Aladdin's Problem (The Eridanos Library)
German writer Jiinger (1895- ) receives an overdue introduction to English-language readers with this elegant allegorical novel. Frederick Baroh, descended from a once-aristoerotic family, serves in a rifle regiment of the People's Army garrisoned in his old hometown in Silesia before deserting to the West. (Jilnger, not incidentally, fought in both world wars, and as a captain took part in the occupation of France; in 1939, however, he had written a widely read anti-Nazi novel.) Once in the West, Baroh joins his uncle's funeral business and then develops an enormously lucrative enterprise-a vast, world-famous necropoIis. Lucid sentences and a finely tuned plot balance a rigorous agenda concerned with nothing less than the mysteries and paradoxes of material existence. An articulate afterword by Martin Meyer examines the philosophical and literary underpinnings of Jilnger's work.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.