Pollak's Arm
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
"Enthralling ... A great read."—Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 16, 1943, inside the Vatican as darkness descends upon Rome. Having been alerted to the Nazi plan to round up the city’s Jewish population the next day, Monsignor F. dispatches an envoy to a nearby palazzo to bring Ludwig Pollak and his family to safety within the papal premises. But Pollak shows himself in no hurry to leave his home and accept the eleventh-hour offer of refuge. Pollak’s visitor is obliged to take a seat and listen as he recounts his life story: how he studied archaeology in Prague, his passion for Italy and Goethe, how he became a renowned antiquities dealer and advisor to great collectors like J. P. Morgan and the Austro-Hungarian emperor after his own Jewishness barred him from an academic career, and finally his spectacular discovery of the missing arm from the majestic ancient sculpture of Laocoön and his sons. Torn between hearing Pollak’s spellbinding tale and the urgent mission to save the archaeologist from certain annihilation, the Vatican’s anxious messenger presses him to make haste and depart. This stunning novel illuminates the chasm between civilization and barbarism by spotlighting a now little-known figure devoted to knowledge and the power of artistic creation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
German historian and novelist von Trotha (The English Garden) offers a brilliant take on collector and curator Ludwig Pollak (1868–1943), whose discovery of the missing right arm of the Vatican's Laocoön sculpture created a sensation in 1906. Von Trotha imagines the final days of the famed scholar and art dealer: in 1943, an envoy to the Vatican pleads with Pollak to leave occupied Rome before the German SS arrest him and his family. Rather than flee, Pollak determines to tell his story and commences to recount the stories behind the many treasured objects he's collected over the years. As he relates, Laocoön warned the Trojans of the wooden horse meant to destroy Rome. Because he angered the gods, Athena sent serpents to kill him and his two sons. Pollak saw the bent arm, unearthed by a stonecutter on Via Labicana, as a sign of anguished suffering. Against the backdrop of Rome falling to the fascists and the worsening violence against Jews, Pollak's words gain intensity and resonance ("Man will never win against serpents sent by the gods"). There is to be found in here as well a cautionary tale about the beauty of art often being no match for the boot and the fist. This multilayered account of myth and injustice has much to offer.
