[Gaxiciverfere]

Ooooh, welcome back. Liam. Or have you just peeked in here? Thanks, Mirabell.

Actually, I stop by to check what you guys are doing almost on a daily basis. I don't always feel compelled to write something. Another thing is my current situation and all--it's the end of the term, more or less, and I can almost feel my scholarly and professional obligations wrap around my neck like an improbable boa constrictor, .

Interestingly (while we're on the topic of schools/universities), nearly all of my professors have expressed a determination NOT to read Littell's book. One woman was especially vehement about it. They hate the notorious New York Times "monster" (aka "professional reviewer") Michiko Kakutani as much as the next person, but this time their agreement with her assessment of Jonathan Littell was unanimous.

I myself would read the book if only it were 800+ pages shorter. As it is, I simply don't have the time. I don't think you need all those hundreds of pages to convince your readers that your main character/narrator is a monster. Might work in a novella or a short story, but a NOVEL??? Please. I had the same type of impatient exasperation whilst reading Stephen King's The Shining.

Anyway, The Kindly Ones seems to be on everyone's list of bestsellers. I'd be interested in reading what the other forum members have to say about it.

[Deseassaugs]

Should anyone want a copy of the French edition (of which 100 pages have been read) in superb condition, I would be happy to sell it. Life is too short for Littell, I fear. PM me if you're interested.

[ehib8yPc]

JPS: selling a non-thumbed copy of that Littell book, eh? I'm sorry to say that even if you were to send it me free, pay the postage, and add a banknote for $100 / ?100 / €100 slipped in between the first few pages, I would politely refuse. I can read French, but I'd rather practise it by reading other things.

Unfortunately, I sense that life is not too short for Littell, in the sense that he will probably live till he's ninety and cash in on the Holocaust with another twenty books, squeezing that subject dry like a lemon (e.g. "Me and N?mirovsky - a postmodernistical fantasy, chiefly about myself"; "Why I Know More About the Holocaust Than Primo Levi"; "How I Visited the Ruins of 81 Synagogues in Europe and Took Photos"; "Me and N?mirovsky II"; "Why I am Nearly as Clever as Arnon Grunberg"; "How I Experienced the Holocaust Through a Medium and Ouija Board [Volumes I, II, III]; Why I've Not Bothered to Learn Yiddish Properly"; "Holocaust Rap For Beginners"; "Concordance to 'The Kindly Ones' [two volumes]; "Max Aue and Me"; "The Shits and Me - a book of Holocaust puns"; "A Textual Comparison Between the Marquis de Sade and Me - a book to my advantage"; "Me and Me"; "Littell Gods").

[DianaDrk]

"Me and N?mirovsky - a postmodernistical fantasy, chiefly about myself"; "Why I Know More About the Holocaust Than Primo Levi"; "How I Visited the Ruins of 81 Synagogues in Europe and Took Photos"; "Me and N?mirovsky II"; "Why I am Nearly as Clever as Arnon Grunberg"; "How I Experienced the Holocaust Through a Medium and Ouija Board [Volumes I, II, III]; Why I've Not Bothered to Learn Yiddish Properly"; "Holocaust Rap For Beginners"; "Concordance to 'The Kindly Ones' [two volumes]; Max Aue and Me"; "The Shits and Me - a book of Holocaust puns"; "A Textual Comparison Between the Marquis de Sade and Me - a book to my advantage"; "Me and Me"; "Littell Gods").

I'm surprised, but this is very funny. *applauds*

[stadiaKab]

Goncourt jury member Jorge Semprun, a Spanish writer who went into exile in France after the rise of the Franco regime, fought in the Resistance and was captured and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, called "Les Bienveillantes" "the most important book" of the last half-century. In the next 20 years, he added, "every book about the Holocaust will be measured against Littell's work."


The executioner's song - Haaretz - Israel News


This article, by the Israeli Haaretz paper, does a good job of getting at the angles of the controversy surrounding the book. I do not think it is wise to denounce a book that one has not even attempted to read (hypocrite that I am, I have always done this with Harry Potter). If the basis of the rejection is simply that the author did not live through the event, we may as well denounce all historical fiction written by anyone. That the book is "badly written" or that it "cashes in" on the Holocaust are different sets of problems. I agree that there are too many books and glossy Hollywood spectacles riding on the back of the "Holocaust industry," but would certainly not go about accusing Mr. Littell of doing so unless I've cracked the spine of his hefty tome. Let us keep in mind that Ms. Kakatuni, along with almost all of Littell's other detractors, did not live through the Holocaust either.

[ehib8yPc]

Thank you for that, Liehtzu. I thank my lucky stars that I live in an era where you don't have to join the Resistance to survive. I have a moving book in Polish, which I have been thinking for years about translating, but probably exists in English by now, about the Yiddish poet Avrom (or Abraham) Sutzkever, who, like Sempr?n, fought in the Resistance. But Sutzkever fought in the Vilnius (Wilno, Vilne) ghetto, not in Spain.

I can't agree with Sempr?n, even though I've not read the book, and Sempr?n has suffered by being incarcerated in Buchenwald, which gives him the advantage of experience over me. From what I've read, Littell wallows in the sadistic aspects. I don't think that this book will help younger generations understand what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" and other matters. Such an understanding must occur so that such atrocities do not happen again.

