The Director: A Novel

ISBN: 1668087804

Author: Kehlmann, Daniel

Condition: New

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR AN NYPL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A Washington Post NOTABLE BOOK A Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club PickNothing short of brilliant. -The Wall Street JournalFrom a surpassingly gifted storyteller (The New York Times), a visionary novel inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich.An artists life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.G.W. Pabst, one of cinemas greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels-the minister of propaganda in Berlin-sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbelss thinly veiled order. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.Kehlmanns latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.