Comedy in a Minor Key: A Novel

by Hans Keilson, Damion Searls (Translator)

Overview

A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation—and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners—Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia. This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka. In 2008, when Keilson received Germany's prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring "the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications."

Published to celebrate Keilson's hundredth birthday, Comedy in a Minor Key—and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback—will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374532857
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	08/02/2011
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	4.82(w) x 7.52(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Hans Keilson is the author of The Death of the Adversary. Born in Germany in 1909, he published his first novel in 1933. During World War II he joined the Dutch resistance. Later, as a psychotherapist, he pioneered the treatment of war trauma in children. In a 2010 New York Times review, Francine Prose called Keilson a "genius" and "one of the world's very greatest writers." He died in 2011 at the age of 101.

Reading Group Guide

1. What makes Comedy in a Minor Key different from other tales of the resistance that you have read? In what ways is fiction (especially wry fiction) sometimes the best means for conveying historical fact?

2. Midway through chapter ten, Hans Keilson describes Marie's disappointment over Nico's death: "She had secretly imagined what it would be like on liberation day, the three of them arm in arm walking out of their house. Everyone would see right away what he was from his pale face. . . . It would give them a little sense of satisfaction, and everyone who makes a sacrifice needs a little sense of satisfaction." Is Keilson's satire also realistic? What motivates the benevolent people you know?

3. How did the novel's timeline affect you? How did your impressions of Nico shift as you learned about him through a series of flashbacks?

4. What makes Nico alluring to Marie? Is he at the mercy of his caregivers, or does he exert power over them in some ways? Are any aspects of his life still in his control?

5. The book's closing line offers an image of life for Wim and Marie without Nico. How was their marriage transformed by him?

6. Keilson's work contains many elements of twentieth-century existentialism, for which Camus and Kafka became well known. What is unique about Keilson's perspective on human existence? What does his book say about our obligations to one another, and the nature of suffering in the world?

7. How might the story have unfolded if it had been told from Nico's point of view? What does he think of Wim and Marie?

8. Born in Germany, Hans Keilson became a physician and was forced to flee to the Netherlands in 1936 after the Nuremberg Laws made it illegal for Jews to practice medicine in Germany. He was active in the Dutch resistance. Does Keilson's biography shape the way you read this work, or is a novelist's biography irrelevant?

9. Much of the tragicomedy in the novel lies in the predicament of how to dispose of Nico's body. How did you react to this? What universal experiences are captured in these images?

10. Discuss the role of Coba, Wim's sister. What does it mean to Marie to have Coba's companionship and support? How is Coba different from her brother?

11. When Keilson's novel The Death of the Adversary was named a best book of the year by Time in 1962, the magazine's reviewer wrote that Keilson's work examines why there was widespread ambivalence toward the Holocaust while it was unfolding. What portraits of ambivalence are offered in Comedy in a Minor Key? As Dr. Nelis fabricates a reason to call on Wim and Marie's house, and the laundry-tag issue is resolved with the help of local police, what message does Keilson give us about ambivalence versus resistance?

12. What impressions of Judaism do the novel's non-Jews offer? How does Marie understand Nico's distinction between a religious identity and a cultural one?

13. The author chose to make Nico a perfumier. What is ironic about this? What do we learn about him in chapter four as he makes suggestions for Marie's ideal scent?

14. What does Comedy in a Minor Key say about the time period during which it was written? What is the difference between reading it in 1947 as a new release, and reading it in the twenty-first century as a classic? Is there any contemporary equivalent to the genocide Nico faces in the novel?

15. What elements of Comedy in a Minor Key echo the persecution described in The Death of the Adversary? Read together, do the storylines complement or contradict each other?

Editorial Reviews

For busy, harried or distractible readers who have the time and energy only to skim the opening paragraph of a review, I'll say this as quickly and clearly as possible: The Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key are masterpieces, and Hans Keilson is a genius . . . Although the novels are quite different, both are set in Nazi-occupied Europe and display their author's eye for perfectly illustrative yet wholly unexpected incident and detail, as well as his talent for storytelling and his extraordinarily subtle and penetrating understanding of human nature. But perhaps the most distinctive aspect they share is the formal daring of the relationship between subject matter and tone. Rarely has a finer, more closely focused lens been used to study such a broad and brutal panorama, mimetically conveying a failure to come to grips with reality by refusing to call that reality by its proper name . . . Rarely have such harrowing narratives been related with such wry, off-kilter humor, and in so quiet a whisper. Read these books and join me in adding him to the list, which each of us must compose on our own, of the world's very greatest writers.” —Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review

“This first-ever English translation of Keilson's gripping 1947 novel about a Dutch couple hiding a Jewish perfume merchant in their home during WWII marks a welcome reintroduction to the author's unfortunately obscure oeuvre . . . Beautifully nuanced and moving, Keilson's tale probes the more concealed, subtle forces that annihilate the human spirit.” —Publishers Weekly

“[Comedy in a Minor Key's] design is so neat, spare, and geometric that to think of it is like tapping a spoon to a crystal glass.” —Yelena Akhtiorskaya, The Forward

“A brisk, engaging work of Holocaust literature that deserves to be better known.” —Brendan Driscoll, Booklist

“What Keilson had experienced, body and soul, went into this precisely composed book, which succeeds in capturing the tragedy of countless anonymous victims alongside the grotesquerie of the individual tragic case.” —Ulrich Weinzierl, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

From the Publisher

This novella, rescued from WWII, has recently been translated for the English listener. James Clamp narrates with a precise English accent that matches the matter-of-fact tone of this story of people who hide a Jew from the Nazis out of a sense of neighborliness. When the hidden Jew dies, the young Dutch couple that hides him struggles with how to dispose of the body in a way that won’t implicate them. Clamp's proper voice adds to the “comedy” found in the absurdity and small-mindedness of the characters. The author’s lighter take on a serious subject, along with Clamp’s narration, gives new insights into human nature. R.Z.R. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2011 - AudioFile

This novella, rescued from WWII, has recently been translated for the English listener. James Clamp narrates with a precise English accent that matches the matter-of-fact tone of this story of people who hide a Jew from the Nazis out of a sense of neighborliness. When the hidden Jew dies, the young Dutch couple that hides him struggles with how to dispose of the body in a way that won’t implicate them. Clamp's proper voice adds to the “comedy” found in the absurdity and small-mindedness of the characters. The author’s lighter take on a serious subject, along with Clamp’s narration, gives new insights into human nature. R.Z.R. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2011 - AudioFile