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    The Detour
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    The Detour
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    The Detour
    Ebook295 pages4 hours

    The Detour

    By Andromeda Romano-Lax

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Ernst Vogler is twenty-six years old in 1938 when he is sent to Rome by his employer—the Third Reich's Sonderprojekte, which is collecting the great art of Europe and bringing it to Germany for the Führer. Vogler is to collect a famous Classical Roman marble statue, The Discus Thrower, and get it to the German border, where it will be turned over to Gestapo custody. It is a simple, three-day job.

    Things start to go wrong almost immediately. The Italian twin brothers who have been hired to escort Vogler to the border seem to have priorities besides the task at hand—wild romances, perhaps even criminal jobs on the side—and Vogler quickly loses control of the assignment. The twins set off on a dangerous detour and Vogler realizes he will be lucky to escape this venture with his life, let alone his job. With nothing left to lose, the young German gives himself up to the Italian adventure, to the surprising love and inevitable losses along the way.

    The Detour is a bittersweet novel about artistic obsession, misplaced idealism, detours, and second chances, set along the beautiful back-roads of northern Italy on the eve of war.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateFeb 14, 2012
    ISBN9781616950507
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Detour

    3.5/5

    22 ratings7 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Brief Summary:
      Ernst Vogler worked for the Nazi Party. He was responsible for helping the country acquire great works of art. He stumbled into this job through happenstance, a misunderstanding of his actions years before. Still, he loved art, which helped him forget the pain in his past. His main goal was to avoid notice, to do his work, and to not question. In 1938, he was sent to Italy on a simple mission: to pick up and return with The Discus Thrower, which Germany purchased from Italy. Of course, this mission was not without complications, which included betrayal, romance and a slight detour.

      Review:
      The setting of this book is incredibly interesting to the historian in me. The focus of this historical fiction novel is on WWII Germany, but on a part not usually covered. Hitler wanted to be a painter. However, his landscapes were not deemed especially good, especially with modern art on the rise. Thus, the back-up plan was blame everyone else for his failures and take over the world so people would think he was the best. (Note: I may be simplifying things.)

      Using his power, Hitler set out to squelch modern art, calling it degenerate art. Much was burned. Hitler also set out to acquire famous antique works of art, like The Discus Thrower. These pieces served as status symbols, but may also truly have been Hitler's favorites. Anyway, Hitler's touch in this story is largely as art collector.

      Unfortunately, I did not much enjoy the actual story. It was okay, but it was in no way outstanding. The problem I think was in Ernst, and in the way Romano-Lax decided to tell the story. Ernst never coalesced into a person with a personality for me. He was a person of a couple of interests and with some serious lingering issues from childhood. These facts just didn't add up to a person.

