Deena Metzger

Metzger attempts to address how the human race produced the Holocaust and nuclear weapons through the life story of a Jewish woman born post-WWII. Daniella is an astronomer and sees connections between evil, dark matter and black holes. After the death of several people key to her, Daniella's consciousness is essentially co-inhabited by a Nazi concentration camp guard/doctor who begins to dominate her thoughts. This draws her to the concentration camp sites of Germany and Poland, where Daniella confronts her invader.

If this sounds like a lot to take, it is. This is essentially a book of ideas with very little plot, but Metzger has imbued her small cast of characters with recurring motifs that provide real moments of wonder and discovery. The main problem for me was in the telling of these ideas, histories and internal conflicts. The entire book is Daniella's long letter to the real Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger. As such, it is completely one-sided. Daniella holds all the cards and controls all the narrative. The small amount of dialogue does not have the immediacy of real conversation as we realize it's all filtered through Daniella's memory and recorded by her in the letter. She often makes existential statements about the universe as if they were fact and not metaphysical and unproven. It's really just a long monologue. For me, this made the reading too dense and explanatory.

Metzger undoubtedly wants to show that by writing down our troubling thoughts and experiences we can come to understand and make peace with them. There truly are great ideas here--I just wish Metzger had used a more creative way to deliver these ideas to the reader.… (mer)

This book is a journey into mystery, into the wisdom of the natural world and the intelligence of other than human beings, and into the kind of mind that is required for restoring the earth and all life on it. Deena Metzger brilliantly breaks down the usual conventions of what it means to write a novel (if a novel is even what this is) by intertwining the author's process, thoughts and awareness as La Vieja taps her to tell this story. In addition to it being a love story between individuals, it also reveals the love of living beings for our precious and beleaguered earth. A stunning and consummate work for our time. May we heed and change how we think and live. If La Vieja can do it, there is hope that we can, too.… (mer)