Aladdin's Problem

German writer Jiinger (1895- ) receives an overdue introduction to English-language readers with this elegant allegorical novel. Frederick Baroh, descended from a once-aristoerotic family, serves in a rifle regiment of the People's Army garrisoned in his old hometown in Silesia before deserting to the West. (Jilnger, not incidentally, fought in both world wars, and as a captain took part in the occupation of France; in 1939, however, he had written a widely read anti-Nazi novel.) Once in the West, Baroh joins his uncle's funeral business and then develops an enormously lucrative enterprise-a vast, world-famous necropoIis. Lucid sentences and a finely tuned plot balance a rigorous agenda concerned with nothing less than the mysteries and paradoxes of material existence. An articulate afterword by Martin Meyer examines the philosophical and literary underpinnings of Jilnger's work. (Oct.)