      Also, even when he 'fell in love' or watched someone die, the feelings never came through the writing. I suspect that this has to do with the way the story is told. Romano-Lax decided to use a frame of Ernst as an old man, going back to Italy. The rest of the tale is Ernst remembering what happened there all of those years ago. These parts are told in the past tense, and the audience is warned early on that his memory is not to be trusted. All of this just served to make a big disconnect between me as a reader and the character's experience.
    • 4/5
      he Detour by Andromeda Romano-LaxA story set in pre-World War II Italy, The Detour is a story of a German man sent to Italy to retrieve the marble statue of the discus thrower. But it is more than a story of art, war, or ethnicity. Andromeda Romano-Lax brings a story of the soul.Ernst Volger has one job to do. He is to go to Rome and bring the coveted statue to Hitler. Nothing seems to go right, and too much doesn't feel right. Volger finds himself in a truck with two young Italians and a crate of art history in the back. He passes beautiful scenery that he just cannot see. His mind is always on the past and the scars that exist physically and emotionally within him. A double-crossing and a death changes everything. His focus is not on the art so much anymore. He begins to see the art within the person and more of himself.The story moves along gradually as so much of the story is within the mind of Volger. You travel with him from his youth where he deals with his own faults and relations he had with his family through the countryside of Italy where he and two men who are to help him transport the statue become acquainted. It is not long before Volger is closer to these men than he had been with his own family. Death visits them and Volger begins to discover that art can be found in more than classical pieces. It can be found within the soul and body of mankind.Romano-Lax's writing is artistic within its own right. As the status of the discus thrower is described, you could almost reach out and touch the cool marble. The words come to life before you as you read. You'll feel the Italian sun on your skin and see the wind ripple across the fields of sunflowers.This is an excellent piece of contemporary fiction that will live beyond this year and into the years to come. Its words are timeless with so much for us to learn.Note: This book was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a review.
    • 4/5
      This was an interesting depiction of a weak willed art appraiser in Germany in 1936 at the height of Hitlers power. Ernst Vogler is 24 years old and bungles his assignment to bring back the statue the Discus Thrower back to Germany. Ernst has taken advantage of a misunderstanding of the Nazi party. Ernst left the stadium at the exact moment Jessie Owens won the gold medal. The Nazi party approves of what they think is a racist attitude and Ernst reaps the benefits. The book outlines his adventures of his bungled assignment. This book is a nice study familial relationships, race and the attitudes of youth. An interesting study on the attitudes in Germany in the day making a nice historical portrait -- even with some unloveable characters. Reader received a complimentary copy from Good Reads First Reads.
    • 4/5
      The prose in this book is astonishing. The descriptions of the sculptures and the scenery were a joy to read. Working for Hitler and his Sonderprojekte, after his mentor and boss is imprisoned at Dachau, a very young Vogler is sent to Italy to purchase a ancient copy of The Discus Thrower. What follows is a grouping of misunderstandings, detours and other adventures with the two brothers who are driving the truck to take the statue to the Italian border. The history of much famous art is discussed as is the state of Germany, the Olympic games and how Vogler finds himself in this position. Extremely well done.
    • 3/5
      Part road trip, part soul search. Great adventure story with a historical setting.
    • 4/5
      The Detour is at times very moving, reaching into your heart and soul to touch areas that are not often revealed. It shows us one man's quest for perfection and acceptance in his life, while comparing this to Nazi Germany's zeal to procure the world's greatest art treasures for the private pleasure of it's leaders. It also shows us our failures to reach out to others in times of trouble and the possible rewards of opening ourselves to others even in the darkest hours. In 1938, Ernst Vogler is a young German working for a government sponsored program to procure art for the German government. He is sent to Italy to bring the famous statue, The Discus Thrower, to it's new home in Germany. The sale of the statue has not been well received by the Italian people. Vogler is supposed to make a quick three day trip to secure the statue and bring it quietly to the German border. Fate has other plans as the trip is detoured by various factors. The German art procurer, Herr Keller, who has brokered the deal with the Italians, has his own plans as to the ultimate destination for the statue. Two Italian twin brothers who are supposed to be escorting Vogler and the statue to Germany, have a decidedly different itinerary planned involving a stop for romance along the way. Ernst Vogler's staid, orderly life is about to take a very curious detour. Provided for review by the well read folks at Amazon Vine and Soho Press.
    • 4/5
      Andromeda Romano-Lax (more on this fascinating name, later) struck it big in 2007 with her debut novel, The Spanish Bow, a story set in Spain and Western Europe from the days of the Spanish-American War to the beginning of World War II. That fascinating novel became a New York Times Editor’s Choice and was ultimately translated into eleven languages. Her follow-up novel, The Detour, scheduled for a February 2012 release, is set in 1938 Italy and Germany and shares a theme similar to that of its predecessor: the wartime ethical conflict that often occurs between the worlds of art and politics.Young Ernst Vogler is already having his doubts about Hitler’s Third Reich when he is chosen to travel to Italy to bring a famous Classical Roman statue, the Discus Thrower, back to Germany for Hitler’s private collection. Even at this point in the history of the Reich, Hitler and the Gestapo are using intimidation to move Europe’s greatest art to new, permanent homes in Germany and Austria. However, what is described to Vogler as a simple three-day job to move the Discus Thrower to the German border is complicated by the fact that there are those in Italy who see the looting process for what it is, and are determined to stop the piece’s transfer. Ernst Vogler, whose Italian skills are almost nonexistent, might not be the best man for the job. Things go off track almost immediately when a misunderstanding makes him two hours late for the meeting at which the Discuss Thrower is to be inspected and packed for the run to the German border. Way too suddenly to suit him, Vogler is riding in a beat up old truck with Italian twin brothers charged with the responsibility of getting him and his cargo safely out of the country. When the truck’s driver abruptly breaks from the little convoy and makes a run for it on his own, things get interesting for Ernst Vogler and his little team.Vogler finds himself trying to navigate a world of secret agents, thieves, hapless lovers, and murderers - a world in which he can barely communicate and must, instead, rely on his instincts to separate the good guys from the bad ones. The question is whether, when things fall apart as it appears they surely will, Ernst Vogler will have the skills to survive the bad guys on both sides of the border?The Detour is based on Adolph Hitler’s actual purchase in 1938 of the Discus Thrower from Italian authorities. This buy was one of Hitler’s earliest steps in his seven-year project to loot the rest of Europe of its most important art, a project so successful that it took years of work following World War II to accomplish its reversal. Finally, we return to the author’s interesting name and background. Her first name is Greek, she shares a mixture of German and Italian ancestry, and she married into a Jewish family - a combination of factors almost certain to ensure that she have strong interest in Europe’s World War II history. The Spanish Bow and The Detour are the product of that interest.Rated at: 4.0