they live in fear and uncertainty that they will be found out. The Compound is a mostly-safe haven for the Scribes under Lodenstein, and a temporary refuge for Jews in hiding, but after Heidegger's letter fiasco, you can cut the tension with a knife. They aren't sure if the Reich will come crashing down on their heads, or if they've forgotten, or if they don't care... there are a million ifs, but life must go on and there's very little that can be done either way. I felt like I was there, and was worried for this group of people who had lost nearly everything already.
I really enjoyed the writing in this book. It felt simple, almost surreal without quotation marks for the dialogue. The prose was straightforward, but contained some beautiful quotes that I wish I'd have marked. The sections were very short, for the most part, and separated by the letters that the Scribes were answering. These letters told the story of the "outside world" almost as well as any full book would have done, so that by the end, we can see the danger that the Scribes have managed to avoid, mostly, but they still have reason to fear. There were some funny sections in the book as well, which surprised me, since I didn't expect it at all in a novel about Nazi Germany. This helped the surreal feeling as well, but also provided the story with a kind of false-lightness above the seriousness and fear.
The ending was a little abrupt for me. The time shift and the unresolved whereabouts of one of the characters was a bit sudden and and disappointing. I'd hoped for this character to find what they were searching for and to find happiness, so the shift to an entirely new character jarred a little bit. But otherwise, I really enjoyed the story, and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a WWII story scene through a different lens.
I really enjoy reading stories about the Holocaust and about the people who have lived through it. I suppose that in a way, it helps me to gain perspective in my own life, and reminds me that there is goodness to be found in everything. The suffering of the Jewish people during WWII was immense, yet they continue to hope and live. That means something to me.
Heidegger's Glasses takes a different path, a surreal and philosophical and almost mystical one, and is a very different, but no less moving or beautiful story, because of it. We are told in the beginning that the leaders of the Reich were believers in the occult, and felt that winning the war hinged on answering letters to the dead. To do that, the Compound was formed underground, and multi-lingual Jews were placed there as Scribes to answer the dead's letters. When a letter comes in from a well-known person close to the Reich to a close friend who is currently in Auschwitz, the order comes down to answer the letter, even though the recipient is still alive -- the Final Solution must be kept secret, so the letter must not come from Auschwitz.
This throws a huge wrench in the lives of the Scribes, and the people assigned to run the Compound. Elie Schacten is close to the Reich, and has the ability to move freely throughout Germany as few do, and uses this freedom to help people as she can. Gerhardt Lodenstein the Oberst, is a good-hearted man who finds safety for the Compound in flying under the radar. Stumpf, the former-Oberst of the Compound is a believer in the occult and takes the letter writing to the dead very seriously, but is a bit of a fool, and so tends to bungle everything he touches. The letter is written, delivered... and goes very badly wrong.
I think that what I enjoyed most about this book is that we get to see the war and the Reich from people inside it that hate it. They don't believe and they live in fear and uncertainty that they will be found out. The Compound is a mostly-safe haven for the Scribes under Lodenstein, and a temporary refuge for Jews in hiding, but after Heidegger's letter fiasco, you can cut the tension with a knife. They aren't sure if the Reich will come crashing down on their heads, or if they've forgotten, or if they don't care... there are a million ifs, but life must go on and there's very little that can be done either way. I felt like I was there, and was worried for this group of people who had lost nearly everything already.
I really enjoyed the writing in this book. It felt simple, almost surreal without quotation marks for the dialogue. The prose was straightforward, but contained some beautiful quotes that I wish I'd have marked. The sections were very short, for the most part, and separated by the letters that the Scribes were answering. These letters told the story of the "outside world" almost as well as any full book would have done, so that by the end, we can see the danger that the Scribes have managed to avoid, mostly, but they still have reason to fear. There were some funny sections in the book as well, which surprised me, since I didn't expect it at all in a novel about Nazi Germany. This helped the surreal feeling as well, but also provided the story with a kind of false-lightness above the seriousness and fear.
The ending was a little abrupt for me. The time shift and the unresolved whereabouts of one of the characters was a bit sudden and and disappointing. I'd hoped for this character to find what they were searching for and to find happiness, so the shift to an entirely new character jarred a little bit. But otherwise, I really enjoyed the story, and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a WWII story scene through a different lens.
December 28, 2010
Any random event can cause you to lose your bearings; the world becomes strange, an alien place. For Heidegger, the event was triggered by dropping his glasses. After a time, the world righted itself and he wrote about it.
For those touched by the terror of Nazi Germany, the rise of Hitler created an environment that permanently vacated its place in any normal sequence of events; life was suspended without anchor, past, or future. The only way to survive was to create an alternate space in the mind that shut out the real world, that worked against it if possible, that worked to chip away at its power.
I do not know if this novel was based on actual events, but it's plausible, given Hitler's irrational ideas, and many of his advisors' belief in the power of the occult.
But really, it doesn't matter. The story was solid and authentic to me as a reader. I missed, or nearly missed, my subway stop at least 3 times while reading it. I got completely lost in its world.
The characters must constantly recreate their identity, and are forever accompanied by a profound loss for which there are neither words nor explanation.
Another Holocaust book?..."When will we ever learn?", Pete Seeger asked 50 years ago. When indeed.
For those touched by the terror of Nazi Germany, the rise of Hitler created an environment that permanently vacated its place in any normal sequence of events; life was suspended without anchor, past, or future. The only way to survive was to create an alternate space in the mind that shut out the real world, that worked against it if possible, that worked to chip away at its power.
I do not know if this novel was based on actual events, but it's plausible, given Hitler's irrational ideas, and many of his advisors' belief in the power of the occult.
But really, it doesn't matter. The story was solid and authentic to me as a reader. I missed, or nearly missed, my subway stop at least 3 times while reading it. I got completely lost in its world.
The characters must constantly recreate their identity, and are forever accompanied by a profound loss for which there are neither words nor explanation.
Another Holocaust book?..."When will we ever learn?", Pete Seeger asked 50 years ago. When indeed.
December 30, 2010
More of a 3.5. I don't find quite a four, but it's more than a three.
So I got this book free via Amazon for my new Kindle (and boy does Amazon have hunderds of free books for your Kindle).
To my surprise, it's actually quite good. True, sometimes the writing doesn't quite flow, and I'm not sure if I really like Frank's style. Yet, the story is compelling, the characters fully realized, and I wouldn't have minded paying for it.
Frank tells the story of the Scribes, letter writers to the dead, in World War II. The Scribes are cared for in part by Elie, who has her own secret. Then a threat arrives to thier exsistence. They need to write a letter to a living breathing person.
The story is about seeing and not seeing. At times it is very moving. It is a surprising beautiful book. Honestly, considering the price, there is no reason for you not to read this book.
So I got this book free via Amazon for my new Kindle (and boy does Amazon have hunderds of free books for your Kindle).
To my surprise, it's actually quite good. True, sometimes the writing doesn't quite flow, and I'm not sure if I really like Frank's style. Yet, the story is compelling, the characters fully realized, and I wouldn't have minded paying for it.
Frank tells the story of the Scribes, letter writers to the dead, in World War II. The Scribes are cared for in part by Elie, who has her own secret. Then a threat arrives to thier exsistence. They need to write a letter to a living breathing person.
The story is about seeing and not seeing. At times it is very moving. It is a surprising beautiful book. Honestly, considering the price, there is no reason for you not to read this book.
February 16, 2013
Every once in a while a random book selection turns out to be a thought provoking gem. Heidegger's Glasses is one such book.
Set in Germany, towards the end of WWII, an underground compound houses a number of Jewish scribes. The only reason why they've managed to avoid being transported to concentration camps or shot outright is because of their multi-language skills. They're kept in this compound to answer letters written by victims in concentration camps, most of whom had died by the time their letters were replied to. As Himmler dabbles in the occult, he believed that if the letters of the dead were answered, their spirits would be appeased and Germany will win the war.
Elie has changed her last name and so her identity, which allows her to work within the Nazi Party in this compound, but also allows her to cloak herself in the resistance movement where she helps to rescue and smuggle out Jews. Lodenstein, her lover and Nazi officer commanding this compound is also part of this resistance movement. All of their efforts and their lives are now at risk because of an unexpected mission that has been given to them. Heidegger, a German philosopher has broken his glasses and has asked for a new one made for him by his old friend, Asher. Unbeknownst to him, Asher is in Auschwitz, and rather than have him search out his old friend and discover the dastardly secret gas chambers, Goebbles has instructed the scribes to respond to Heidegger's letter in the same manner in which Asher would have responded and to deliver his glasses together with the letter to him. Unfortunately nothing goes according to plan, and Elie's identity is compromised.
