{"product_id":"our-philosopher-isbn-9781681377582","title":"Our Philosopher","description":"\u003cb\u003eA 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.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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.\"Hofmann explores terrifying and timeless questions through the gaze of youth...Hans, a German child in the late 1930s, knows that Herr Veilchenfeld is an elderly philosopher...whom his father, the town’s doctor, visits regularly...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.\"  —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eOur Philosopher\u003c\/i\u003e isn’t the first or the only German novel to depict the experiences of a child during the war, but the novel’s minimalist style and flat tone perhaps set it apart from others... while the characters may speak a broken language, the same isn’t true of the novel. In its bare style, it is deliberate and powerful, especially in Mace-Tessler’s attentive translation.\u003cbr\u003e—Noah Slaughter, \u003ci\u003eFull Stop\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Hofmann’s is a world twilit by bourgeois civilisation and shocking barbarity. It allows us to understand fascism better, to better lament its hatred, and perhaps, to help us recognise it when it returns\u003cb\u003e. \u003c\/b\u003eHis success is testament to his masterly eye and head and heart.\" —Tom Conaghan, \u003ci\u003eReview 31\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A young boy with clear, unsentimental eyes and a storybook mind tells  of terrible events, the more terrible because we know more than he  does.” —Paul Griffiths, \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Hofmann’s writing has a pleasing formality and subtlety (in an  excellent translation), which brings us through both depths of thought  and violence with the same patient clarity.” —Declan O’Driscoll, \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “One of the best holocaust novels in postwar German literature.” —Milena Ganeva, \u003ci\u003eReference Guide to Holocaust Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “This unsettling tale concerns the persecution of one man in pre–World War II Germany. . . . Hofmann never uses the words \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNazi\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHitler\u003c\/i\u003e, or \u003ci\u003ebrownshirt\u003c\/i\u003e.  . . . The author surrounds his philosopher with mostly nondescript  townspeople who abet, approve, or only quietly, and rarely, censure. . .  . A painful, powerful work.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The best novel I've read that describes events through the eyes of a  child is little known and a minor masterpiece. . . . Hans, the son of a  small-town doctor, watches as the life of his fascinating neighbor,  Professor Veilchenfeld, unravels and is then destroyed. . . . In this  learned old man, Hofmann condenses the industrialized extermination of  millions. . . . To recount it through the limited and fragmented  understanding of an innocent child was an inspired authorial choice.” —Ian McEwan, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eGert Hofmann \u003c\/b\u003e(1931-1993) was a German writer and scholar of German literature. Originally an author of radio plays, he became one of postwar Germany’s most prolific novelists, his fiction often examining the continued resonance of Nazism in Germany. His accolades include the Ingeborg-Bachmann Prize and the Alfred Döblin Prize. \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEric Mace-Tessler \u003c\/b\u003eis a translator and educator. Born in Brooklyn, he has lived in Germany and Switzerland for three decades. \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMichael Hofmann\u003c\/b\u003e is a poet and translator. He is the author of two books of essays and five books of poems, most recently \u003ci\u003eOne Lark, One Horse\u003c\/i\u003e. He has translated several books for NYRB Classics, including Alfred Döblin’s \u003ci\u003eBerlin Alexanderplatz\u003c\/i\u003e, Jakob Wassermann’s \u003ci\u003eMy Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e, and Gert Ledig’s \u003ci\u003eStalin Front\u003c\/i\u003e, Kurt Tucholsky's \u003ci\u003eCastle Gripsholm\u003c\/i\u003e, and edited \u003ci\u003eThe Voyage That Never Ends\u003c\/i\u003e, an anthology of writing by Malcolm Lowry.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302026006757,"sku":"NP9781681377582","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681377582.jpg?v=1767734338","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/our-philosopher-isbn-9781681377582","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}