On the Marble Cliffs

First published in Germany on the eve of World War II, this haunting elegiac fable about the fragility of civilization gets a powerful and timely new translation by Tess Lewis. In a vaguely European monastic retreat, veterans of an ignominious war reverently study nature and observe ancient ways, humbly drawing “ever nearer the mysteries hidden in the dust.” From their aerie, they observe with mounting alarm the rise of the Head Forester, a charismatic figure of “reckless arrogance” and “terrifying joviality” to whom the masses flock “the way snakes are drawn to an open fire.” As time-honored traditions and taboos give way to strange new gods, “dreadful icons” devoted to a rude sense of justice and equality “centered solely on vengeance,” the anchorites’ quietism offers no recourse but flight.