AN ADMIRABLE WOMAN

by Arthur A. Cohen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 1983

More an impersonation/meditation than a novel, Cohen's latest fiction provides us the thoughts and memories--the mind, essentialized--of Erika Hertz, a German-Jewish emigrÉe philosopher whom no one will fail to confuse with Hannah Arendt. (Late in the book, however, Erika will criticize her old friend Hannah for over-brilliance and sloppy language regarding Eichmann.) Erika recalls her flight from Europe in the Forties--with meek, deaf, philandering husband Martens. Then come her first journalistic scramblings in English; her growing reputation, her teaching appointment at The New School; and her acquisition of a male soulmate--much later her lover. Still, there's her fidelity to overshadowed Martens: ""We repledged then we repledged several times since, each time repledging to be certain that we observed the bounds of unknowing."" And, by the time of Martens' death, Erika has reached intellectual eminence. The mind on display here is beguiling and profound--in asides on lies, love, Kleist's great essay on the marionette theater, ambition. All that is lacking--at least until Erika meets her violinist lover--is a human palpability of disturbance: the ever-wise Erika can be a little dull in her historical impersonality. So the final result is a slightly (appropriately) muffled tour de force, a book about fealty and honesty and grace--with the intellectual challenge familiar to readers of In the Days of Simon Stern and Acts of Theft.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1983

ISBN: 0879237058

Page Count: -

Publisher: Godine

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION