An odd imagining. Toward the end of WWII a group of "scribes" is assembled in an underground world. Their charge is to answer letters from the dead or assumed dead, so that the dead can move on. This fantasy is based on some characteristics of the Nazi regime, most importantly its reliance on the occult.

Then came Heidegger and his glasses. Heidegger, a member of the Nazi party, had his glasses made by a Jewish optician. When the optician is taken, the glasses are left behind, and Heidegger writes the regime, asking for them.

I was never clear about why it was so important to deliver the glasses, along with a note from his friend the optician, who may have been dead by that time. I think it had to do with the importance of Heidegger to the regime, and the need not to disappoint him. Elie Schacten, a leader of the scribes, is given the job of delivering the glasses. She is an unusual young woman whose sympathies are not with the Nazis and who must be careful to not reveal the presence of the strange underground bunker where she lives.

There is intrigue, love, suspicion, and always the possibility that the little world will fall apart and its inhabitants be killed. It's an interesting point of view of the Nazi side of WWII, albeit full of imagination more than reality. ( )

Really more like 3 1/2 stars. I thought the first half and the final pages were magnificent, but most of the second half felt oddly paced and off-key somehow. ( )

Amazing book. An unusual style and way of phrasing things, but the starkness of the writing and the severity of the story/time period fit each other so perfectly that I had to keep reading. ( )

Really more like 3 1/2 stars. I thought the first half and the final pages were magnificent, but most of the second half felt oddly paced and off-key somehow. ( )

I enjoyed the quirky premise but the macabre reality of the novel dampened my enthusiasm overall. Yet another book without quotation marks, the author does a better job than many others of making clear what is and what isn't dialogue, but it's still rather an affectation. As for the ending, I was severely disappointed that Elie and Lodenstein never found each other again, but the trunk full of Compound mementos on exhibit in a museum was a nice touch. Enjoyable but likely not a re-read. ( )