Lichtspiel

Kehlmann's German-language original (2023) follows Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst from Hollywood exile back into the machinery of the Third Reich, using his compromised career as a study of what artists rationalize under dictatorship. German critics were split: FAZ praised the novel's shifting perspectives and its strongest set pieces, particularly invented confrontations between Pabst and Goebbels, as a serious, formally inventive treatment of art and complicity. Deutschlandfunk was cooler, describing the narrative as juddering unevenly, like a poorly threaded film reel. The book also drew real controversy: Kehlmann's invented detail about concentration-camp prisoners being used as extras on a Pabst production prompted objections from descendants, later settled with the publisher.