Customer Reviews

The Savior: A Novel

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The Savior is a novel about the Holocaust. Thus, it is sad, full of horror and terror, and unsettling. It could be nothing else.

Eugene Drucker takes a different tack in exposing the atrocities. A German violinist is making his contribution to the German war effort by playing in hospital wards to wounded soldiers, who don't seem to appreciate the soloist's efforts nor his escaping front line duty. Suddenly, the violinist gets orders to appear at a "work camp" to play for a select group of prisoners. As he plays, the soloist becomes aware of how the camp is run, how prisoners are treated, and his role in the fate of these individuals.

A huge part of this story is the violinist's path of discovery of the "rubber-making" plant and the sadism of the prison commander and guards. So is the violinist a part of this satanic process, or not?

Caution... be aware that you will not feel upbeat in any way at the conclusion of this novel. I felt lousy. And I wondered again, as I have in reading other accounts of this period, about our ability to act inhumanely to our fellows, and the issue of complacency during events such as this. To think that at one time all these guards were innocent children themselves, and what they became. Never again...

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.

This a compelling story that is lyrically written and emotionally powerful. Eugene Drucker explores the fascinating theme of a man caught in the middle of the horrors of the Third Reich. The concept of the relationship of a performer and his audience gets pushed to an almost surreal extreme. The descriptions of music are extraordinary: BRAVO!!

In the final days of World War II, Gottfried Keller, a German violinist, is summoned to a labor camp where he meets the Kommandant, who tells him that he will be giving four solo concerts in four consecutive days for prisoners. He will be part of an experiment. The Kommandant perceives that the prisoners are withdrawn and without hope. He wants them to hear Bach and even Hindemith since he believes that the Jews, unlike the wounded German soldiers for whom Keller has been playing, have an affinity and appreciation for great music. Listening to great music will give them hope again.

Written by Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet, THE SAVIOR is yet another horrific story of the Holocaust. While Keller in his naivete may believe the Kommandant's motives are noble, the reader is not persuaded although we can not imagine the awful events that will take place.

Mr. Drucker contrasts the awfulness of the conditions of the Jewish prisoners with the sublimity of the music Keller plays, particuarly Bach's "Chaconne." He describes music as only a musician can, one of the best things about this novel. His description of Keller's playing of the Bach "Sonata in A Minor" and its effect on the prisoners: "Three or four women crossed their arms and held themselves tight as they swayed, as though they were rocking babies. Some of the men tried to put their arms around them, to enter into their self-embrace, but the women seemed locked in private grief. The children they lost."

As the Nazis were coming to power, Keller had Jewish friends, Ernest who left for England and Marietta whom he was to have married. In the camp he meets Rudi, a guard who loves Bach but who can kill a prisoner when commanded. He reminds Keller that the two of them are not that different.

Mr. Drucker in this novel asks all the hard questions. How did these evil atrocities come about? How can a country that produced Bach also give birth to a Hitler? How can you love the glories of classical music and take another human's life? How innocent were the bystanders? Or were they bystanders?

This story reminds us that the Holocaust occurred not that long ago. Some Nazi war criminals are still alive although time is not on the side of those who seek to bring them to justice. And wasn't Martin Luther King right when he said that justice delayed is justice denied.

THE SAVIOR is a profoundly disturbing novel.

A compelling and facinating read. Carefully crafted to take you into the mind of the main character. I was hooked from the first chapter. The author has found a means to explore a tale of art and morality set in Germany late in the Second World War, that is both convincing and frightening. It is a book that leaves a lasting impression. I highly recommend it.

A lyrical, sad, moving and beautifully written novel. Each sentence has its own rhythm. I was completely engaged and read it in one sitting.

Are Gottfried Keller and his violin instruments of torture or of hope? Can hope be twisted and distorted for evil purposes or is that impossible? Can it be true that hope can only produce the extraordinary even if after death or even beyond human awareness? Conversely perhaps hope can weaken our instincts or better judgment - in our gut we sense a different outcome (a negative one) but we press on without taking action on our better judgment.

There are so many gut wrenching paradoxes in this book that it left me searching for answers. I am moved by this book and I am horrified at the same time; Horrified at the depictions of the camps and the notion that human beings are capable of this grotesque and repugnant behavior.

Recommended.

This book is quite powerful and thought provoking, even though it's a relatively quick read (a little over 200 pages). I could go on and on about the questions it brings to the mind of a reader, the subtle character development that makes one wonder whether to sympathize with or hate the main character, but I can't really describe in detail the raw FEELINGS this book provoked in me while I read it. It's another window into the terrible, unbelievable world of WWII era Germany. Unbelievable only because the further we get from the Holocaust, the more it seems like it's some sort of nightmare that got made up, something that humans couldn't possibly have allowed to happened. There is no end to the horrors that get revealed from that time, and although it is quite depressing to read about it or watch movies based on those historical events, it is a "necessary evil" that helps one feel the full spectrum of human suffering, hope, cruelty, sympathy, etc.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in historical fiction, people who are violinists (like me) or know a great deal about music (especially Bach) or anyone who just wants a good discussion book for a bookclub.

I was immediately drawn in and couldn't put "The Savior" down. This is a delicately written, moving, often horrifying, yet extremely accessible book. A timeless cautionary tale of the dire consequences of letting fear rule our lives.

Grieg, Chopin & Saint Saens Piano Concertos / Previn, Rubinstein, London Symphony Orchestra
Violinist Eugene Drucker has written a book that is unsparing of the reader in its exploration of the horrors of Nazi Germany, and in particular in the extermination of a huge part of that country's Jewish population. In its pitting of art vs. might and terror, the story unfolds inexorably to a conclusion that is as inescapable as it is pessimistic. Interwoven in the many scenes of the 30s and early 40s is also a musical "story," one that is crafted by a musician whose knowledge of the solo violin repertoire is profound, and who is also skillful in putting musical values into words, no mean feat. In most books that have some musical component, descriptions and even facts are laughably wrong; where they are correct (as in "Doktor Faustus" and "Amsterdam"), the musical paragraphs emerge as set pieces, and then, back to the story. In "The Savior," the music is part of the fabric of the book, one might say the beating heart of the book; of particular note (no pun intended) is how Eugene Drucker deals with the monumental J.S. Bach Chaconne. In fact, this work, and its astonishing variations is rather mirrored in the structure of the book: the antagonist's activities take him through several "variations" on the treatment of Jews, beginning in the early 1930s, with grave insults and restrictive laws, to the unspeakable horror of the concentration camps, reeking of the death of tens of thousands.

Sebald wrote about his believe that there was a German amnesia that took over after World War II ended; he said that without this, the rebuilding of the near-destroyed country could not have taken place as it did, and as quickly as it did. As a Fulbright student to Hamburg ten years after the war, I can attest that Germans' conversation was always "vor dem Krieg" or "nach dem Kreig" but I never heard, in 1 1/2 years, reference to "waehrend des Krieges." (before or after, but never during the war).

One review said that this was "an easy read - about 200 pages." What an unbelievable measuring stick! But then, I heard the same about Coetzee's "Disgrace." In the 200-or-so pages of "The Savior" are packed facts and emotions, sympathy and despair, and above all, a view of the Holocaust that will resonate long after one has finished the book.