- Hardcover: 300 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (25 April 1991)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670835714
- ISBN-13: 978-0670835713
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.8 x 3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,005,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
From England, a well-received first novel that fuses a coming-of-age story with the WW II trauma of a hitherto tranquil Baltic republic. As the story opens, in the frame, Jacob Balthus is an elderly bookseller in contemporary London, active in emigre politics, living resignedly with his Polish wife Ella while still dreaming of his first love, the Jewish actress Katerina. The Russian grip is loosening; Jacob returns to his unnamed homeland for a conference. We move back to 1939 and President Kubin's benevolent dictatorship; the 22-year-old Jacob is a politically naive bureaucrat on a Foreign Ministry staff headed by his father. He is also a timid lover, quickly losing Katerina to man-of-the-world Max Sawallisch, and forced to make do with Max's fellow-journalist Ella. So much for Jacob's lesson in love; his political education begins with the Nazi-soviet pact. The Russian occupiers arrest his father when he refuses to sign some phony documents; a Russian soldier murders a girl in the woods, as. Jacob watches in horror; a friendly English woman hides him in her attic, and he makes contact with some partisans. Yet Jacob is a slow learner: when the Russians are succeeded by the Nazis, he is dazzled by their appearance ("what a beautifully elegant thing war could be"); though he witnesses the harassment of ghetto Jews, he will not accept the possibility of mass killings until he inadvertently triggers a massacre of escaped Jews in their forest sanctuary; he learns that Katerina had been among them. It would be a sorry writer who couldn't get some mileage out of the double-whammy plight of the Baltic states, which means that Palmer's predictable pop-history is nonetheless always readable; but he takes no risks, and dull gray Jacob contributes few sparks of his own. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Opening in 1939, this novel spans 50 years and depicts the central character's life as a political emigre in a run-down part of London. He is invited to return to his home city by the renascent nationalist movement and he learns the price of remaining an "innocent" in history.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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