The Director

De: Daniel Kehlmann

Narrado por: Nicholas Boulton

“A call to strengthen our spines.”—The New York Review of Books

“Nothing short of brilliant.”—The Wall Street Journal

“A surpassingly gifted storyteller.”—The New York Times

From “one of the brightest, most pleasure-giving writers at work today” (Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize-winning author), a visionary tale inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to be forced to return to his homeland and create propaganda films for the German Reich.

An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.

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. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.

Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.

©2025 Daniel Kehlmann (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

An excellent and atmospheric portrayal of the arts in an authoritarian regime

The writing was excellent even though time shifted from the late 20s and 30s to the present day. It was easier to follow.

The sharpness of the story, utterly convincing characters, and the moral focus

The timeless questions raised and pursued. The sharpness of the story, utterly convincing characters, and the moral focus of the plot.

Slow and boring

I kept waiting for the story to get meaty all the way to the end. It didn’t come. Whose recommendation was this?

the drama in the first of war

character development key quality, in the risk undertaken in the quest for excellence in a challenging milieu