There is nothing for it but for Lodenstein to visit Goebbels and try to cover up the mistake. This results in him being thrown into jail for a week and then sent off with Heidegger to Auschwitz to find Asher and his son. Asher has, in the meantime been pulled from hard labor, given regular food and clothes, and set in a lab to make glasses for the camp officers, so that when Heidegger arrived, he wouldn't realize his friend had been tortured and starved.
What is striking is the mental anxieties that Asher goes through when he is first pulled off hard labor. He expects to be shot or sent to the gas chambers are every small bit of kindness received from the guards. From his window he looks out on the snow covered ground, stained pink from the blood of executed prisoners.
Interspersed throughout the book are what appears to be short notes and letters from Holocaust victims, initially somewhat simple and innocuous but which gradually become darker and then painful towards the end. The letters help create a very moving platform on which the characters in the book are supported. As the letters progress from mere disquiet at the disappearance of people to stark terror and horror about death camps, so too do certain characters in this compound have to stare their own tragic pasts in the face or the killer within themselves.
This is a book that will stay with you for a long time.
Set in Germany, towards the end of WWII, an underground compound houses a number of Jewish scribes. The only reason why they've managed to avoid being transported to concentration camps or shot outright is because of their multi-language skills. They're kept in this compound to answer letters written by victims in concentration camps, most of whom had died by the time their letters were replied to. As Himmler dabbles in the occult, he believed that if the letters of the dead were answered, their spirits would be appeased and Germany will win the war.
Elie has changed her last name and so her identity, which allows her to work within the Nazi Party in this compound, but also allows her to cloak herself in the resistance movement where she helps to rescue and smuggle out Jews. Lodenstein, her lover and Nazi officer commanding this compound is also part of this resistance movement. All of their efforts and their lives are now at risk because of an unexpected mission that has been given to them. Heidegger, a German philosopher has broken his glasses and has asked for a new one made for him by his old friend, Asher. Unbeknownst to him, Asher is in Auschwitz, and rather than have him search out his old friend and discover the dastardly secret gas chambers, Goebbles has instructed the scribes to respond to Heidegger's letter in the same manner in which Asher would have responded and to deliver his glasses together with the letter to him. Unfortunately nothing goes according to plan, and Elie's identity is compromised.
There is nothing for it but for Lodenstein to visit Goebbels and try to cover up the mistake. This results in him being thrown into jail for a week and then sent off with Heidegger to Auschwitz to find Asher and his son. Asher has, in the meantime been pulled from hard labor, given regular food and clothes, and set in a lab to make glasses for the camp officers, so that when Heidegger arrived, he wouldn't realize his friend had been tortured and starved.
What is striking is the mental anxieties that Asher goes through when he is first pulled off hard labor. He expects to be shot or sent to the gas chambers are every small bit of kindness received from the guards. From his window he looks out on the snow covered ground, stained pink from the blood of executed prisoners.
Interspersed throughout the book are what appears to be short notes and letters from Holocaust victims, initially somewhat simple and innocuous but which gradually become darker and then painful towards the end. The letters help create a very moving platform on which the characters in the book are supported. As the letters progress from mere disquiet at the disappearance of people to stark terror and horror about death camps, so too do certain characters in this compound have to stare their own tragic pasts in the face or the killer within themselves.
This is a book that will stay with you for a long time.
January 27, 2011
Heideggers Glasses is a work of historical fiction. Ms. Frank concludes this work by stating, "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental." It's a good thing she reminds the reader that the book is a work of fiction. Ms. Frank so carefully weaves historical facts with her fictional threads in the story that it is impossible to distinguish where fact ends and fiction begins. The story is very well written and highly imaginative. It is not a light work, however. The historical base of the story comes from a program of the Reich entitled the Briefaktion, or Operation Mail. After completing the book I did some research on line and learned a few things. When the Jews were taken to Auschwitz--a killing center--the victims were required to write postcards or letters to home indicating that their resettlement was fine and they were in good health. All these cards had the same return address: Arbeitslager Birkenau, bei Neu-Berun, Oberschlesien. In contrast to prisoners in other camps, these new arrivals were not registered or given inmate numbers. Shortly after writing these postcards or letters, these individuals were killed.This mail was taken in bulk to Berlin for processing. Cachets were stamped on the correspondence indicating that replies were permitted only through the Association of Jews in Germany. Then, the correspondence was postmarked and mailed from several Berlin post offices. Ms. Franks imagination begins from this point. She creates an underground world where scribes with various language skills are kept prisoner and forced to answer the letters to the dead. During the course of the work the reader becomes aquainted with each of the scribes, their personalities and histories. The reader becomes deeply involved with the community. Elie is the central part of this community, the only one allowed to leave. She brings the letters and supplies. Elie is also on a personal mission, a mission to rescue all she can that are hiding from the Reich. When the the letter from German philosopher Heidegger arrives to his friend Asher, Elie is determined to rescue Asher from Auschwitz. This is the main thread of the story--the effort to save Asher.The story is heavy and sad, with brief moments of happiness overwhelmed with moments of horror. The ending is not satisfying but as in real life, dealing with hard things, endings are not always nice. The book requires the reader to invest themselves in the story, think and feel deeply. And to reflect on the course of history.
June 26, 2011
The world of this novel is fascinating. It is real--a historical WWII setting--and it is imaginary--in the Compound of Scribes captives (who can translate a variety of languages) write letters to the dead so that they will keep their secrets about the Nazi plan for the Final Solution. While the compound provides some security for the captives (are we safe?--the constant question), it also imprisons them with the SS guards in a mineshaft built to look like a village. There is a world above the compound, and there are worlds within and around it as well, some of them comforting, some of the horrifying. These physical layers complicate the entire novel as we look at how people love, remain loyal, betray, tell the truth, lie, keep secrets, etc. I read this book slowly, savoring the language, the magic, the horror and the beauty of it. It is also a very esthetically pleasing book. Images of handwritten letters appear throughout, connecting us to the past, the labor of the scribes, and to the dead. As surreal as this novel is on some levels, its point of view seemed absolutely realistic to me.
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February 8, 2018"Caro zio Johannes, ti scrivo dopo un meraviglioso viaggio verso Theresienstatd. Qui è tutto bellissimo (...) Non vedo la mamma e il papà da giorni, ma i letti qui sono caldi ...con affetto Pieter"
"Carissimo Abramo, ti prego non preoccuparti. Abbiamo dovuto lasciare l'ufficio in fretta a causa di affari importanti. Qui si sta bene e molto meglio che a casa e il cibo è abbondante. Se portassi i bambini, potremmo stare tutti insieme. Affettuosamente, Vanessa"
Queste sono due della serie di lettere scritte dai campi dal '42 alla fine della guerra sotto coercizione nel quadro della "Operazione posta"(Briefaktion) voluta dal Reich per smentire le voci sulla soluzione finale.
Ora, se si leggono soltanto le lettere, la testimonianza è preziosa e commovente, le parole rassicuranti di coloro che sono già stati annientati creano un'eco indimenticabile; il resto del libro però è costruito in modo disuguale. Se l'idea di partenza è interessante (si tratta del problema sollevato da una lettera eccezionale da scrivere in risposta ad Heidegger che chiede al suo amico ebreo, filosofo ed ottico notizie degli occhiali ordinati mesi fa...) non sempre il racconto regge. Forse la presenza ad ogni capitolo di una lettera, autentica, dolorosa, rende il compito della ricostruzione troppo arduo?
June 17, 2013
[Review in Portuguese]
Os Óculos de Heidegger, de Thaisa Frank
Intrínseca - 285 páginas
Quando as cartas se tornam mais do que cartas, mas um refúgio em meio ao caos.
Título: Os Óculos de Heidegger
Título Original: Heidegger's Glasses
Autora: Thaisa Frank
Tradutor: Mauro Pinheiro
Editora: Intrínseca
ISBN: 978-85-8057-308-4
Ano da Edição: 2012
Ano Original de Lançamento: 2010
Nº de Páginas: 285
Comprar Online:
Inglês: Amazon / Book Depository
Português: Amazon / Cultura / Saraiva / Submarino
Sinopse:
Em plena segunda guerra mundial há um refúgio para pessoas de todas as nacionalidades, crenças e credos. É um complexo onde as cartas dos mortos são respondidas.
Prisioneiros à beira da morte foram salvos por saber uma ou outra língua além do alemão e se viram reunidos para escrever respostas às cartas dos mortos - da mesma maneira em que foram escritas!
Dentre estas pessoas está Elie Schacter, que se utiliza de todos os meios possível para garantir a sobrevivência daqueles que moram no complexo com ela e também faz o impossível para conseguir salvar pessoas de fora daquela loucura do Terceiro Reich.
