Enter not, ye who read for fun. The strands of this transhistorical story include the Holocaust; the ignorant and savage European persecution of Jews that predates Hittler by four hundred years; and racism as well as anti-Semitism. As a cover blurb says, "He finds humanity everywhere," but the humanity is not always or even mostly redemptive. 'What can be done on the earth to cleanse it after this?' Hell of a question. It's a tremendously ambitious book and yet also one that is informed by humility: it's not about him.
The final scenes are set in fledgling Israel. They too are unsentimental and unromantic, but they do honor the new country for its commitment to survival. Yet the sense I got was of Act VI of a tragedy, one more like the comprehensive desolation of The Trojan Women than like Othello (a version of which is part of the novel), where some semblance of justice has been re-established.(Though I suppose one could say that just as Iago is exposed and captured, so Hitler has been defeated.) In the novel life does endure, but Phillips doesn't make great claims for where it is headed. He only shows us what his somber vision sees.
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