The Rules of Perspective
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
On April 3, 1945, the advancing American army shells the historic town of Lohenfelde, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm museum. Within the museum's vaults, Heinrich Hoffer is hiding from the bombardment, and trying to keep a priceless Van Gogh from falling into the hands of a rogue Nazi. After the shelling, an American corporal, Neal Parry, finds a beautiful eighteenth-century oil painting in the rubble, and must confront both its beauty, and the morality of stealing it. The stories of Herr Hoffer, Parry, and their paintings unfold simultaneously in this gripping, brilliantly structured novel about art and war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Heinrich Hoffer is the acting director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in a small Westphalian town at the close of WWII. Most of the artwork from the building has been removed to a salt mine by Nazi officials, but Heinrich, sensitive to their corruption, holds back one Van Gogh and hides it in the museum's subterranean vaults. As the U.S. air assault builds, Heinrich, abandoning his family, takes shelter with his staff in the vaults and ruminates on his efforts to keep the painting from a particular SS thug. Two days later, Cpl. Neal Parry arrives with the American vanguard and immediately begins searching for plunder, mostly alcohol and women. A commercial artist, Neal discovers the Van Gogh in the vault and sees the painting as his opportunity to return home and set himself up as a genuine artist. Heinrich and Neal's stories unfold in alternating chapters. In spite of considerable repetition and some tedious overworking of Western philosophy, Thorpe (Nineteen Twenty-One) delivers a story rich in the details of European art history and German culture, and the twin protagonists emerge as memorable personalities, unified by a shared sensibility.