Quando aqueles homens e mulheres do complexo recebem a inesperada incumbência de responder uma carta para um vivo, as coisas mudam e Elie vai fazer todo o possível para encontrar Asher Englehardt - que escreveu a carta - para que ele mesmo possa dar uma resposta para Martin Heidegger e confeccionar seus óculos. No fundo, ela tem a esperança de salvar alguém de Auschwitz, por mais impossível que possa parecer.
O que eu achei do livro:
Bom!
Livros que tratam da Segunda Guerra Mundial exercem um fascínio irrefreável sobre mim. Sempre me chamam a atenção e me cativam, ao mesmo tempo que me aterrorizam por contarem histórias sobre uma época negra, onde o ser humano mostrou o pior que havia em si (mas, felizmente, outros seres humanos também mostraram o melhor que havia neles).
Os Óculos de Heidegger, embora leve no título o nome de um importante filósofo alemão que existiu de fato e mesmo que esse faça uma pequena participação durante o livro, é ficção. A história foi inventada por Thaisa Frank mas transborda veracidade.
Eis aqui um ponto que poderia ter sido melhor explorado nessa edição e certamente o será no futuro (desconheço se alguma edição do livro - a original em inglês ou alguma das que foram traduzidas em outras línguas - contém tais informações) - possivelmente com um prefácio que situe melhor o leitor. Por se tratar de um romance histórico muito bem escrito, é natural que o leitor se encontre em dúvida sobre o que (e até mesmo quem) é real e o que é ficção inventada pela autora.
A escrita da autora é incrível! Ela mistura filosofia, horror, angústia, romance e esperança nas linhas que contam sua história. Enquanto narra as desventuras dos habitantes do complexo, traça uma imagem assustadora do período que serve de pano de fundo - o medo que aterroriza os protagonistas transborda das páginas e chega facilmente ao coração do leitor.
Ao mesmo tempo, entretanto, ela também consegue passar toda a esperança que não abandona aqueles guerreiros e é incrível acompanhar as tentativas deles viver mesmo com todo o horror que os cerca e todas as incertezas sobre o futuro e o presente!
Mas a parte mais incrível do livro são as cartas!
Durante toda a narrativa, o leitor encontra várias cartas. Cartas que impressionam.
São inegavelmente a melhor parte!
Os textos simulam o que seriam as cartas que os prisioneiros nos campos de concentração eram obrigados a escrever para seus familiares e amigos. Falsas, mentirosas e extremamente interessantes.
A operação conhecida como "Briefaktion", que obrigava as vítimas que chegavam a Auschwitz a escrever para casa contando como suas condições em sua nova casa eram favoráveis, realmente existiu, por mais cruel e inútil que possa parecer. Entretanto, não sei dizer se as cartas retratadas no livro são reais ou foram escritas pela autora simulando as que foram de fato escritas.
Elas são apresentadas na "língua original" em que foram escritas e logo abaixo traduzidas para o português, o que permite ao leitor uma experiência bastante interessante.
O único problema com estas cartas, ao meu ver, foi a fonte utilizada na parte em que elas estão em sua língua original. É um fonte bem ruim, pequena e confusa, e acaba dificultando a leitura (e como alguém que adora línguas estrangeiras eu li todas as cartas, mesmo nas línguas em que não conseguia entender nada). A parte em português, todavia, está com uma fonte diferente e sua leitura é tranquila.
A trama do livro é bem complexa e bastante envolvente, assim como os personagens criados pela autora. Uma história diferente e impressionante que vale a pena ler!
Nota: 7
Leia mais resenhas no blog Nanie's World: www.naniesworld.com
Os Óculos de Heidegger, de Thaisa Frank
Intrínseca - 285 páginas
Quando as cartas se tornam mais do que cartas, mas um refúgio em meio ao caos.
Título: Os Óculos de Heidegger
Título Original: Heidegger's Glasses
Autora: Thaisa Frank
Tradutor: Mauro Pinheiro
Editora: Intrínseca
ISBN: 978-85-8057-308-4
Ano da Edição: 2012
Ano Original de Lançamento: 2010
Nº de Páginas: 285
Comprar Online:
Inglês: Amazon / Book Depository
Português: Amazon / Cultura / Saraiva / Submarino
Sinopse:
Em plena segunda guerra mundial há um refúgio para pessoas de todas as nacionalidades, crenças e credos. É um complexo onde as cartas dos mortos são respondidas.
Prisioneiros à beira da morte foram salvos por saber uma ou outra língua além do alemão e se viram reunidos para escrever respostas às cartas dos mortos - da mesma maneira em que foram escritas!
Dentre estas pessoas está Elie Schacter, que se utiliza de todos os meios possível para garantir a sobrevivência daqueles que moram no complexo com ela e também faz o impossível para conseguir salvar pessoas de fora daquela loucura do Terceiro Reich.
Quando aqueles homens e mulheres do complexo recebem a inesperada incumbência de responder uma carta para um vivo, as coisas mudam e Elie vai fazer todo o possível para encontrar Asher Englehardt - que escreveu a carta - para que ele mesmo possa dar uma resposta para Martin Heidegger e confeccionar seus óculos. No fundo, ela tem a esperança de salvar alguém de Auschwitz, por mais impossível que possa parecer.
O que eu achei do livro:
Bom!
Livros que tratam da Segunda Guerra Mundial exercem um fascínio irrefreável sobre mim. Sempre me chamam a atenção e me cativam, ao mesmo tempo que me aterrorizam por contarem histórias sobre uma época negra, onde o ser humano mostrou o pior que havia em si (mas, felizmente, outros seres humanos também mostraram o melhor que havia neles).
Os Óculos de Heidegger, embora leve no título o nome de um importante filósofo alemão que existiu de fato e mesmo que esse faça uma pequena participação durante o livro, é ficção. A história foi inventada por Thaisa Frank mas transborda veracidade.
Eis aqui um ponto que poderia ter sido melhor explorado nessa edição e certamente o será no futuro (desconheço se alguma edição do livro - a original em inglês ou alguma das que foram traduzidas em outras línguas - contém tais informações) - possivelmente com um prefácio que situe melhor o leitor. Por se tratar de um romance histórico muito bem escrito, é natural que o leitor se encontre em dúvida sobre o que (e até mesmo quem) é real e o que é ficção inventada pela autora.
A escrita da autora é incrível! Ela mistura filosofia, horror, angústia, romance e esperança nas linhas que contam sua história. Enquanto narra as desventuras dos habitantes do complexo, traça uma imagem assustadora do período que serve de pano de fundo - o medo que aterroriza os protagonistas transborda das páginas e chega facilmente ao coração do leitor.
Ao mesmo tempo, entretanto, ela também consegue passar toda a esperança que não abandona aqueles guerreiros e é incrível acompanhar as tentativas deles viver mesmo com todo o horror que os cerca e todas as incertezas sobre o futuro e o presente!
Mas a parte mais incrível do livro são as cartas!
Durante toda a narrativa, o leitor encontra várias cartas. Cartas que impressionam.
São inegavelmente a melhor parte!
Os textos simulam o que seriam as cartas que os prisioneiros nos campos de concentração eram obrigados a escrever para seus familiares e amigos. Falsas, mentirosas e extremamente interessantes.
A operação conhecida como "Briefaktion", que obrigava as vítimas que chegavam a Auschwitz a escrever para casa contando como suas condições em sua nova casa eram favoráveis, realmente existiu, por mais cruel e inútil que possa parecer. Entretanto, não sei dizer se as cartas retratadas no livro são reais ou foram escritas pela autora simulando as que foram de fato escritas.
Elas são apresentadas na "língua original" em que foram escritas e logo abaixo traduzidas para o português, o que permite ao leitor uma experiência bastante interessante.
O único problema com estas cartas, ao meu ver, foi a fonte utilizada na parte em que elas estão em sua língua original. É um fonte bem ruim, pequena e confusa, e acaba dificultando a leitura (e como alguém que adora línguas estrangeiras eu li todas as cartas, mesmo nas línguas em que não conseguia entender nada). A parte em português, todavia, está com uma fonte diferente e sua leitura é tranquila.
A trama do livro é bem complexa e bastante envolvente, assim como os personagens criados pela autora. Uma história diferente e impressionante que vale a pena ler!
Nota: 7
Leia mais resenhas no blog Nanie's World: www.naniesworld.com
December 13, 2010
"Sometimes he liked to imagine that each star was a word, and the sky was a piece of paper. Then the stars unfurled into a phrase- a proclamation for just one night."
Heidegger's Glasses by Thaisa Frank takes place during World War II, as a group of Jews live underground in a converted mine, called the compound, as scribes, translating and answering letters written to the dead. These Jews were saved because of their knowledge of multiple languages, and as a result of the Third Reich's reliance on occult, they are responsible for ensuring that the dead get their replies. They also help perpetuate the impression that people aren't actually dying at concentration camps. However when the philosopher Martin Heidegger writes a letter to his optometrist, a man now dying at Auschwitz, who is able to reply? The answer to this question results in a series of events which will change the course of history for those who live at the compound.
