In 1940, just before his death, the theorist Walter Benjamin conjured a famous metaphor for watching the past: the 'Angel of History.' The angel was inspired by a print, Angelus Novus, by his friend Paul Klee, which features a great and beneficent being with his wings spread wide. Whereas we humans experience life as a chain of chronological events, the angel, Benjamin writes, faces the past and watches a tower of debris growing taller and taller, burying the victims of history. However much the angel wants to 'make whole what is smashed,' he is helpless against the wind propelling him into the future. The author who writes after great catastrophe frequently assumes the angel's position: Many historical novels float above history, bearing witness but drawing simple lessons, or casting dogmatic judgment, from the safe vantage of the present. In these books, the crises of earlier eras are held at a distance. By charting the course from then to now, these authors find comfort in the...
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