Jurek Becker. Jakob the Liar. Plume: New York, 1999. 244 pp. Paperback. $11.95. ISBN 0-452-28170-9.

"Now a major motion picture starring Robin Williams,” the front of my book jacket loudly proclaims. The cover art supports this statement with a photograph of the actor from the recently released movie with the same title. Unfortunately, much of the essence of the novel is lost in the movie. Jakob the Liar is about life in a Jewish ghetto in the early 1940s and is so personal that any preconceived notion clouds the reader’s mind and obscures Jurek Becker’s grand design: the message of hope; the message of lies as redemption; the message of finding your way through darkness with only a small nightlight to guide you.
Jakob the Liar raises very personal questions which, seemingly, can only be answered by each individual. Yet, with one bit of accidental news, Jakob Heym unwittingly answers these questions for an entire ghetto. Caught outside of the ghetto after curfew, Jakob is sent to the duty officer for punishment. As he stands waiting, his jacket gets caught in the door. This is how he comes to overhear a radio broadcast announcing that Russians are battling Nazi forces in a town only about 200 miles from the ghetto. Since radios are forbidden to the Jewish inhabitants, there is no way to learn more; but what a bit of news it is! “The next step is the hardest; Jakob tries to take it but is stymied. His sleeve gets caught in the door. The fellow who came back to the room has pinned him there without the slightest malicious afterthought; he simply closed the door behind him, and Jakob was caught. He gives a cautious tug.”

But this is not really about Jakob’s sleeve at all; rather, it concerns his decision, his personal morality and state of mind. What should he do with this amazing news? If he is honest about how he has learned that Russian soldiers are not far away, the news will become wildly exaggerated and, at some point, he will be expected to corroborate the story in its mutated form. What a burden! Of course, he reasons, if he is transforming the story himself, he is only responsible for backing up his own imagination. Jakob takes this latter course when his friends react with disbelief to his news about the approach of Russian troops.

“I have a radio,” says Jakob, to “prove” his story. After that lie there is no turning back. He is compelled to continue creating future reports; and as he does not, of course, have a radio, he cannot bring himself to admit the lie and thereby destroy the hope he has kindled among his friends in the ghetto.

From here the novel leads us through the trials of being the sole source of news for a society starving for hope, a society of people with heavy hearts and darkened souls. As the community helplessly watches street after ghetto street being emptied, and people being transported to death camps, they believe that help is just around the corner.

Is Jakob to continue “reporting” about the Russian soldiers’ advance? If so, where are they? When will they finally arrive? He cannot crush the optimism building in the ghetto. He, after all, has created and nurtured this spark of hope, so vital to survival of the ghetto community. If your hope is destroyed, should you have been given it in the first place? If, through a lie, you elevate your soul, is it still a lie? And once your spark has been extinguished, can you still see and feel the aura of where it once was? Can the memory of it continue to guide your way? What awesome responsibilities has Jakob created for himself.

So back we go to the beginning…and still find ourselves at the end.

Jody Cacciatore—HGPS Student