This book fell somewhere in the middle ground for me- I admired the research and details that went into the story, as well Frank's technically expert writing. I especially appreciated the fact that Heidegger's Glasses is a book, which despite being on a very popular topic, takes a look at a less known perspective of World War II, including a Nazi who tries to help Jews and wishes for Germany's defeat and Jews who escaped concentration camps. However, I did find the story itself slightly distant, at times I almost felt as if I was reading a script, and while I certainly feel it could make a fantastic film I didn't quite get the emotional connection to the characters that I craved.
In addition, without providing any spoilers, I found the abrupt time change at the end of the novel as well as the switch to a brand-new character slightly awkward and out of place. While the ending of Heidegger's Glasses did feel rushed, there were many beautiful scenes which I loved, the contemplations on the idea of always feeling near-death after an experience like being in a concentration camp, and how such a shocking horror divides the lives of the people who experience it into Before and After. There were some characters I wished to get to know better (like Maria, a woman who spends months living under the floor in hiding) and others I didn't care so much for including half a dozen romantic liasons happening in the compound between people I could never quite keep straight.
At the beginning of each chapter Frank includes an actual letter from the period as well as the translation. The letters themselves are simple but heartbreaking since the reader realizes what likely happened to the person who wrote them. Overall, Heidegger's Glasses is an intelligent book, it just didn't quite capture my heart. ***
Heidegger's Glasses by Thaisa Frank takes place during World War II, as a group of Jews live underground in a converted mine, called the compound, as scribes, translating and answering letters written to the dead. These Jews were saved because of their knowledge of multiple languages, and as a result of the Third Reich's reliance on occult, they are responsible for ensuring that the dead get their replies. They also help perpetuate the impression that people aren't actually dying at concentration camps. However when the philosopher Martin Heidegger writes a letter to his optometrist, a man now dying at Auschwitz, who is able to reply? The answer to this question results in a series of events which will change the course of history for those who live at the compound.
This book fell somewhere in the middle ground for me- I admired the research and details that went into the story, as well Frank's technically expert writing. I especially appreciated the fact that Heidegger's Glasses is a book, which despite being on a very popular topic, takes a look at a less known perspective of World War II, including a Nazi who tries to help Jews and wishes for Germany's defeat and Jews who escaped concentration camps. However, I did find the story itself slightly distant, at times I almost felt as if I was reading a script, and while I certainly feel it could make a fantastic film I didn't quite get the emotional connection to the characters that I craved.
In addition, without providing any spoilers, I found the abrupt time change at the end of the novel as well as the switch to a brand-new character slightly awkward and out of place. While the ending of Heidegger's Glasses did feel rushed, there were many beautiful scenes which I loved, the contemplations on the idea of always feeling near-death after an experience like being in a concentration camp, and how such a shocking horror divides the lives of the people who experience it into Before and After. There were some characters I wished to get to know better (like Maria, a woman who spends months living under the floor in hiding) and others I didn't care so much for including half a dozen romantic liasons happening in the compound between people I could never quite keep straight.
At the beginning of each chapter Frank includes an actual letter from the period as well as the translation. The letters themselves are simple but heartbreaking since the reader realizes what likely happened to the person who wrote them. Overall, Heidegger's Glasses is an intelligent book, it just didn't quite capture my heart. ***
November 18, 2010
Why I wanted to read this book: I was immediately captured by the original plot for this story. I like historical fiction and felt ready to read another book about the Holocaust and WWII.
What worked for me:
* The originality of the storyline really blew me away. I am totally amazed at how the author weaved this story to the point that she actually had me convinced that these letter writers existed.
* I think she captured how insane Hitler and his regime was and the affect that his actions had on people in so many countries.
* The author shows to what lengths humans will go to just to stay alive. Each letter writer was plucked from the hands of death and even though their work was unsavory, they were just happy to be alive.
* The character Elie truly touched me. I know that there were many women just like her during Hitler's control of Germany who put themselves in extreme danger just to save one person. Elie is a person who will stay with me.
* Frank begins almost each chapter with a letter that was written by someone in an internment camp. They haunted my dreams and at times just broke my heart. Why? Because you and I both know how the story ended for most of them.
Recommend? Absolutely. This is a book that will stay with me for some time. I was touched on a deep emotional level. If you enjoy historical fiction that takes place during WWII and gives you much to ponder and think about, then I truly believe that you will want to read this one.
What worked for me:
* The originality of the storyline really blew me away. I am totally amazed at how the author weaved this story to the point that she actually had me convinced that these letter writers existed.
* I think she captured how insane Hitler and his regime was and the affect that his actions had on people in so many countries.
* The author shows to what lengths humans will go to just to stay alive. Each letter writer was plucked from the hands of death and even though their work was unsavory, they were just happy to be alive.
* The character Elie truly touched me. I know that there were many women just like her during Hitler's control of Germany who put themselves in extreme danger just to save one person. Elie is a person who will stay with me.
* Frank begins almost each chapter with a letter that was written by someone in an internment camp. They haunted my dreams and at times just broke my heart. Why? Because you and I both know how the story ended for most of them.
Recommend? Absolutely. This is a book that will stay with me for some time. I was touched on a deep emotional level. If you enjoy historical fiction that takes place during WWII and gives you much to ponder and think about, then I truly believe that you will want to read this one.
December 1, 2010
I found this novel profoundly compelling and gorgeously conceived, written with great care and beauty. This band of "Scribes" in an underground Compound in northern Germany, deep in the woods, toward the end of World War II, have become part of my own imaginary now; they have moved into my heart and soul. Each character, especially the central two figures, who are lovers, is very real, and yet the whole world of the Scribes -- the world of the novel -- is touched with a kind of magic, which almost (almost!) protects them from the insanity of the Nazi regime and its frightening "logic." Heidegger becomes a fascinating figure on the margin of this book, and his presence helps to open up a plethora of questions about the morality and ethics within a deeply immoral (ex-moral) system of governance (i.e. persecution). How does one see? With what eyes? How can vision be corrected? What can one do when people turn a blind eye? Of what value is philosophy if it cannot encompass and wrestle against human monstrosity?
May 15, 2020
I've been tossing this book around in my mind since I finished it a few days ago. I could have given it anything from two to four stars. I really wish that Amazon would use a rating system of 5 and 4 Stars - positive, 3 Stars - neutral, and 2 and 1 Stars negative. If they had that system, I would have definitely given the book 3 stars and have been done with it. Because, that's how I ended up feeling about Thaisa Frank's book - "neutral".
I've read many books, both histories and novels, about the Holocaust and consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject. Though, after thinking about Frank's book for a while, I'm still not sure what she was getting at. We have the letters that preface each chapter from newly-arrived inmates at the German concentration camps to the relatives and friends left behind - for the moment, anyway - in their home towns and villages. The letters are to reassure those left behind that the deported are "enjoying" their new surroundings. Of course, many writers were sent to the gas chambers after writing these notes back home and very few ended up surviving their captivity. Frank's plot line is, if I've read it correctly, that a special commission of multi-lingual prisoners were "enlisted" by the Reich to answer those letters sent under coercion by the new inmates to their friends and family at home. The "answers" the team was writing back to the dead who wrote the letters in the first place, was somehow to appease the "spirits", who might somehow let the people back home know about the "real conditions", and, therefore, let the secret of the "Final Solution" into the open. I would have thought that maybe the "scribes" should have been answering the letters that the living back home wrote to their friends and families in the camps. But, I guess not...
These scribes were kept in pretty good conditions - at least as compared to the camp prisoners - as they answered the dead. They were looked after by an SS officer and his lover, who was able to go in and out of the compound, as conditions arouse. The woman - Elie, a Polish-Catholic woman - had known philosopher Martin Heidegger in university before the war. Okay, here's where it gets even more complicated. Heidegger had written to his former university professor friend turned optician, asking for a pair of glasses. And also some philosophical discussions. Unfortunately, the optician/former colleague had been deported to Auchwitz along with his son. The scribes were given the assignment to answer the letter as if it had come from the colleague and Elie used this exchange as an attempt to get the optician and his son released from Auchwitz. The rest of the story concerns Heidegger, the glasses, the scribes, and their "keepers".
Below is a quote from the Amazon review of the Thaisa Frank's book.
"Heidegger's Glasses opens during the end of World War II in a failing Germany coming apart at its seams. The Third Reich's strong reliance on the occult and its obsession with the astral plane has led to the formation of an underground compound of scribes -translators responsible for answering letters written to those eventually killed in the concentration camps."
