The Border

This book is an intelligent and perceptive short novel. It is the story of a Vienese Jewish couple, scientist Inga and her poet husband Hans at the time of the Nazi rise to power in Europe. They have sent their only son Frederick away to America to escape the danger. The story is told in three voices, the first Hans diary. This is followed by the diary of Inga, and then the letters to Hans' of the young Communist woman Hilde who he has had an affair with in Vienna but has moved on to Moscow. The scene of the action moves from Vienna to Paris, and then finally to the small Southern French border- town of Port- de- Bou. There Hans and Inga arrive in the hope of getting across the border to Spain before going on probably to Australia. Feinstein gives inner portraits of her characters, shows a complex world of human relationships in which people view the same realities with completely different eyes. When the story starts Inga is absorbed in her work and Hans is something of a bon vivant more indifferent to his work. As the story goes on, and renewed interest is taking in Hans work in Paris , while Inga is caught up in the complex new situation of her life where her husband has a lover, the roles reverse. The denouement of the story is given in the final chapter of the work. There the aged Inga tells to her historian grandson the tale of what happened to them all. Feinstein knows the world of academics, intellectuals, poets very well. She does an excellent job of recreating the atmosphere of the time. The struggle and suffering of the exiles is intimately portrayed. This is a very fine book.