The Oppermanns

A few years ago I set myself a project of reading fiction that was written just as Nazism was taking hold in Germany. I wanted to get a sense of how people felt while their world was turning upside down. The Oppermanns was still unread on my shelf when our own politics-as-usual started to become quite unusual and my project became personal. Feuchtwanger was already a bestselling author when he wrote the novel as a testament and call to resistance after being driven out of Germany in 1933. As events overtake his characters, they behave in equally understandable but not equally honorable ways, while Feuchtwanger—with rare prescience—has no doubt that that new order is completely rotten and will end in destruction. Although I'm sure that the particulars of our era will play out differently, Feuchtwanger makes it clear that the first step to installing any corrupt system is to attack facts, reason, and coherence. The Oppermanns is not just an eerie echo of today's news, but also a heartening reminder that some will defend the truth at all costs.