Ettesberg Forest, 1776 After a short walk, Goethe decides to take a break in his favorite oak tree. This is the tree where he met Charlotte von Stein a few years ago. Her name is still engraved on its trunk. He looks at him and is immediately lost in thought. This is the moment that will inspire him to write one of his most famous poems. We are talking about the “Night Song of the Traveler”: a touching prayer of a man exhausted by a hard life, asking God for a little peace.

1937. SS troops decide to build a brutal concentration camp in Ettesberg. A huge area of ​​the forest has been cut down. Hundreds of trees have been cut down and uprooted. But no, Goethe’s oak. She remains standing there, watching from above more than fifty thousand Jews, gypsies and homosexuals who, no matter how much they pray, will not find peace, but a wild and cruel death.

In The Long Saturday, recently published by Doma, George Steiner (1929–2020) puts the question straight: “Today we know that a person can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, play Bach and Schubert. and go to work in Auschwitz in the morning.” Thus, the question, according to the Franco-American thinker, becomes painfully simple: what value can civilization have in an era of such savagery?

The question, according to the Franco-American thinker, becomes painfully simple: what value can civilization have in an era of such savagery?

The book is the result of a series of discussions between Steiner and Laura Adler, a French journalist, editor and author. In this short panorama of life, this great thinker introduces us to the central themes of his work, such as Judaism, psychoanalysis, music, human creativity, the futility of existence, the anticipation of dubious redemption.

Born in France to a wealthy Viennese Jewish family, Steiner spent the early years of his life in Paris and then, due to the Nazi advance, in New York. He studied at the University of Chicago, Harvard and finally Oxford. He taught for many years at Cambridge and Geneva, as well as at many other leading universities, published dozens of critical monographs, hundreds of essays, articles and book reviews, as well as novels.

Steiner was a real social intellectual: always alert and alert, always in a fighting position. Versatile, multilingual and scholarly, he has never been given to anyone, but no one has ever been given to him either.

It is true that Steiner had ardent admirers, but there were also many detractors. On the one hand, there were those who admired his iconoclastic erudition and argumentation, on the other hand, those who considered him superficial, arrogant and not always accurate in what he said.

If anything, Steiner had a frighteningly flexible and versatile spirit. He was able to generalize and synthesize with the sometimes irritating mastery of the thoughts of the titans of the human spirit. Yes, this “interrupted” thinker could start a sentence with Pythagoras, move on to Aristotle, refer to Dante, and, stopping with a semicolon on Nietzsche, triumphantly end with Tolstoy.

Thus, The Long Saturday, barring some moments of potential awkwardness, has a lot to offer the leisurely reader. Steiner offers us an invaluable record of his life and work. In this meaningful testimonial, he communicates his inexhaustible desire to listen, learn and try to understand, refusing to be left to the opinions of others. He confesses his militant pessimism. He recognizes the incomprehensible contingency of existence. Although, finally, he is not afraid to admit that no matter how hard he tries, there is much in the human that he did not understand in the end.

Let’s close here. In this painful tramonto del sol of a Europe that seems emaciated and increasingly inhuman, Steiner whispers to us to show courage and not be afraid. He invites us to cross this long coven of the unknown with perseverance and courage, casting nets “into the rivers, to the north of the future …”.