Customer Reviews

Silbermann

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The story is set in 1920s Paris. It tells of how a young high school student befriends a same age Jewish boy at his school. The spectre of antisemitism is rampant. Our protagonist is unrelenting in defense of his friend, even at the price of undecutting the respect he had for his parents. The final test of his devotion comes when his Jewish friend's father, an antique dealer, is accused and charged with fraud. Curiously, his own father is charged with investigating the wrong doing and bases his conclusions, not on the evidence, but on what will best serve his long-term professional ambitions.

Surely the novels popularity at the time served as an indictment against a society which all too often prided itself for its intellectual enlightenment.