Time Out of Joint

Time Out of Joint: the Fate of a Family starts out in Hamburg, Germany in 1924. The title is taken from a phrase uttered by Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play of that name, in which the main character expresses his desperation at his inability to contend with fate. Initially, the van Dornbach family’s comfortable way of life seems to be assured by Robert’s successful tobacco business. While the parents are content to adhere to the ancient religious traditions, their two teenage children rebel against them. Beautiful Grethe and brilliant young Siegfried are eager to taste all the pleasures that the modern world has to offer. Their younger brother, Hermann, who is still under his parents’ influence, appears content to continue on the path they have marked out for him.When Siegfried suddenly falls seriously ill, putting an end to his academic ambitions, his life is set on a completely different course, taking him to Kentucky in the USA to learn about the tobacco trade and to a promising post in Shanghai, China. But it is there that tragedy strikes. Grethe, who has gone to Amsterdam to work, moves to France to be with her lover, first in Paris and then on the Riviera. Surrounded by young people who are involved in the political movements that proliferate in Europe at that time, she tries to support herself by working in her profession of remedial gymnastics. She also participates in the grape harvest in the south, which is the favored occupation of French students. After her lover is killed in the Spanish Civil War she settles in the south of France, where she meets and marries a White Russian émigré. The political and economic events of the 1930s and 1940s cast a shadow over Europe, and each member of the Dornbach family is affected by them in a different way. The book was…