Pollak's Arm

Starred review from November 29, 2021
German historian and novelist von Trotha (The English Garden) offers a brilliant take on collector and curator Ludwig Pollak (1868–1943), whose discovery of the missing right arm of the Vatican’s Laocoön sculpture created a sensation in 1906. Von Trotha imagines the final days of the famed scholar and art dealer: in 1943, an envoy to the Vatican pleads with Pollak to leave occupied Rome before the German SS arrest him and his family. Rather than flee, Pollak determines to tell his story and commences to recount the stories behind the many treasured objects he’s collected over the years. As he relates, Laocoön warned the Trojans of the wooden horse meant to destroy Rome. Because he angered the gods, Athena sent serpents to kill him and his two sons. Pollak saw the bent arm, unearthed by a stonecutter on Via Labicana, as a sign of anguished suffering. Against the backdrop of Rome falling to the fascists and the worsening violence against Jews, Pollak’s words gain intensity and resonance (“Man will never win against serpents sent by the gods”). There is to be found in here as well a cautionary tale about the beauty of art often being no match for the boot and the fist. This multilayered account of myth and injustice has much to offer.

Starred review from December 1, 2021
This historical novel depicts a few hours and many memories in the life of a Jewish art dealer. Ludwig Pollak, an Austrian antiquities dealer and museum director in Rome, gained fame in the art world in 1906 for finding the missing right arm of the father figure in the classical sculpture Laoco�n and His Sons, which stands in the Vatican Museums. In his fictional debut, von Trotha, a German historian and former book-publishing executive, imagines an encounter on Oct. 17, 1943, between a Vatican emissary identified only as K. and Pollak at the latter's Rome apartment. K., who narrates the meeting, has been sent to offer Pollak and his family sanctuary in Vatican City because the Nazis will soon start rounding up Jews in the city. But K. is frustrated in his efforts, as Pollak, who is 75, uses the occasion to reminisce about catalogs he has written, collectors he has dealt with, and the turns his life has taken amid the growing pressures of antisemitism. His monologues are occasionally interrupted by the intrigued but increasingly nervous K., who has a car waiting outside and knows they should get going before curfew. The novel resembles a one-act play with two main performers and other figures made present by allusion and eloquence. Here they include Pollak's memories of Rodin, Richard Strauss, and J.P. Morgan, among others, and his admiration of Goethe, who wrote an essay on the Laoco�n group. The old man can sound proud, pompous, erudite, aloof, but he isn't indulging in nostalgia for his greatest hits. He feels compelled to give a personal account of his life, regarding this as a duty more important than fleeing ahead of the Nazi roundup. Von Trotha had access to Pollak's diaries, letters, and archival material, and he benefits from a smooth translation by Lauffer. He achieves much in this slim book, capturing a life enriched by its commitment to art and antiquities and a man who makes an unusual decision when faced with a crucial choice. A work that weaves art and history into a fascinating tale.

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