Address Unknown
Ratings21
Average rating4.2
Unprecedented in its time, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor's Address Unknown is a remarkable literary accomplishment. A stunning novella told solely through letters between Max Eisenstein, a German-American Jew living in California, and his friend and business partner, Martin Schulse, who recently relocated to Germany with his family during the rise of Nazism. A strong message, well-structured and brilliantly concluded, is well worth the quick read.
Favorite passage:
“Max, I think in many ways Hitler is good for Germany, but I am not sure.
He is now the active head of the government. I doubt much that even Hindenburg could now remove him from power, as he was truly forced to place him there. The man is like an electric shock, strong as only a great orator and a zealot can be. But I ask myself, is he quite sane? His brown shirt troops are of the rabble. They pillage and have started a bad Jew-baiting. But these may be minor things, the little surface scum when a big movement boils up. For I tell you, my friend, there is a surge — a surge. The people everywhere have had a quickening. You feel it in the streets and shops. The old despair has been thrown aside like a forgotten coat. No longer the people wrap themselves in shame; they hope again.
Perhaps there may be found an end to this poverty. Something, I do not know what, will happen. A leader is found! Yet cautiously to myself I ask, a leader to where? Despair overthrown often turns us in mad directiodns.”
I'‘m sorry this wasn't longer. I mean, there WAS room for letters to and from the protagonists' families, to make for more POVs...but, as it is, it remains a very good shortie about friendship, betrayal and revenge.
I read this epistolary story in just 20 minutes, but it will haunt me for a very long time.
Aangrijpend en huiveringwekkend briefroman, dat ongelofelijk veel diepte weet te creëren in nog geen 20 brieven. Het meest schrijnende van alles is te weten dat dit al in 1938 werd gepubliceerd...