Here it implies that the letters being written by the scribes ARE going back to those left behind, NOT to the dead who wrote the notes to begin with. So, I'm still confused by the letters and scribes and occult, but NOT by the glasses.
The book is well-written, if you can understand the premise, so I'm giving it three stars in the hopes of showing that the good balances the bad about the writing and plot line. I am very "neutrally confused", so I'll leave it up to the other reviewers to make some sense of it all.
I've read many books, both histories and novels, about the Holocaust and consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject. Though, after thinking about Frank's book for a while, I'm still not sure what she was getting at. We have the letters that preface each chapter from newly-arrived inmates at the German concentration camps to the relatives and friends left behind - for the moment, anyway - in their home towns and villages. The letters are to reassure those left behind that the deported are "enjoying" their new surroundings. Of course, many writers were sent to the gas chambers after writing these notes back home and very few ended up surviving their captivity. Frank's plot line is, if I've read it correctly, that a special commission of multi-lingual prisoners were "enlisted" by the Reich to answer those letters sent under coercion by the new inmates to their friends and family at home. The "answers" the team was writing back to the dead who wrote the letters in the first place, was somehow to appease the "spirits", who might somehow let the people back home know about the "real conditions", and, therefore, let the secret of the "Final Solution" into the open. I would have thought that maybe the "scribes" should have been answering the letters that the living back home wrote to their friends and families in the camps. But, I guess not...
These scribes were kept in pretty good conditions - at least as compared to the camp prisoners - as they answered the dead. They were looked after by an SS officer and his lover, who was able to go in and out of the compound, as conditions arouse. The woman - Elie, a Polish-Catholic woman - had known philosopher Martin Heidegger in university before the war. Okay, here's where it gets even more complicated. Heidegger had written to his former university professor friend turned optician, asking for a pair of glasses. And also some philosophical discussions. Unfortunately, the optician/former colleague had been deported to Auchwitz along with his son. The scribes were given the assignment to answer the letter as if it had come from the colleague and Elie used this exchange as an attempt to get the optician and his son released from Auchwitz. The rest of the story concerns Heidegger, the glasses, the scribes, and their "keepers".
Below is a quote from the Amazon review of the Thaisa Frank's book.
"Heidegger's Glasses opens during the end of World War II in a failing Germany coming apart at its seams. The Third Reich's strong reliance on the occult and its obsession with the astral plane has led to the formation of an underground compound of scribes -translators responsible for answering letters written to those eventually killed in the concentration camps."
Here it implies that the letters being written by the scribes ARE going back to those left behind, NOT to the dead who wrote the notes to begin with. So, I'm still confused by the letters and scribes and occult, but NOT by the glasses.
The book is well-written, if you can understand the premise, so I'm giving it three stars in the hopes of showing that the good balances the bad about the writing and plot line. I am very "neutrally confused", so I'll leave it up to the other reviewers to make some sense of it all.
July 10, 2019
I liked the main plot of the story but the nearly constant wordsrunningon without spaces on the kindle version made reading this absolutely tedious at times. Throw it in with some dry reading in small parts of the book, and you get the idea.
July 2, 2016
Undelivered Letters
Writing a novel about the Holocaust is difficult because the terrible events are so well known as to numb readers with repetition. Writers wanting to evoke the horrors afresh must find ways of approaching them from unusual directions. Of these, one of the most risky—because on the face of it absurd—is through fantasy.* Though there have been successes. Roberto Benigni managed (almost) to write an Auschwitz comedy in his movie Life is Beautiful. Joseph Skibell called on Jewish folk legend in his novel A Blessing on the Moon, escaping from the reality of this world by flying to another one. Martin Amis gained new traction in Time's Arrow by telling the Holocaust story backwards. And D. M. Thomas launched his brilliant The White Hotel in the vein of Freudian erotic fantasy, but only to make that final scene in the railroad goods yards brutally realistic.
To tell the truth, I am not sure how clearly Thaisa Frank intended her novel Heidegger's Glasses to be fantasy; the lines between reality and fancy are blurred throughout. She starts with a lesser-known fact. To conceal the Final Solution, the Nazis made many of their prisoners write cheerful "wish you were here" postcards before being sent to the gas chambers. Frank includes about three dozen of these between chapters in her book, both in the original languages (German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, and Hebrew, among others) and in translation. It may be that some or all of these are genuine; photographs of the few you can find online are moving. But here they are all presented in the same way, in obviously standardized handwriting superimposed on exactly the same sheet of dogeared paper each time; the pathos of the originals is entirely lost, and the device soon wears thin.
Here's where the fantasy comes in. Knowing that some of the Nazi leadership (Hitler among them) were highly superstitious, Frank digs up a belief that the dead cannot rest in peace while any of their letters remain unanswered. So she posits a secret underground town, with a starry sky, street-lights, and houses, constructed in a deserted mine in the middle of a forest not far from Berlin. This is populated by Scribes—prisoners of all nationalities pulled from the selection line—whose only task is to answer letters sent by the victims of the camps. Their motto is "Like answers like," meaning that each reply must be in the same language and general style as the original. Trouble comes when the normal direction is reversed, and someone has to answer a letter from Martin Heidegger to his former optometrist (and fellow philosopher, therefore requiring an elevated level of discourse) without revealing that the man is now in Auschwitz.
I could go on, but the whole thing is really too silly. Just as I could not believe that the letters were real (even though some may have been), I cannot believe in the reality of the collection of oddball characters underground or the feeble lot of disaffected Nazis supposed to look after them. And nowhere, but nowhere, did I ever fear the murderous regime as a real threat. Which kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?
======
*
A more recent book, that had not appeared when I originally wrote this review, is Mischling by Affinity Konar. I am not pretty sure that there is an element of fantasy there too, perhaps in the sense of writing from beyond the grave, but at the time I did not recognize it.
Writing a novel about the Holocaust is difficult because the terrible events are so well known as to numb readers with repetition. Writers wanting to evoke the horrors afresh must find ways of approaching them from unusual directions. Of these, one of the most risky—because on the face of it absurd—is through fantasy.* Though there have been successes. Roberto Benigni managed (almost) to write an Auschwitz comedy in his movie Life is Beautiful. Joseph Skibell called on Jewish folk legend in his novel A Blessing on the Moon, escaping from the reality of this world by flying to another one. Martin Amis gained new traction in Time's Arrow by telling the Holocaust story backwards. And D. M. Thomas launched his brilliant The White Hotel in the vein of Freudian erotic fantasy, but only to make that final scene in the railroad goods yards brutally realistic.
To tell the truth, I am not sure how clearly Thaisa Frank intended her novel Heidegger's Glasses to be fantasy; the lines between reality and fancy are blurred throughout. She starts with a lesser-known fact. To conceal the Final Solution, the Nazis made many of their prisoners write cheerful "wish you were here" postcards before being sent to the gas chambers. Frank includes about three dozen of these between chapters in her book, both in the original languages (German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, and Hebrew, among others) and in translation. It may be that some or all of these are genuine; photographs of the few you can find online are moving. But here they are all presented in the same way, in obviously standardized handwriting superimposed on exactly the same sheet of dogeared paper each time; the pathos of the originals is entirely lost, and the device soon wears thin.
Here's where the fantasy comes in. Knowing that some of the Nazi leadership (Hitler among them) were highly superstitious, Frank digs up a belief that the dead cannot rest in peace while any of their letters remain unanswered. So she posits a secret underground town, with a starry sky, street-lights, and houses, constructed in a deserted mine in the middle of a forest not far from Berlin. This is populated by Scribes—prisoners of all nationalities pulled from the selection line—whose only task is to answer letters sent by the victims of the camps. Their motto is "Like answers like," meaning that each reply must be in the same language and general style as the original. Trouble comes when the normal direction is reversed, and someone has to answer a letter from Martin Heidegger to his former optometrist (and fellow philosopher, therefore requiring an elevated level of discourse) without revealing that the man is now in Auschwitz.
I could go on, but the whole thing is really too silly. Just as I could not believe that the letters were real (even though some may have been), I cannot believe in the reality of the collection of oddball characters underground or the feeble lot of disaffected Nazis supposed to look after them. And nowhere, but nowhere, did I ever fear the murderous regime as a real threat. Which kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?
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*
A more recent book, that had not appeared when I originally wrote this review, is Mischling by Affinity Konar. I am not pretty sure that there is an element of fantasy there too, perhaps in the sense of writing from beyond the grave, but at the time I did not recognize it.
January 23, 2011
As I was reading Heidegger's Glasses, I thought to myself "I'm not really enjoying this as much as I think I should be". But I kept reading anyway and, when I put it down last night, I thought myself "Wow, that was pretty good." And really hard to explain.
Martin Heidegger was a German philosophy who plays a peripheral role in the story, but whose presence is always looming off stage. Early in the book, he writes about feeling like he's "fallen out of the world" and that's what this story really is. It's about falling out of the world.
It's about an underground stable of scribes, pulled out of concentration camp line-ups for their language skills, who are chartered by the Nazis to write responses to letters written by people who were subsequently killed in the concentration camps. Why would the Nazis want this? It's not entirely clear. There's a little bit of mysticism ("If the dead are satisfied, Germany will win the war") and little bit of politics ("This paper trail will help us deny the existence of the camps"). (The book is paced by photocopies of actual letters written by actual camp victims. Some are quite disturbing.)
Whatever the reason, it's a surreal scene. The Scribes live in an underground mine that's set up to look like an ordinary street. It's huge, domed ceiling is painted with fake clouds with cobblestones, a sun and moon that are raised and lowered manually, false streetscapes, and pretend parks. Letters from the dead arrive, the Scribes answer them, and then the Scribes sleep on their desks. It's a cozy little pretend sanctuary for people who would ordinarily have been sent to the gas chambers and they all know it.
Most of the story revolves around Elie, the reluctant heroine who forages for supplies to keep the whole operation going, and Lodenstein, the German officer in charge (also reluctantly) of the whole thing. He wants her undivided love and a normal life. She loves him, too, but wants to save as many people as possible in order to atone for the murder of her sister by the Nazis.
The whole thing feels like a play, really. These poor doomed Scribes and their star-crossed guardians huddle underground amid garish scenery while everyone looks the other way and pretends that it's real. They've fallen out of the world themselves into a surreal sanctuary and everyone's holding their breath to see how it's going to end.
Like most good Jew-in-WWII-Germany novels, every page seethes with tension - the Nazis constantly threaten to show up and execute everyone, fugitives appear on their doorstep needing food and concealment, Elie continues to discover new people and bring them to the underground sanctuary. And amidst all this, Heidegger writes to his optometrist (who's in Auschwitz) demanding to know where his glasses are, which sends Lodenstein and Heidegger to Auschwitz itself for a good part of the book.
What made this so good was the rich emotional content at the end. The putting of lives back together. All the characters in this story were shattered by their experiences and they break in different ways. Like the eponymous and metaphorical glasses, Heidegger's Glasses is a study in these people's destruction and their attempts to recover and see the world in a new way. It's certainly a story that will stay with you.
Martin Heidegger was a German philosophy who plays a peripheral role in the story, but whose presence is always looming off stage. Early in the book, he writes about feeling like he's "fallen out of the world" and that's what this story really is. It's about falling out of the world.
It's about an underground stable of scribes, pulled out of concentration camp line-ups for their language skills, who are chartered by the Nazis to write responses to letters written by people who were subsequently killed in the concentration camps. Why would the Nazis want this? It's not entirely clear. There's a little bit of mysticism ("If the dead are satisfied, Germany will win the war") and little bit of politics ("This paper trail will help us deny the existence of the camps"). (The book is paced by photocopies of actual letters written by actual camp victims. Some are quite disturbing.)
Whatever the reason, it's a surreal scene. The Scribes live in an underground mine that's set up to look like an ordinary street. It's huge, domed ceiling is painted with fake clouds with cobblestones, a sun and moon that are raised and lowered manually, false streetscapes, and pretend parks. Letters from the dead arrive, the Scribes answer them, and then the Scribes sleep on their desks. It's a cozy little pretend sanctuary for people who would ordinarily have been sent to the gas chambers and they all know it.
Most of the story revolves around Elie, the reluctant heroine who forages for supplies to keep the whole operation going, and Lodenstein, the German officer in charge (also reluctantly) of the whole thing. He wants her undivided love and a normal life. She loves him, too, but wants to save as many people as possible in order to atone for the murder of her sister by the Nazis.
The whole thing feels like a play, really. These poor doomed Scribes and their star-crossed guardians huddle underground amid garish scenery while everyone looks the other way and pretends that it's real. They've fallen out of the world themselves into a surreal sanctuary and everyone's holding their breath to see how it's going to end.
Like most good Jew-in-WWII-Germany novels, every page seethes with tension - the Nazis constantly threaten to show up and execute everyone, fugitives appear on their doorstep needing food and concealment, Elie continues to discover new people and bring them to the underground sanctuary. And amidst all this, Heidegger writes to his optometrist (who's in Auschwitz) demanding to know where his glasses are, which sends Lodenstein and Heidegger to Auschwitz itself for a good part of the book.
What made this so good was the rich emotional content at the end. The putting of lives back together. All the characters in this story were shattered by their experiences and they break in different ways. Like the eponymous and metaphorical glasses, Heidegger's Glasses is a study in these people's destruction and their attempts to recover and see the world in a new way. It's certainly a story that will stay with you.
January 5, 2011
Here I sit with furrowed brow pondering what to write about Heidegger's Glasses. I shouldn't have liked it but I did. I wish there had been more punctuation. Following conversations presented without enough commas and that helpful little thing writers do where they insert such bits as "Joe said" or "........,"muttered Leslie. Can be so confusing. But then I am rather stupid and hard to please. And I'll be darned if the story wasn't really cool even though half the time I wasn't sure who was speaking and what was going on. The story was cool anyway. There are a bunch of people who narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazi's by being hidden away in some bizarre bunker type thing that was somehow hidden or underground (I never understood what the deal was with that place). They all have been spared because of their various language abilities. Apparently Goebble thought it be a good idea to have these folks answer letters sent to people that died in the camps to make a false trail or false history or something like that. The story is really confusing yall but so dang intreresting I put up with it. The cool thing is the really interesting characters and their experiences being hidden away for so long. You really care about these poor slobs and a couple of little mysteries are thrown in to keep ya interested. Seeing as how it's a short book, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this one to anyone in to history or WWII or sociology for that matter. Would I read it again? Nope, but I'd love to see it fattened up a bit and made into a movie. Oh, thanks to Pixelofink.com for the daily headsup of free kindle books. That's where I found out about this one.
July 20, 2012
I heard a lot of buzz about this book a couple years back and wanted to like the book, but I didn't. Some of it is just personal preference. This is a book that tends towards philosophy. It's more about ideas than about a story or about characters. I didn't feel connected to the characters as individuals -- they were more or less the same (or opposites) spouting ideas and thoughts throughout the book. The characters said almost the same things and you could have replaced one name for another without noticing much difference.
It was also difficult to read because of the format. There are no quotation marks to set off conversations and letters are inserted within the text and then translated which have nothing to do with the plot at the moment. So you're constantly being jerked out of the story to read these letters. I also have to caution that some readers may be offended by the amount of profanity in the book.
The end of the story is the very best part - and the only part that made any real sense to me. The Holocaust was a terrible time in our history and my heart hurts for every person touched by the war and all the atrocities that happened.
I waffled and almost gave this three stars - but the description says, "I liked it" and I can't honestly say that. That doesn't mean it isn't a great book for someone else with different preferences though.
It was also difficult to read because of the format. There are no quotation marks to set off conversations and letters are inserted within the text and then translated which have nothing to do with the plot at the moment. So you're constantly being jerked out of the story to read these letters. I also have to caution that some readers may be offended by the amount of profanity in the book.
The end of the story is the very best part - and the only part that made any real sense to me. The Holocaust was a terrible time in our history and my heart hurts for every person touched by the war and all the atrocities that happened.
I waffled and almost gave this three stars - but the description says, "I liked it" and I can't honestly say that. That doesn't mean it isn't a great book for someone else with different preferences though.
August 14, 2011
This book is really haunting. It is fiction - set in WWII - about a group of Jewish linguists who are kept in an underground bunker/city to write letters to the dead. Both Goebbels and Himmler were fascinated by the occult, and this book is based on the idea that it was important to the Nazis to have the letters that were written (often under coercion) from the concentration camps be answered, even though the original letter writers are long since dead.
The main characters - Elie Schachten, a woman of mysterious background, who goes on mission after mission to rescue people, and Lodenstein, the Nazi who is in charge of the compound, but is actually helping Elie with her attempts to save people - have their lives shaken up when an order comes from Goebbels to have one of the "scribes" write an answer to Martin Heidegger's letter to his optometrist and friend Asher Engelhardt (who is now in Auschwitz). The order kicks off a series of events and consequences that resonate through the lives of all the compound's residents.
Sometimes farcical, sometimes poignant, sometimes suspenseful, the novel leaves you with questions about faith, humanity, and what we are when we are stripped to our core selves and values. I will be thinking about this for a very long time.
