The wall : a novel

Resource Information

The work The wall : a novel represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Huntington Memorial Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The wall : a novel

Title remainder

a novel

Statement of responsibility

H. G. Adler ; translated from the German by Peter Filkins

Creator

• Adler, H. G

Contributor

• Filkins, Peter

Translator

• Filkins, Peter

Subject

• London (England) -- Fiction
• Holocaust survivors -- Fiction
• Exiles -- Fiction
• Prague (Czech Republic) -- Fiction
• Jewish fiction
• Self-realization -- Fiction
• Psychological fiction
• Psychic trauma -- Fiction

Genre

• Fiction
• Jewish fiction
• Psychological fiction

Language

• eng
• ger
• eng

Summary

"When Random House published the first English translation of H.G. Adler's The Journey in 2008, literary critics and historians alike came to recognize Adler as a neglected modern master, comparing him to Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, and Gertrude Stein. Told in a powerful stream-of-consciousness style reminiscent of our finest modernist writers, The Wall is the story of Arthur Landau, a Holocaust survivor struggling to leave behind the horrors of the past and find a foothold in the present. After the war, Arthur returns to Prague in the hope of finding his parents, works in a museum that collects Jewish artifacts, and eventually crosses the border, leaving his homeland and friends for good. Despite the loss of his first wife to the camps, the love of his second wife, Johanna, and their two children anchors him amid the chaotic and competitive world of postwar exiles living in London. Though Adler recreates time and place with stunning descriptive detail, the themes are universal and timeless. The 'wall' in front of Arthur will not let him entirely remember the past and thus free himself from nightmares, nor entirely let him forget the past and move on. Though he sees himself as akin to 'that first Adam', expelled forever from Paradise, Arthur gradually learns to affirm his life once again through his family and work, a testimony to the human spirit that continues to persevere within him"--

Member of

• Unsichtbare Wand

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Index

index present

LC call number

PT2601.D614

Literary form

fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography