Ida Nasatir writings   List of honorees         Louis Rose Society         Jewishsightseeing home

Ida Nasatir book review

Star of the Unborn by Franz Werfel

June 26, 1947—Book review—Star of the Unborn  by Franz Werfel—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 6: Franz Werfel is no longer among the living to answer what anyone may say about his last book. Many will remember this great poet (for though he wrote prose, he was a master among poets) for his famous "Forty Days of Musagh Dagh."  Star of the Unborn is neither tragedy nor comedy, but rather an attractive piece of pathos.  Franz Werfel lived and died true to his facts: a physical and spiritual exile. His works represent a consistent attempt to escape from harsh realities by absorption in mysticism and especially in the mysteries of Catholic theology. In his last book, the author takes a fantastic look into the future. He spends three days in what he calls the Eleventh Cosmic Capital Year of Virgo (about 100,000 years from now). In the course of an intricately woven plot, the reader is treated to skillful, and at times moving descriptions of an "astromental" world, visits to Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter; the proper does of sex interest, and a battle between higher civilization and "jungle" humanity. Thus, there is much to remember, and also much to forget.Occasional flashbacks, probing Franz Werfel's past, provide some of the best writing in the book. The only two institutions depicted as surviving in this far, far future from the 20th century are the Catholic Church and the Jew.  In structure and detail, the book is imbued with Catholic feeling and doctrine. He treats the Grand Bishop as the final source of wisdom. Yet even with the Church, Werfel is not at home, his tone is a mixture of seriousness, arrogance and flippancy. Thus, in spiritual exile, Werfel spent his last year on skillfully wrought mixture of melodrama, rather crude superstition, pseudo-scientific fantasy, and occasional flashes of insight and wisdom. His writing is always powerful, but his thoughts are at times confusing. He seems always to be searching for something he never quite found. His attempts were magnificent, and his talents were among the greatest. Perhaps he knew all the time that he was wasting his great talents probing into an alien faith, one in which he was still floundering, for he wrote in his first chapter of Star of the Unborn: "My time is short and I am wasting it unscrupulously." What a pity!