The main characters - Elie Schachten, a woman of mysterious background, who goes on mission after mission to rescue people, and Lodenstein, the Nazi who is in charge of the compound, but is actually helping Elie with her attempts to save people - have their lives shaken up when an order comes from Goebbels to have one of the "scribes" write an answer to Martin Heidegger's letter to his optometrist and friend Asher Engelhardt (who is now in Auschwitz). The order kicks off a series of events and consequences that resonate through the lives of all the compound's residents.
Sometimes farcical, sometimes poignant, sometimes suspenseful, the novel leaves you with questions about faith, humanity, and what we are when we are stripped to our core selves and values. I will be thinking about this for a very long time.
December 23, 2010
One of the great things about Heidegger’s Glasses that no one in the novel is completely good or bad. Each of the main characters is forced to do things that he or she might normally have shunned. War does that to people, and Frank’s representation of life underground during World War II illustrates this beautifully.
Elie, the main character, intrigued me from the beginning. She is mysterious, secretive, and kind. Traveling the countryside, she saves people, but she loses more of herself in the process. Again, so true, and so poignant that I was engrossed in Heidegger’s Glasses from beginning to end.
Heidegger’s Glasses is a great read for anyone who is interested in historical fiction, WWII, or even just human nature.
Elie, the main character, intrigued me from the beginning. She is mysterious, secretive, and kind. Traveling the countryside, she saves people, but she loses more of herself in the process. Again, so true, and so poignant that I was engrossed in Heidegger’s Glasses from beginning to end.
Heidegger’s Glasses is a great read for anyone who is interested in historical fiction, WWII, or even just human nature.
November 17, 2010
Some books just resonate with you, some don't. This one didn't move me at all. Historically, it sounds fascinating and it's certainly a different perspective from which to look at World War 2 and the Third Reich.
The writing style was surreal and philosophical and reminded me of something you might read in an advanced English class in school. I found the book difficult to follow and I was more confused than intrigued. Ultimately, I didn't have the time nor the energy that this book required of me and I didn't finish it.
My reaction to the book seems to be in the minority. For many others, this book is a favorite and you can find many other, positive reviews.
The writing style was surreal and philosophical and reminded me of something you might read in an advanced English class in school. I found the book difficult to follow and I was more confused than intrigued. Ultimately, I didn't have the time nor the energy that this book required of me and I didn't finish it.
My reaction to the book seems to be in the minority. For many others, this book is a favorite and you can find many other, positive reviews.
March 1, 2011
vacation read #8: not sure what to think about this. I question the historicity. Seems literature and pop fiction has a lot to say about Nazis and the occult, but it appears that most of it is very poorly sourced. This is no exception, although the author does make (sort of) clear that this entire story is just a fiction she made up in her own little mind.
Still wish it had more basis in fact. I've only been able to confirm what facts I already knew: Heidegger's existence, and the letters written by prisoner/victims right before they were gassed. The rest of it seems an entirely constructed story.
Still wish it had more basis in fact. I've only been able to confirm what facts I already knew: Heidegger's existence, and the letters written by prisoner/victims right before they were gassed. The rest of it seems an entirely constructed story.
June 25, 2011
I am very interested in the Holocaust and survivor stories. I knew that this was a work of fiction, but was ultimately disappointed in the small basis in fact. I was not aware that many prisoners were forced to write letters before they were gassed. Frank includes "letters" at the end of each chapter, but I have to assume that she made all of them up. The "letters" are the most interesting thing about the book. The rest of the novel dwells on a group of Jewish scribes that were supposed to answer the letters. It also dwells on rampant sex and a strange side plot involved philosopher Heidegger and a pair of glasses.
September 21, 2019
I found this to be a lovely and incredibly sad book. Given the subject matter, that can’t be much of a surprise, but “Heidegger’s Glasses” looks at a slightly different aspect of World War II. The focus is more (though not completely) on the people who survived the Holocaust…while living on the razor’s edge of safety.
A Nazi officer sums up the constant fear of this small group of people living an unsure existence underground. “Every assurance of continuing could mean is just about to be shot.”
Due to a superstitious element of the Nazi party, a group of translators is collected and sent into an underground world to translate and then answer letters to the dead. This world below the earth is nearly as implausible compared to normal human life as the world above. Below, there is a cobblestone street, a small house, a sky that changes from morning to night…all as part of a mine shaft. Above, there is mass murder, constant fear and deprivation, and inhuman treatment of entire populations.
One of the main characters, Elie, is a part of both worlds. She is both incredibly strong and unbelievably fragile, able to externally adapt to both worlds, but not without constantly being wounded inside. .
“Elie scanned without reading – her only purpose was to identify the language. She tried to ignore her sense of revulsion – never pausing to look at the name of the writer or what they’d written. Sometimes, when she was trying to fall asleep, she saw phrases from these letters – hurried, terrified lies, extolling the conditions in the camps. But when she scanned them quickly, she noticed nothing – except when she saw the enormous bag marked A, for Auschwitz. It was not only bigger than the other mailbags but seemed larger than anything this world could contain, as if it had fallen from another universe.”
All of these characters as compelling – but Elie was the one that haunted me the most after finishing the book. Appropriately, the focus of so many books about this horrible war focus on the deaths and the losses. I don’t see as much written about those who survived the war intact in body, but certainly not in spirit. These people tried to maintain some semblance of normal life, either for their children or for their loved ones, or in a desperate attempt to maintain their sanity for when the war ended, if it ended. And all of them found different ways to survive, to try and keep their humanity intact.
“The lemonade reminded Lodenstein of summer, and he wished he could slip back into a summer childhood, where the only evidence of war was trenches he built with his friends. At dinner, his mother had fits about his muddy shoes, and his father tried to convince him that deciphering codes was far more exciting than battle. But he couldn’t slip away into anything because the past three weeks felt ground into his body like glass.”
The characters who lived to see the of the war are very different people than they were at the beginning. Too much that never should have happened; that human beings should never experience or do to one another has taken place.
“Elie couldn’t stop staring at Asher’s face while he sat on the cobblestone street, staring at the pretend sky. It didn’t look like a real face, but grey skin stretched over bones, an assemblage of angles and hollows, a vehicle for exhaustion and starvation – but not a face. The skin stretched over it was taut. The flesh beneath it was gone. His eyes were the only thing that seemed alive. Yet she could see everything in that face, as if his entire life were etched in the lines. She could sense every gunshot he’d heard at Auschwitz, every moment he’d seen people die, every day he’d lived in terror.”
These characters, and the plaintive cries of the letters they read and answer, cry out to be remembered. Remembered to those they love and lost, and remembered in order that their experiences are never replicated.
“The conversation with the dead goes on forever…” And so should stories like these. So that we never forget, and so that while so many souls did not survive this time in our history, their experiences and words will.
A Nazi officer sums up the constant fear of this small group of people living an unsure existence underground. “Every assurance of continuing could mean is just about to be shot.”
Due to a superstitious element of the Nazi party, a group of translators is collected and sent into an underground world to translate and then answer letters to the dead. This world below the earth is nearly as implausible compared to normal human life as the world above. Below, there is a cobblestone street, a small house, a sky that changes from morning to night…all as part of a mine shaft. Above, there is mass murder, constant fear and deprivation, and inhuman treatment of entire populations.
One of the main characters, Elie, is a part of both worlds. She is both incredibly strong and unbelievably fragile, able to externally adapt to both worlds, but not without constantly being wounded inside. .
“Elie scanned without reading – her only purpose was to identify the language. She tried to ignore her sense of revulsion – never pausing to look at the name of the writer or what they’d written. Sometimes, when she was trying to fall asleep, she saw phrases from these letters – hurried, terrified lies, extolling the conditions in the camps. But when she scanned them quickly, she noticed nothing – except when she saw the enormous bag marked A, for Auschwitz. It was not only bigger than the other mailbags but seemed larger than anything this world could contain, as if it had fallen from another universe.”
All of these characters as compelling – but Elie was the one that haunted me the most after finishing the book. Appropriately, the focus of so many books about this horrible war focus on the deaths and the losses. I don’t see as much written about those who survived the war intact in body, but certainly not in spirit. These people tried to maintain some semblance of normal life, either for their children or for their loved ones, or in a desperate attempt to maintain their sanity for when the war ended, if it ended. And all of them found different ways to survive, to try and keep their humanity intact.
“The lemonade reminded Lodenstein of summer, and he wished he could slip back into a summer childhood, where the only evidence of war was trenches he built with his friends. At dinner, his mother had fits about his muddy shoes, and his father tried to convince him that deciphering codes was far more exciting than battle. But he couldn’t slip away into anything because the past three weeks felt ground into his body like glass.”
The characters who lived to see the of the war are very different people than they were at the beginning. Too much that never should have happened; that human beings should never experience or do to one another has taken place.
