The Wall: A Novel

After surviving the holocaust, how would one come to terms with living on? The trauma is so great, that the individual ceases to exist. H.G. Adler survived many concentration camps, although upon transfer to Auschwitz, his wife (a medical doctor) and her mother were immediately murdered. In all, Adler’s mother and father and sixteen family members were killed. In 1947, Adler fled to London when Prague fell to the Communists. H. G. Adler wrote his twenty-six books in that kind of obscurity.

This novel, written in 1956 was not published until 1989. It is now translated from the German by Peter Filkins who also provides very helpful plot summary and character descriptions at the end of the book. Since the book is dreamlike and out of time sequence, this is most useful.

When the main character, Arthur Landau, returns to his hometown after the war, everything is altered and it is clear that he no longer exists in any previous form. This living death is vivid and forces the reader to live a reality which has shifted and no longer makes any sense or context. A very powerful book.