![]() ![]() Roth was never a man to settle down anyway: “He lived out of a suitcase. In conversation with Hamilton, who is fluent in the language, I realise it is properly pronounced ‘Rote’, more or less.) Before he turned to fiction, Roth made his name as a celebrity reporter, particularly for the Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper, earning one Deutsche Mark per line, but, says Hamilton, the rise of the Nazi party meant “he had to go on the run and ended up in Holland, with Irmgard Keun and Stefan Zweig” – fellow star novelists of the Weimar Republic. (A note: I’ve read several of Roth’s novels over the years and had always said his surname like Philip Roth’s. ![]() It’s a first-hand witness to an entire century.”Īnother strand of the book explores the lives of Roth and his wife, Friederike. “It has allowed me to view the entire century, since the book was written in 1924. Having a book as narrator of The Pages is a neat trick: it can sit in the background of private conversations, unnoticed by the other characters and, best of all, it is unconstrained by a human lifespan. “I heard about this book that had been rescued during the Nazi times, and had been kept safe.” Not only did he hear about it, but he encountered the book itself: “It was wonderful to hold this book in my hand and think of it as a survivor.” What it survived was book burning: like other Jewish authors, Roth’s work was destroyed by the Nazis in Germany.īefore he turned to fiction, Roth made his name as a celebrity reporter, particularly for the Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper, earning one Deutsche Mark per line The inspiration for The Pages, Hamilton says, was a true story. The novel at the centre of the novel is a copy of Rebellion, by Austrian novelist Joseph Roth, first published almost a century ago. ![]() It is a book narrated by another book, and done in the most charming way. (It’s only embarrassing to get the city wrong if you’re interviewing in person.) As to why he’s in Berlin, more of that later, but it’s apt enough for a writer who has always blended Irish and German interests in his writing.Īnd it’s doubly fitting as we convene to talk about his new novel, The Pages, which may as well have Ich bin ein Berliner watermarked through its chapters. The inside of one house looks much like another down the barrel of a webcam, so when Hugo Hamilton tells me that he’s speaking to me not from Dublin, as I assumed, but Berlin, it shouldn’t be too surprising. ![]()
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