An excellent novel which focuses on the life of Baruch Spinoza, the seventeen century thinker and philosopher who was excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam for questioning the basic precepts of the Torah, the existence of God, life after death and who had a huge impact on Goethe, Nietzsche, etc.
The novel also has an interplay with Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideologue who was fascinated on how a Jew such as Spinoza could influence such leaders of German culture such as Goethe. Well written, it is an excellent little primer if you are interested in Spinoza or enjoy a lively philosophical interplay between characters in a novel. Reading this novel brought back the joys of my philosophy classes at Loyola in Chicago; the give and take, the questioning and logic, etc. If you want a read that will give you brain a little work out, I highly recommend this book. Well done!
