In Search of Klingsor The International Bestselling Novel [Paperback]

In his international bestsellerIn Search of Klingsor,Jorge Volpi takes us from the Institute of Advanced Study to the heart of Hitler's Germany, where the line between truth and lies is all but dissolved.Mysterious, seductive, and immediately engrossing, this startlingly accomplished thriller explores the nexus between science and human nature and how they shaped the world in the aftermath of World War II.

In 1940, Francis Bacon, a brilliant young American physicist, is invited to join the prestigious institute at Princeton, the world's foremost physics research facility. But a series of personal indiscretions forces him to accept a different, more sinister, assignment: uncover Klingsor, Hitler's top adviser on the scientific work in the Third Reich, including the race to create the first atomic bomb.

Bacon's efforts to expose the truth lead him to Gustav Links, a survivor of the attempted coup against Hitler. With Link's help, he continues researching postwar Germany -- in an era when a secret was really a secret and a lie wasn't necessarily a sin -- and falls into a complicated relationship with an alluring woman. His search for Klingsor, an ominous and seemingly omnicient adversary, is part mystery, part psychological puzzle, part witty intellectual game.In Search of Klingsorplaces real people in speculative historical fiction, combining the ingenuity of a scientific investigation with the suspense of a great espionage novel.Contents

Preface

BOOK ONE

Laws of Narrative Motion
LAW I:All narratives are written by a narrator

LAW II:All narrators offer one, singular truth

LAW III:All narrators possess a motive for narrating

Crimes of War

Hypotheses: From Quantum Physics to Espionage
HYPOTHESIS I:On Bacon's Childhood and Early Years

HYPOTHESIS II:On Von Neumann and the War

HYPOTHESIS III:On Einstein and Love