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wellyreads's review
3.0
The book is very well written, though I had some issues with the foreign language parts that were not translated. Some parts of the book are very depressing and disturbing, but that's par for the course for a story set in a Jewish Ghetto during WWII, not that I was expecting something lighthearted. It definitely depicted the time and circumstances better (and probably more realistically) than any other novels I've read set in that time period. I would agree with some of the other reviews about there were possibly too many story lines being followed.
cokjahn's review
3.0
I do not speak Polish, German, or Yiddish so the spotty translations were distracting. Why have a footnote translation on one page and none on the following page. I did not read the book- I finished this book.
constanze's review
dark
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
maplekelly's review
1.0
It was boring, nothing new. I didn't even finish it; there are too many good books out there.
natmak's review
2.0
Well...
This book is easy to read due style, but hard to read given the content. I didn't really like the former but the learning the latter is so important.
The New York Times describes a "Dickensian cast of characters" but there's really only one character - the Łódź ghetto. Each person feels more like a cell in the ghetto's body, at least until its head (Rumkowski) is removed, and we have an almost epilogue focusing on Adam's survival until the Soviet's arrival.
I didn't love this book, but it was well worth the read to learn more about this history and experience its particular conception of narration.
This book is easy to read due style, but hard to read given the content. I didn't really like the former but the learning the latter is so important.
The New York Times describes a "Dickensian cast of characters" but there's really only one character - the Łódź ghetto. Each person feels more like a cell in the ghetto's body, at least until its head (Rumkowski) is removed, and we have an almost epilogue focusing on Adam's survival until the Soviet's arrival.
I didn't love this book, but it was well worth the read to learn more about this history and experience its particular conception of narration.
expendablemudge's review
3.0
Rating: I really do not know. Say three stars just to put a value here.
The Publisher Says: In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director—and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.
A haunting, profoundly challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
My Review: "There's no business like Shoah business." It's cynical, it's infuriating, and it's inevitable that this huge, horrific, and richly dramatic story should be exploited in a million different ways. This novel manages, seventy years after the fact, to find a new and interesting, if completely depressing, angle on the oft-told tale: The life and times of Chaim Rumkowski, the Eldest Jew as the Germans called him, who was granted ownership of all the people and property in the Lodz, Poland, ghetto.
The novel shows Rumkowski in a strong and unflattering light, casting some really dark shadows; but it also illuminates what the author presumes to be Rumkowski's inner life, fraught with the ordinary human disappointments and the everyday human hurts of a misfit with an outsized personality. How Rumkowski comes to be the King of the Jews in this horrible little ghetto and what he assents to and dissents from is the meat of the book. The gigantic cast of characters includes all the factual German and Polish overlords of the ghetto that Rumkowski strives against, as well as fictional composite characters meant to offer the author a more efficient and effective means of communicating Rumkowski's complex and unappealing, if completely relatable, character.
The entire span of existence of the Lodz ghetto is covered. It's not something I think a review should try to explain...the subject of Jewish mistreatment and misery took the author over 600 pages to explore even superficially...so I'll leave it at, Rumkowski's life as King was unenviable, bordering on unendurable, and makes for extremely emotionally fraught reading.
This is not a cheery little bagatelle with which one can wile away the heavy hours of the night. This is a "sit down right here and eat your spinach" kind of a read.
I didn't like it one little bit. I am awed by the author's audacity. I am riveted by the technical bravura of the storytelling choices he's made. I cannot speak highly enough of the translator, whose efforts on behalf of the story are heroic in the actual sense of the word: Imagine the saddest, least hopeful story ever conceived by the mind of Man and then tell it in your own language that's faithful to the poetics of another language and another person. Sarah Death, what a dreadful last name she has, has served thee and me in true hero's part by taking this dark and sad and fascinating journey before us, then coming back to tell us all about it. It's a landmark achievement. I wish there was a huge, well-publicized prize for translations, one that would have the impact of the Nobels. Death deserves it.
So how to rate the book...whether to recommend it or not...it's tough to say. I didn't, as mentioned above, like the book at all, because the vast amount of and dreary sameness within Holocaustic literature has worn me thin in the empathy spot. But this is a story that's really, really involving, and the sheer magnitude of the storytelling chutzpah is worthy of praise and commentary.
How about this: The less you know about the Holocaust, the stronger my encouragement that you read this book. If all you've ever done is read The Diary of Anne Frank, then I consider this book essential to your education. For anti-Semites, it's crucial (pun intended) that you read the book.
But it is not at all fun.
The Publisher Says: In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director—and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.
A haunting, profoundly challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
My Review: "There's no business like Shoah business." It's cynical, it's infuriating, and it's inevitable that this huge, horrific, and richly dramatic story should be exploited in a million different ways. This novel manages, seventy years after the fact, to find a new and interesting, if completely depressing, angle on the oft-told tale: The life and times of Chaim Rumkowski, the Eldest Jew as the Germans called him, who was granted ownership of all the people and property in the Lodz, Poland, ghetto.
The novel shows Rumkowski in a strong and unflattering light, casting some really dark shadows; but it also illuminates what the author presumes to be Rumkowski's inner life, fraught with the ordinary human disappointments and the everyday human hurts of a misfit with an outsized personality. How Rumkowski comes to be the King of the Jews in this horrible little ghetto and what he assents to and dissents from is the meat of the book. The gigantic cast of characters includes all the factual German and Polish overlords of the ghetto that Rumkowski strives against, as well as fictional composite characters meant to offer the author a more efficient and effective means of communicating Rumkowski's complex and unappealing, if completely relatable, character.
The entire span of existence of the Lodz ghetto is covered. It's not something I think a review should try to explain...the subject of Jewish mistreatment and misery took the author over 600 pages to explore even superficially...so I'll leave it at, Rumkowski's life as King was unenviable, bordering on unendurable, and makes for extremely emotionally fraught reading.
This is not a cheery little bagatelle with which one can wile away the heavy hours of the night. This is a "sit down right here and eat your spinach" kind of a read.
I didn't like it one little bit. I am awed by the author's audacity. I am riveted by the technical bravura of the storytelling choices he's made. I cannot speak highly enough of the translator, whose efforts on behalf of the story are heroic in the actual sense of the word: Imagine the saddest, least hopeful story ever conceived by the mind of Man and then tell it in your own language that's faithful to the poetics of another language and another person. Sarah Death, what a dreadful last name she has, has served thee and me in true hero's part by taking this dark and sad and fascinating journey before us, then coming back to tell us all about it. It's a landmark achievement. I wish there was a huge, well-publicized prize for translations, one that would have the impact of the Nobels. Death deserves it.
So how to rate the book...whether to recommend it or not...it's tough to say. I didn't, as mentioned above, like the book at all, because the vast amount of and dreary sameness within Holocaustic literature has worn me thin in the empathy spot. But this is a story that's really, really involving, and the sheer magnitude of the storytelling chutzpah is worthy of praise and commentary.
How about this: The less you know about the Holocaust, the stronger my encouragement that you read this book. If all you've ever done is read The Diary of Anne Frank, then I consider this book essential to your education. For anti-Semites, it's crucial (pun intended) that you read the book.
But it is not at all fun.
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