becoming defective but is still swamped by people who are either begging for news, inculpating him, or pretending friendship to get access to the news. Jacob cannot stand this pressure and in a moment of weakness confesses everything to Kowalsky, who reassures him that he understands everything and would have acted exactly in the same way, and that Kowalsky will not bother Jacob again with any questions. The novel has two endings. The narrator thinks that there should be an independent ending based on what really happened, but he also wants to corroborate that he is trying to reach the reader emotionally, and thus proposes a second ending. However both endings are equally powerful in their own ways. The fictitious ending Jakob is killed while attempting to escape from the ghetto. Immediately after, as if Jacob's death-shot is the opening of the battle for the city, the Russians arrive to liberate them all. It is ambiguous why Jacob was trying to escape: to save himself and abandon his people to their fate; or to get first-hand information about the course of the war and return to the ghetto, thus redeeming himself for the lie about the radio. The true ending Kowalsky hangs himself shortly after Jacob's confession about the radio. Everyone is deported to the death camps. Analysis The name "Jacob" is related to Jewish history and culture. In the biblical story of Jacob, from the Book of Genesis, Jacob tells a lie to his father Isaac, in order to steal a blessing meant for his brother Esau. According to classic Jewish texts, Jacob lived a life that paralleled the descent of his offspring, the Jewish people, into the darkness of exile. The novel also challenged East German literary norms by depicting fictitious events in World War II but without open resistance to Nazism. Rather, the resistance offered is in the desire to live. Also, the ending in which Soviet soldiers liberate the ghetto is described as the fictitious one, while the transport of the ghetto inhabitants to their death, the likelier outcome during World War II, is described as the "real" one, another challenge to GDR literary norms. See also Louis Begley: Wartime Lies (1991) References Bibliography Jurek Becker, Melvin Kornfeld (trans.). Jacob the Liar. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Jurek Becker, Leila Vennewitz and Jurek Becker (trans.). Jacob the Liar. Arcade Publishing, 1996. 1969 German novels German