In High Places

[light shelfwear to lower edges and extremities, slight fading to cloth along top and bottom edges, a touch of wear at top of spine, remnants of a couple of removed stickers on rear pastedown; jacket edgeworn, soiled, rear hinge split almost its full length (reinforced by internal tape repair)]. Novel about the psychological, moral and ethical conflicts swirling around a dictator who develops a brain tumor and has just one month to live unless he submits to surgery performed by a Jewish surgeon -- "the treachery of a Jewish scalpel" -- and the surgeon, for whom the dilemma is whether to betray his medical oath by refusing to perform the surgery, or to extend the life of the Dictator who is bent on the destruction of his people. The country is unnamed (and the dictator himself referred to only as The Power), but the representation of Nazi Germany is unmistakable: the dictator is attended by a Minister of War ("the Lion") and a Minister of Propaganda ("the Tiger"), who are obviously modelled on Goering and Goebbels, "Brown Shirt" thugs do the dictator's bidding, the assembled masses shout "Heil Power!", there are references to "the God of the Aryans," and of course everybody is spouting their hatred of the Jews left and right. The book was published literally on the eve of World War II -- it was reviewed in the New York Times on August 20, 1939 -- and nobody missed the point. The Times critic stated: "No fabricated shocker or gothic horror tale carries more terror than this composite picture of repugnant reality. Some of the most fiendish acts we have heard attributed to Brown Shirts are woven into the story along with gross and sinister portraitures of Georing, as the sensualist, and Goebbels, as the perverted sadist."

Product Info

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Year: 1939

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

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Country: United States