Our Philosopher
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A powerful novel about prejudice, violence, and complicity in Nazi Germany, this spare and evocative work interrogates shows how a group of people can slip towards extremism and barbarity in the blink of an eye.
The time is the 1930s. Our philosopher is Herr Veilchenfeld, a renowned thinker and distinguished professor, who, after his sudden dismissal from the university, has retired to live quietly in a country town in the east of Germany. Our narrator is Hans, a clever and inquisitive boy. He relates a mix of things he witnesses himself and things he hears about from his father, the town doctor, who sees all sorts of people as he makes his rounds, even Veilchenfeld, with his troubled heart. Veilchenfeld is in decline, it’s true—he keeps ever more to himself—but the town is in ever better shape. After the defeat of the Great War and the subsequent years of poverty, things are looking up. The old, worn people are heartened to see it. The young are exhilarated. It is up to them to promote and patrol this new uplifting reality—to make it safe from the likes of Veilchenfeld, whose very existence is an affront to it. And so the doctor listens, and young Hans looks on.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hofmann (1931–1993) explores terrifying and timeless questions through the gaze of youth in this probing 1986 novel (after The Parable of the Blind). Hans, a German child in the late 1930s, knows that Herr Veilchenfeld is an elderly philosopher and professor emeritus living in his central German town whom his father, the town's doctor, visits regularly, both to check on his heart condition and to tend to the wounds sometimes inflicted on him by rowdy town drunks. Hans also knows that his parents talk about Herr Veilchenfeld constantly, discussing both what is being done to him by the town and what he is doing to make it even harder for himself. As the drama of this hyperlocal persecution plays out in the background, Hans runs around the pond with his sister, begs for ice cream, and interjects questions about Herr Veilchenfeld: " loses his self-control and shouts at us that we shouldn't ask so much. And think, I ask. May I think about him?" As he comes to understand that something is not right with his kindly, mysterious neighbor—and that something has shifted in the world during this time of great political and social upheaval—Hans experiences a private and deeply moving coming-of-age. The result is a delicate tale of innocence unknowingly lost.
