Ward Just (1935–2019)

THE TRANSLATOR is the fifth Ward Just novel I have read. Every one has been an absolute gem. The protagonist here is Sydney (nee Siggy) Van Damm, a German who has lived in Paris for over thirty years. Fluent in English and French, he makes his living as a translator. His wife, Angela, is an American he met in Paris. She comes from a lineage of wealth which has finally run out. They have a son, Max, who is brain damaged and lives in a nearby private hospital. Sidney makes his modest living show more primarily by translating the work of novelist Josef Kaus into English, but occasionally does "piece work" offered by an old friend, Junko Poole, who has numerous and nefarious connections. The main time frame of the story is 1989-1990, just prior to the reunification of Germany. Wishing to make some extra money in order to move with their son to the French countryside, Sydney reluctantly agrees to take one more shady job for Poole. It does not end well.

As is true in most Ward Just novels, there is a strong element of danger and suspense threaded throughout the narrative. There is also a very strong sense of history and the part it plays in all of our lives. Sydney cannot forget the horrific events of his childhood during the war. His father, a German officer, was taken away by his own people and killed. He sees people slaughtered in front of his eyes. He sees his mother's desperate determination to save him and herself no matter what she has to do. After the war he goes to college and becomes a linguist, then leaves Germany, turning his back on everything. But we can never really escape our own past, our own particular history, and neither, of course, can Sydney.

Ward Just has certainly studied his history and has perfected his own art too. His work has been compared to that of Henry James in its richness of detail, its firm sense of place, and the comparison is, I suppose, apt. I have only read a few short pieces by James, and remember finding him tedious and dry. Perhaps the difference in Just's work is that hightly developed element of suspense. His books read like literary thrillers.

One of the things I liked about THE TRANSLATOR was its story within a story, like a matryushka doll. Sydney is translating Kaus's latest novel, called, perhaps prophetically, Die Katastrophe (The Catastrophe). In it is an old man, with a disfigured face, who is trying to make sense of his childhood with a distant father and a mother who left. I pondered the meaning of this fictional boy with a damaged face and how Sydney might have thought of his own son with his damaged brain as he tried out and sampled possible ways to translate Kaus's story. The novel's translation is not completed. There is an unforeseen catastrophe in the lives of Sydney, Angie and Max.

Stories and characters merge and mesh. Just engages us by supplying all of his characters with their own histories. The author's own fascination with politics, history, wars and great literature (James is mentoned, of course) all come skillfully into play. This is not just an exciting, compelling story. This is great literature. I'm so glad there are still plenty of Ward Just books to choose from. I'm hooked. Highly recommended. show less

I have known of Ward Just and his writing for decades, but Forgetfulness is my first experience of reading Just's work, which goes all the way back to 1970. It was a great place to start, because this is an absolutely beautiful book. The jacket copy speaks of it as being about the "shadow world" of espionage and international intrigue, but Forgetfulness goes so far beyond that in its language and artistry. Early on in the narrative, protagonist Thomas Railles, a former CIA "odd-jobber," says show more something that perhaps characterizes a deeper theme of this exquisite novel -

"Facts anchor the work, whatever it is you're composing, a picture or a piece of music or a novel or a poem. But memory has to anchor the facts, alas. And so I fall short ..."

Ward Just, who I have been told lives part of the time in France, where most of this novel takes place, never falls short, whether in facts or memory. On the same page, shortly thereafter, Thomas calls forgetfulness "the old man's friend." And as the story gracefully unfolds, one begins slowly to understand why he might feel that way, because this is a story not so much about CIA operatives or part-time odd-jobbers or murder and methods of torture and inquistion as it is a probing look at loss, sadness and regret. Thomas Railles is a painter, and a good one, recognized and respected in the international art world, and, if all of the details given here of sketching and painting are any indication, I would not be surprised to learn that Just too is a painter, and one who knows that the line between various artistic endeavors is often a very thin or blurred one.

"To some degree," Just writes of his portraitist protagonist, "all portraits were self-portraits, as all novels were to some degree autobiographical ... A visage was sometimes true or false at the same time, the natural affect of a hundred brushstrokes or a dozen rewrites. Autobiography resided in the style of compostition and from that the viewer could conclude whatever he wished or nothing at all."

Whatever he is, War Just is not, at least in his art, forgetful. This guy knows what he's doing and can create powerful scenes that look easy, like the one in which Railles, still grieving the loss of his wife, murdered in a chance encounter with terrorists, is caught in a sudden storm and turns to face the elements, raising "his walking stick, brandishing it like a medieval warrior in combat with a dragon or other supernatural phenomenon." Shades of Shakespeare's King Lear!

Forgetfulness is a book which shows a writer at the peak of his creative powers. Ward Just could perhaps be called, at least chronologically, that "old man" he describes herein, but "forgetfulness" has not yet become a serious problem. This is a wonderful story, and I will recommend it highly. And I'll also be reading more of Ward Just soon! show less

In this fairly recent novel (2016) Just tells the story of newspaper man Ned Ayres, from his early days as managing editor of a small town paper in Indiana to editor of a major Washington, D.C. daily. Ned's long hours and total absorption in his work mean he isn't much of a "catch", despite his successful career. He has no interest in the kind of compromise he sees as necessary to a happy married life. He has a couple relatively serious long-term relationships, but there is never any show more commitment on either side, and in both cases the women move on, without drama, to pursue their own interests. Ned's choice of career alienated him from his father early on, so what we have is a man without personal attachments of any kind. He is perfectly capable of socializing, enjoying the details of other people's lives, but his favorite place to be, at any hour, is in the newsroom. The changing character of journalism and the rise of the internet as a source of information lead to Ned's retirement to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and a mansion he has admired for decades, but really has no use for. He spends his final years working on a memoir that we all know will never be finished...doing some mild soul-searching, but generally just fading away. As he observed about himself "he had no material. He edited material." Ned’s life makes a very suitable vehicle for Just’s own examination of the newspaper world, the question of personal privacy vs. the public’s “right to know”, and the decline of the traditional press. Good solid prose, interesting character development, an enjoyable read. show less

I LOVED this book. There. Not a particularly erudite or literate start, but it's the truth. AMERICAN ROMANTIC is Ward Just's 18th novel, and it may be one of his best, but then I've only read five of his books - so far - so I could be wrong, but I doubt it. His books are like fine wine, they get better with age, and so does Just himself, who will turn 81 this year.

With AMERICAN ROMANTIC, Just seems to be looking back once more to events that happened when he was a young journalist who spent show more time in Vietnam, "when the war was not quite a war, more a prelude to a war." His protagonist Harry Sanders is a young foreign service officer who comes from a privileged background in rural Connecticut, his father a recipient of a well-endowed trust. He grew up surrounded by people of wealth and power, attended the best schools, and his overseas posting to Vietnam is seen as a first step toward advancement in the State Department. He is just adjusting to his role there, and has begun a love affair with Sieglinde, a young German medical technician, when he is hand-picked for a special undercover mission into the jungle. He is briefed personally by the Ambassador, who tells Harry: "This is what I call a moment of consequence."

The mission is not a success, and in fact goes profoundly wrong when Harry, unarmed and lost in the southern jungle, suddenly meets a young enemy soldier, and, in a brief, desperate struggle, Harry disarms the man "and shot him dead." Harry is stunned and shocked by his action, and visions of this chance encounter will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.

The story which follows is a look at Harry's subsequent life as he rises through government ranks to become an ambassador himself, with postings in Africa, South America, Europe and, of course, Washington. He marries, quite happily, he thinks, but he never forgets Sieglinde, and how she so abruptly disappeared from his life so many years ago. Sieglinde's story is also detailed in a middle portion of the narrative, and, gradually, the reader begins to see how their lives nearly intersected at various points. Harry's wife, May, also becomes central, and we learn of her rough origins in rural Vermont, how she met Harry, and her various frustrations, disappointments and indiscretions as an ambassador's wife in obscure out-of-the way countries. Because that early "moment of consequence" continues to haunt Harry's career path, closing to him the plum assignments in Paris, Berlin, or other glamorous cities.

There is a Poe-like moment in one scene in which a still-grieving Harry, pondering some of his wife's private letters and diaries he finds after her death, thinks he hears "a tap at the door." Indeed, the bookshelves of his Washington office contain, "along with Koestler and Kennan, the poems of Poe ..."

Obviously influenced by the writing of people like Koestler and Kennan, Ward Just's novels have often dealt with the inner workings of Washington and the corridors of power, although he seldom takes sides. Harry, however, retired and living in a remote village in the south of France, considers the latest news from America.

"A black man running for the presidency! Harry had lived outside the country for so long he could not fathom how such a thing could happen, yet here he was, a graduate of both Columbia University and Harvard law, a white man's pedigree. He was a marvelous speaker and an even better writer ... Some caution warranted there. Probably a writer's temperament would not fit well in the modern White House, too much time given over to the shape and music of sentences while all around him clamored for action."

What a marvelous summing up of President Obama, his beautiful memoir, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, and his eternal dilemma of a tendency toward thoughtfulness. Ward Just is apparently not, it turns out, without opinion as to the political scene. But that fundamental decency and civility that one finds in all of his books is also an important element in this, his latest. As a close and intimate look into the life of a career diplomat, a decent man, AMERICAN ROMANTIC is an unqualified success. I love the way Ward Just writes, and can't wait to read more of him. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less