“Elie couldn’t stop staring at Asher’s face while he sat on the cobblestone street, staring at the pretend sky. It didn’t look like a real face, but grey skin stretched over bones, an assemblage of angles and hollows, a vehicle for exhaustion and starvation – but not a face. The skin stretched over it was taut. The flesh beneath it was gone. His eyes were the only thing that seemed alive. Yet she could see everything in that face, as if his entire life were etched in the lines. She could sense every gunshot he’d heard at Auschwitz, every moment he’d seen people die, every day he’d lived in terror.”
These characters, and the plaintive cries of the letters they read and answer, cry out to be remembered. Remembered to those they love and lost, and remembered in order that their experiences are never replicated.
“The conversation with the dead goes on forever…” And so should stories like these. So that we never forget, and so that while so many souls did not survive this time in our history, their experiences and words will.
January 19, 2023
In wartime Germany a former mine was converted into a sort of "writing center" for Jews who were pulled off the cattle cars and selected because of their linguistic skills to spend claustrophobic days writing to the dead -- inquiring relatives who ended up deported and murdered. The reason for this activity and literally underground work lay in the belief by Nazi occultists that refusal to answer letters from the dead would bring bad luck on the Reich. The superintendent of the group, Elie, herself a secret Pole, uses her freedom of movement to keep her inmates alive and fed.
Their epistolary skills are tried when the famed philosopher Martin Heidegger is trying to contact a friend and optometrist Asher, who has been sent to Auschwitz. (Asher is Jewish by Nazi definition only; his mother was not.) Elie, a former student at Freiberg University and lover of Asher, arranges, with the help of her current boyfriend Gerhardt and a scholarly couple, an elaborate plan: they concoct a letter to Heidegger, who was awaiting a pair of glasses from Asher. It is Elie's hope to emulate both the "angel of Auschwitz" -- someone passing for an SS officer who managed to free a Jew from Auschwitz -- and her sister, an early Resistance member and martyr.
The plot is bizarre yet riveting. Presumably the author researched the era and the existence of such a place, as well as Heidegger's philosophy, of which I am unfortunately ignorant. The reader gets a smattering of it here; it seems based on the shifting nature of reality, as discovered when Heidegger had removed his glasses 25 years earlier. His friend Asher, having (no pun intended) seen the light, realizes at the end that philosophers basically waste their days in esoteric arguments.
The Aryan Heidegger, who is portrayed as a sort of crank, was allowed to keep his faculty position and German residence, although his philosophy was derided (and probably justifiably) by many Nazis, in spite of those who dabbled in occult. Joseph Goebbels, the satanic propaganda minister, never took them seriously; however, he honored their wishes and commandeered from Berlin the hapless letter-writing group. The surreal setting of the mine, which has a fake sky with rotating sun, moon, and stars, with matching fake trees and gardens, recreates a mock village, possibly mirroring Heidegger's view of the physical world, where anything tangible is subjective. His glasses take on special significance here. As the war progresses, and the Allies close in, the polyglot correspondence grows increasingly coded, revealing the horrors of the camps and the tense interactions of the writers among themselves as well as their phantom recipients. (Why were some of the letters written in Spanish? Spain and Latin America were neutral, although there might have been some prisoners or detainees with passports from those countries.)
This novel is a skillful and sensuous blend of magical realism, history, philosophy, and even romance. Joining the novels about Holocaust rescuers, it focuses on the "good Germans," those who were aware of the atrocities and heroic in their attempts. Elie remains sympathetic -- a strong female character who nevertheless was emotionally vulnerable, compassionate, and even maternal. Gerhardt proves particularly brave. Both of them anticipate German defeat and sense that the group would be living on borrowed time, if not for Elie's courageous intervention. The novel ends with the importance of legacy and universal humanitarianism. Elie's fate remains unknown, but it is implied that she played a valuable part in this legacy.
Their epistolary skills are tried when the famed philosopher Martin Heidegger is trying to contact a friend and optometrist Asher, who has been sent to Auschwitz. (Asher is Jewish by Nazi definition only; his mother was not.) Elie, a former student at Freiberg University and lover of Asher, arranges, with the help of her current boyfriend Gerhardt and a scholarly couple, an elaborate plan: they concoct a letter to Heidegger, who was awaiting a pair of glasses from Asher. It is Elie's hope to emulate both the "angel of Auschwitz" -- someone passing for an SS officer who managed to free a Jew from Auschwitz -- and her sister, an early Resistance member and martyr.
The plot is bizarre yet riveting. Presumably the author researched the era and the existence of such a place, as well as Heidegger's philosophy, of which I am unfortunately ignorant. The reader gets a smattering of it here; it seems based on the shifting nature of reality, as discovered when Heidegger had removed his glasses 25 years earlier. His friend Asher, having (no pun intended) seen the light, realizes at the end that philosophers basically waste their days in esoteric arguments.
The Aryan Heidegger, who is portrayed as a sort of crank, was allowed to keep his faculty position and German residence, although his philosophy was derided (and probably justifiably) by many Nazis, in spite of those who dabbled in occult. Joseph Goebbels, the satanic propaganda minister, never took them seriously; however, he honored their wishes and commandeered from Berlin the hapless letter-writing group. The surreal setting of the mine, which has a fake sky with rotating sun, moon, and stars, with matching fake trees and gardens, recreates a mock village, possibly mirroring Heidegger's view of the physical world, where anything tangible is subjective. His glasses take on special significance here. As the war progresses, and the Allies close in, the polyglot correspondence grows increasingly coded, revealing the horrors of the camps and the tense interactions of the writers among themselves as well as their phantom recipients. (Why were some of the letters written in Spanish? Spain and Latin America were neutral, although there might have been some prisoners or detainees with passports from those countries.)
This novel is a skillful and sensuous blend of magical realism, history, philosophy, and even romance. Joining the novels about Holocaust rescuers, it focuses on the "good Germans," those who were aware of the atrocities and heroic in their attempts. Elie remains sympathetic -- a strong female character who nevertheless was emotionally vulnerable, compassionate, and even maternal. Gerhardt proves particularly brave. Both of them anticipate German defeat and sense that the group would be living on borrowed time, if not for Elie's courageous intervention. The novel ends with the importance of legacy and universal humanitarianism. Elie's fate remains unknown, but it is implied that she played a valuable part in this legacy.
January 16, 2024
E’ uno di quei libri che se avessi scoperto per caso, perché magari passato inosservato dalla critica, forse avrei ritenuto comunque una buona lettura.
Invece la copertina accattivante, la trama che si prestava a possibili sviluppi interessanti, diversi articoli che lo paragonavano a Train de vie mi hanno stupidamente tratta in inganno facendomi sperare in qualcosa di più.
Il libro è scritto bene, niente da dire, ma quanto spreco, che preziosa occasione mancata per raccontarci un mondo poco conosciuto come quello del servizio postale... onirico ma a tratti troppo descrittivo non riesce a dissipare gli interrogativi che tutti ci poniamo su Heidegger.
Viene tratteggiato appena, come una macchietta, anche quando la trama consentirebbe di osare un po’ di più, nei dialoghi e nelle situazioni.
Invece la copertina accattivante, la trama che si prestava a possibili sviluppi interessanti, diversi articoli che lo paragonavano a Train de vie mi hanno stupidamente tratta in inganno facendomi sperare in qualcosa di più.
Il libro è scritto bene, niente da dire, ma quanto spreco, che preziosa occasione mancata per raccontarci un mondo poco conosciuto come quello del servizio postale... onirico ma a tratti troppo descrittivo non riesce a dissipare gli interrogativi che tutti ci poniamo su Heidegger.
Viene tratteggiato appena, come una macchietta, anche quando la trama consentirebbe di osare un po’ di più, nei dialoghi e nelle situazioni.
March 9, 2023
This started out a bit slow for me, but I did enjoy it. It did pick up once I got about halfway.
I added this to my list because of the title (philosophy major, although Heidegger wasn’t my focus). There is definitely some philosophy in here, but it’s very high level and if you’re not familiar with Heidegger it’s not going to be a problem. I did appreciate how being in and out of the world was a recurring theme within the story.
I would have liked a bit more completion to Ellie’s story, but the ending really brought the story full circle.
I added this to my list because of the title (philosophy major, although Heidegger wasn’t my focus). There is definitely some philosophy in here, but it’s very high level and if you’re not familiar with Heidegger it’s not going to be a problem. I did appreciate how being in and out of the world was a recurring theme within the story.
I would have liked a bit more completion to Ellie’s story, but the ending really brought the story full circle.
July 23, 2017
An interesting story that shows the personal impact of WWII on a group of might-have-been concentration camp residents who are saved for a secret Reich project and on those who are in charge of them.
June 23, 2018
Mooi geschreven maar nogal onwezenlijk met personages die nooit echt scherp in beeld komen.
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