Concetti Chiave
- Andreas Pum, a World War I veteran, retains faith in authority despite losing a leg and playing tunes for a living.
- His life unravels after a tram argument with a higher-class man, leading to the loss of his livelihood and his wife's departure.
- Andreas ends up in prison for assaulting an official, mistakenly labeled a rebel, and rapidly ages during his confinement.
- Post-release, he works for a former roommate in a menial job, consumed by bitterness over perceived injustices.
- Rebellion paints a vivid picture of postwar societal chaos, blending irony with profound social critique.
Disaster strikes soon after.
An argument with another man on a tram leads to blows and, unfortunately for Andreas Pum, the other man is of a higher class, and so Pum loses his license to play the barrel-organ. His wife is, of course, furious and takes up with another man, leaving Andreas to sleep on the sofa.
Things get even worse at his trial. Fed up with being taken for a rebel -- which he most certainly is not -- Pum finds himself in prison after striking an official. In a magical touch that only Joseph Roth can pull off, he ages terribly in a matter of weeks. Upon his release he seeks out his former roommate, a pimp named Willi, who now runs a business cleaning lavatories. Andreas, older and older, feeble-minded, close to death, and obsessed with the injustice he's suffered, goes to work for Willi, and dies an embittered old man.
Moving along at a breakneck clip, Rebellion, the last of Joseph Roth's novels to be translated into English, captures the cynicism and upheavals of a postwar society. Its jazz-like cadences mix with trenchant, albeit fantastic, social commentary to create a wise parable about justice and society.
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