"G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels--the minister of propaganda in Berlin--sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels's thinly veiled order"--

The Director is a fictionalized take on the life of G.W. Pabst, a film director who returns to Austria during the Nazi occupation in order to help his ailing mother and ends up making movies for the Reich. What Kehlmann explores in the novel is the way that collaboration happens at all levels of a fascist regime, even when people are in apolitical environments or attempt to pursue their own goals. From that perspective, Kehlmann has written an important and timely work. He has a good eye for the power relationships that form as grievances and ambitions play out in these societies and the story is good about keeping the true horrors of Nazism largely off-stage while still consistently hinting at the failing war effort and the darker side of the government. Where NUBClub was split was on the tone. The Director is written with basically one emotional register -- its main characters' suffering -- and you could almost sum up every chapter of the book with the sentence, 'The people in [X] situation in fascism suffered [Y] betrayal/harm, as depicted on [main character].' It's not a false take, but it's very repetitive and it means the book gets monotonous. Coupled with this, the ending has a twist that's just too tidy and there was no reason why the novel need to include it. For some of us, this drumbeat of suffering just became tiring, while others found it a useful depiction of present concerns. How much you will appreciate this book is a product of how much the lack of air will bother you.