The Savior: A Novel
by Eugene Drucker
List Price:
Our Price: $2.29
You Save: $11.71 (84%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.03 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Eugene DruckerEdition: Paperback
Audio: German (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-07-08
ISBN: 1416543309
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of The Savior: A Novel
Book Review: Spellbinding Literary Debut By An Emerson String Quartet Violinist That Offers A Profoundly Fresh Look At Nazi Germany's Evil,
Summary: 5 Stars
In the closing days of World War II, somewhere in Germany, along the rapidly receding Eastern Front, a young brilliant German violinist is torn between his passion for creating great music from the scores of great German and other classical composers, from J. S. Bach to P. Hindemith, and bittersweet memories of two friends from a prominent music school, both extremely talented classical musicians who fled Nazi Germany nearly a decade earlier due to their Jewish heritage. He finds himself unexpectedly, in the service of the SS, after spending the war performing in hospital wards for injured Wehrmacht soldiers. Violinist Gottfried Keller endures four living days in "Hell", a Nazi death camp that, at first, seems to be a mere labor camp, despite its ominous signs and portents, that Keller recognizes almost immediately upon his arrival; such as its sickly, cadaverous, starving inmates and a room filled with shoes in a large, otherwise vacant, warehouse room that he glimpses by accident. The camp's charming and intellectually sophisticated, but sadistic, Kommandant orders him to conduct a macabre experiment: determining whether thirty inmates, who have almost been starved to death, can be brought "back to life" just by hearing Keller's brilliant, rhapsodic playing over the span of these four days. For a few fleeting moments, he earns the trust, and "friendship" of Grete, one of these inmates, and Rudi, a SS guard who befriends Keller through his own keen interest in and devotion to J. S. Bach's music. But these come at a psychologically bitter price, since Keller realizes that he is almost living vicariously through his "friendship" with Grete, a bitter semblance of his love affair with Marietta, the woman whose marriage proposal he had to reject, fearful of being ostracized by both the Nazi regime and fellow local citizens for being a "Jew-lover". He also recoils in horror after hearing the young SS guard's admission of having committed heinous crimes against humanity, while still expressing a sincere, heart-felt admiration for Bach's great choral works. But, in the end, he hears the guard, Rudi, wonder aloud whether Germany's great cultural heritage can withstand its recent plunge into barbarism, and its many crimes against humanity committed by Rudi and others of his ilk.
Emerson String Quartet violinist Eugene Drucker has admirably drawn upon his father's own heroic experiences in confronting - and then successfully fleeing from - the then relatively new Nazi regime for religious and political sanctuary in the United States. From these experiences which are compelling in their right, Drucker has made a most auspicious literary debut in fiction, using Keller's emotional and intellectual struggles with his personal demons as a fictional metaphor to look anew at Germany's cultural heritage, in the light of the Holocaust, wondering whether that heritage deserved its survival and transmission to later generations. It is indeed truly a most compelling exploration of the bestial horrors committed by the Nazis in the "defense" of the Aryan Race; one that is destined to become a classic of Holocaust literature. Drucker's emotionally riveting prose is truly both unforgettable and disturbing, especially in the scenes of the "selected" inmates listening to Keller's exquisite violin playing and finally, during the dark, horrific conclusion to the Kommandant's "experiment". Without question this is one of the most important books published this year in the United States, and among the finest examples of recently-published fiction that I've come across. It is truly an instant literary classic, and one which deserves ample awards for both itself and Drucker's beautiful, lyrical and haunting prose. Having enjoyed Drucker's exceptional musicianship as a violinist with the superb Emerson String Quartet, I look forward to enjoying too his excellent literary talents well into the future.
Children's Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Ultimate Soul Nourishing Guide to Literary Violin in Books and on DVD
Vivaldi's Virgins: A Novelby Barbara Quick
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2008-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
The Violin Maker: A Search for the Secrets of Craftsmanship, Sound, and Stradivari (P.S.)by John Marchese
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops:
The Violin Loverby Susan Glickman
Goose Lane Editions; Published: 2006-03-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Violin Dreamsby Arnold Steinhardt
Mariner Books; Published: 2008-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.44
Price in other shops:
The ViolinRelease date: 2008-05-27; DVD
Best price: $13.10
Price in other shops:
Violinby Anne Rice
Ballantine Books; Published: 1999-09-07; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.50
Price in other shops:
The Violinby Dacia Maraini
Arcadia Books; Published: 2007-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Un Coeur en Hiver ( A Heart in Winter )Koch International; Release date: 2006-11-07; DVD
Best price: $13.39
Price in other shops:
A Traitor to Memoryby Elizabeth George
Bantam; Published: 2002-08-27; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
The Touch of the Master's Handby Myra Brooks Welch
Stellar Books; Published: 2007-08-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.30
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)by Michael Chabon
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.35
Price in other shops:
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Centuryby Alex Ross
Picador; Published: 2008-10-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.15
Price in other shops:
The Septembers of Shiraz: A Novel (P.S.)by Dalia Sofer
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
People of the Book: A Novelby Geraldine Brooks
Viking Adult; Published: 2008-01-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.60
Price in other shops:
The Spanish Bowby Andromeda Romano-Lax
Harvest Books; Published: 2008-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.14
Price in other shops:
Eugene Drucker - Bach - Solo Violin Sonatas & Partitas / DruckerRelease date: 2001-02-27; Music CD
Best price: $21.89
Price in other shops:
Violin Dreamsby Arnold Steinhardt
Houghton Mifflin; Published: 2006-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.89
Price in other shops:
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Editionby Oliver Sacks
Vintage; Published: 2008-09-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.03
Price in other shops:
The Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn Workshopby John Marchese
HarperCollins; Published: 2007-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.35
Price in other shops:
Variations On The Beast: A Novelby Henry Grinberg
Dragon Press, The; Published: 2006-12-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.47
Price in other shops: