MENDELSSOHN IS ON THE ROOF

by Jiri Weil ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1991

In what's more a collage of incidents and vignettes than a conventional novel, Czech writer Weil (Life With a Star, 1989) here celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of death and the absurdity of life. Well's second novel is set in Prague under Nazi occupation, and its themes are established in the first part when the S.S. officer commanded to remove the statue of Mendelssohn on the roof of the Prague concert hall cannot identify him. Eventually Mendelssohn is pinpointed, but the Czech workmen merely pull him down and leave him on the roof. They are certain the Germans will leave one day. This tempered response to the monstrous absurdity of the Nazis is echoed in accounts of other, mostly Jewish, men and women. They survive by adapting, even collaborating if necessary, though continuing to uphold the truth in their hearts. A furniture designer is forced to design gallows; a scholar is ordered to inventory and display Jewish artifacts; and a young Jew is a guard for the transit train. All are aware of their complicity--""Perhaps God would have mercy on him for he had not sinned with any evil intent,"" the scholar prays on the train to the camps. But like the trees in the forest, ""when they Were forced to die, they died standing up--they were the life that overpowers death."" A small book that raises big questions, which Well attempts to answer in his realistic portraits of ordinary people struggling to survive--with some integrity and much spirit--under horrific conditions. A tad episodic, but cumulatively affecting.

Pub Date: April 1, 1991

ISBN: 0810116863

Page Count: -

Publisher: "Farrar, Straus & Giroux"

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991

Categories: FICTION