The Rules of Perspective

THORPE, Adam

ISBN 10: 0224051873 / ISBN 13: 9780224051873

Published by Jonathan Cape, London, 2005

About this Item

340 p. 23 cm. Black cloth in mylar-covered dustjacket. Signed by author on title page.

Seller Inventory # 139093

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Rules of Perspective
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape, London
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224051873
• ISBN 13: 9780224051873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

It is April 1945, and the small provincial town of Lohenfelde is about to be overrun by the Allied Third Army. Huddled in the vaults of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Museum to escape the artillery bombardment, are Heinrich Hoffer, the Acting Director, and his three colleagues: two women and one man, underground and under siege. Their petty rivalries and resentments surface quickly in this claustrophobic confinement, and the vaults become a stage for an intense psychological drama of secret histories and shared terror, as the four prepare themselves for their fate.

Above the ground, picking through the rubble, is Corporal Neal Parry, who wishes he was back in West Virginia studying art and not dodging snipers in another hostile German town. When he finds an exquisite painting in what remains of the museum vaults, he is immediately reconnected with a lost world of beauty and order: the world of art. It is this small eighteenth-century oil - the appropriately titled Landscape with Ruins - that is the poignant link between the young American soldier and the four charred corpses he finds at the same time. As the narratives interweave, the story of the painting reveals the hidden story of Herr Hoffer and his three associates - and in doing so uncovers other, darker mysteries.

In this thrilling re-creation of the last months of the Second World War, Adam Thorpe has written a narrative tour de force which vividly illuminates both the frailty of humanity and its indomitable spirit. Through his beautifully drawn characters, Thorpe allows us to see - just as they begin to see - the possibilities of art and love: perspective, in the face of war.

(2004-09-22)

About the Author

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, and he has written four other novels - most recently No Telling - a collection of stories and three books of poetry. He lives in France with his wife and three children. (2004-09-22)