He may be a Jew himself

Saturday, January 13th., Cadogan Square, London.

"Jew Suss" by Lion Feuchtwanger, a German author previously unknown to me, is a good historical novel dealing with the political and social life of a German state in the eighteenth century. It will interest people who usually cannot bring themselves to read historical novels, for the reasons that it deals with the whole life of the State, that it is not sentimentalised, that it is outspoken in all matters, and that it has throughout genuine and admirably sustained imaginative power.

In fact, this book is remarkable, full of food for vigorous minds. The picture drawn of existence in in a civilised counrty less than 200 years ago is terrible. Such a combination of intrigue, corruption, tyranny, injustice, ignorance, cruelty, uncleanliness and fornication that I have seldom, if ever, come across before. The hero is a Jew (or reputed Jew), a great refined rascal, debauchee and grinder of the faces of the poor. But he is a sympathetic fellow, and his execution by hanging amid circumstances of fantastic terror will move the heart of the staunchest upholder of morality. The author treats the Jewish community with extraordinary insight and fairness; he may be a Jew himself.

I myself hesitated to begin the book, because I have been too often deceived and let down by historical novels, whose authors as  a rule do not fully know their subjects. Feuchtwanger must have immersed himself in his period with the thoroughness and impartiality of an historical student. It is a rare combination to find someone who knows an historical period and can write convincingly about it. When very well done historical novels are hard to beat because of the total immersion of the reader in an 'alien' world. For myself I find it hard to revert to normal life when engrossed by such a work.

"Jew Suss" is a splendid story, but it is also a complete picture of a complex social organism from top to bottom. It entertains, it enthralls, and simultaneously it teaches; it enlarges the field of knowledge. To the ordinary reader it brings home, far better than any history could do, the realities of the eighteenth century, and enables him - nay, compels him - by partly unconscious comparison with the realities of today, to perceive the strange rapidity of the evolution of mankind.