El retrato de un legendario director de cine convertido en un arma de propaganda nazi. La nueva novela del finalista al Premio Booker Daniel Kehlmann, autor del fen鏔eno editorial m嫳 importante en Alemania desde El perfume.
«El mejor escritor alem嫕 de su generaci鏮. Deslumbrante. Una novela que engancha . -Salman Rushdie
G.W. Pabst, uno de los m嫳 grandes directores de cine, quiz嫳 el m嫳 grande de su 廧oca, est?rodando en Francia cuando los nazis llegan al poder. Hollywood se presenta como la ica salida para escapar de los horrores que anuncia la nueva Alemania, pero, bajo el sol cegador de California, el famoso director es un don nadie, y ni siquiera Greta Garbo, la actriz a la que catapult? quiere ayudarle.
Su fracaso y las noticias sobre la enfermedad de su anciana madre lo llevar嫕 de regreso a su Austria natal, ahora ocupada, en lo que supondr?la oportunidad perfecta para que el ministro de Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, pueda captar de nuevo al genio del cine. Pabst est?decidido a no dejarse someter por ninguna dictadura y responder solo ante el s廧timo arte, pero la telara鎙 de la maquinaria nazi ha empezado a encerrarle en una posici鏮 desesperada.
Daniel Kehlmann retrata con maestr燰 el pacto f嫠stico que dio lugar al descenso de Pabst a los infiernos, al convertirse en el cineasta del Tercer Reich. El director explora las complicadas relaciones entre arte y poder, belleza y barbarie, gloria y fracaso, en una novela tan entretenida como mordaz.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
A Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick
"Nothing short of brilliant." --The Wall Street Journal
From "a surpassingly gifted storyteller" (The New York Times), a visionary novel inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich.
An artist's life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.
When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels--the minister of propaganda in Berlin--sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels's thinly veiled order. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.
Kehlmann's latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.