Too many journalists also wallow in the Holocaust, knee deep, like the more emotionally crippled ones wallow in school shootings, describing every little detail. Much of Assaf Uni's article in Ha'aretz is interesting, but I don't like the obsession with clothes:

Littell, 41, strode onto the low stage wearing the pale suit that has become a sort of trademark of his public appearances. The last time the American-European author was in Berlin, some three months ago, when the German edition was published, he wore a similar suit and a light scarf around his neck; he held a glass of whiskey and smoked a Dutch cigarillo. The German press called him a "dandy." This time, in a non-smoking space, Littell - who had arrived that afternoon from Barcelona, where he lives with his wife and two children - looked more like a serious young historian than an enigmatic writer. In his introduction, the museum's director noted that Hitler himself had stood on a similar platform to review military parades. This is real celebrity fetishism of the worst kind.

Reading some of the more enlightened things that this Ha'aretz journalist Assaf Uni plus German Holocaust scholars also say in that same review, Littell seems to be cashing in on the Holocaust. We'll soon see what Israel makes of it, now it's been translated into Hebrew.

At the end of that Ha'aretz article, there are a lot of readers' comments. I've not read them yet, but it will be instructive to read what the centre-left of Israeli opinion has to say. (The more right-wing English-language Israeli online newspapers are the Jerusalem Post and Y-Net.)

You will note that this slippery character avoids being a Jew himself. Littell says in that Ha'aretz interview:

"Whereas my dad spent World War II trying to find something to eat in Brooklyn and thinking, 'if I was in Europe now, the Nazis would kill me.' So he looks at things from the point of view of the victim. It's a generational thing."

Would you define yourself as a Jew?

"Not at all."

Does your father define himself as a Jew?

"More than I do. I never went to synagogue regularly. In fact, I think I have been in more churches than synagogues. For me, Judaism is more a historical background. My father says you are a Jew because the people who want to murder you define you as such. Well, if someone wants to slit my throat because I am a Jew he is a raving idiot - that will not turn me into a Jew." The interview is full of such soundbites. Also:

In a way, Littell says, the starting point for the book was his asking himself how he would have behaved as a Nazi if he had been born in 1913. "So, in a way, Aue is a Nazi in the same way I would have been a Nazi - very honest, very sincere, dedicated and interested in examining the question of morality."

So the character is somehow based on you?

"Yes, okay. Fair enough."

Can you say 'Aue c'est moi'?

"You don't have to exaggerate. No, that would be reductive. Of course, in a way, I used elements of myself for the character."

One objection to the book is that it is filled with graphic descriptions of atrocities and is grossly obsessed, sometimes to the point of becoming pornographic, with sex, including incest.

"I have no clear explanation for that," Littell says, repeating his standard reply to this question. Suffice it to say that my rejection of this book and refusal to read it are re?nforced by most of the things I read about it. I'm old enough now to have developed a detector for opportunists, and it is beeping and flashing red, right now.

[OvDojQXN]

From what I've read, Littell wallows in the sadistic aspects.

For me, to know if this is true, I'd have to pick up it (and no doubt do myself an injury; it's huge!) and determine whether authorial intrusion does indeed wallow in such stuff or whether Littell is only being true to his character as it is, after all, told in the first person. Is it his character who revels in the sadistic or the author?

[ehib8yPc]

Stewart, I've got to the age where I immediately feel, without having to read eight hundred turgid pages of sadism or waffle, whether an author is worth my reading time. I'd rather watch "Not Going Out" on telly than convince myself that I have to read Littell, because of huge peer pressure.

I remember when people were queueing round the block to watch the cult film "Amadeus", or for a book-signing by Donna Tartt. I don't want to live in a world where the price of belonging to the in-crowd of book fetishists is having to read books you don't want to, just to be able to show off to people at the London Book Fair drinkies parties how with-it you are.

"Have you read the Littell book?"
"What little book?"
"The big book."
"Well, is it big or little. Make up your mind!" If I want to show off at drinkies parties, the best way (after having consulted the Stephen Potter manuals on one-upmanship) is to sidle up to people and mention Finland-Swedish authors they've never heard of. If they're interesting and interested people, they will ask more. If they're trendy bores, or books pages journos, they'll steer the conversation to Littell and the rest.

[AM1VV9r6]

Again,fascinating.

[Deseassaugs]

My offer still stands: twenty-two bucks to my PayPal account, and the original French edition (only 100 pages read, no fingerprints or errant crumbs) can be yours. I'll even pay the shipping costs.

PM me if you're interested.

[ehib8yPc]

As I wrote on another thread:

Goody gumdrops, a few others have joined the chorus, so it doesn't look as if it's just poor little me, who is too dumb to understand the genius of this novel, and erroneously think it's crap without even having read it.

Now, at last, those who say it's crap but have read it are coming to the fore. My prejudices will be confirmed by every review like this one:

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?...1-bd6bcae5f5e2

This Ruth Franklin carefully analyses the novel and draws the conclusion that it is one of the most repugnant books she has ever read. Keep it up Ruth! Mirabell has already replied. Mirabell: I love my own prejudices, don't you?

JPS, when you pay me two-hundred dollars, and give me the book for free, and pay the postage, I might consider the offer.

[DianaDrk]

Mirabell: I love my own prejudices, don't you?

Ha. I guess you're right.

[ehib8yPc]

As I said on the other Kindly Ones thread:

Whether prejudice is confirmed or not, I read Ruth Franklin's longish review, and she came to exact same conclusion I came to without having read the book.

First of all, it would be nice to debate with people that come with opinions about the Holocaust. Secondly, as you Mirabell, have, if I have understood correctly, both German and Russian forebears, and have lived in the GDR, it would nice hear your opinions of the book. You did, after all, reply to my comments in #2, literally within minutes, albeit with only a dozen words. Yet you rarely engage in debate with other people.

Mirabell said:

prejudice is always easily confirmed. that's the nature of the thing.
It's a wonderful soundbite, but what are YOUR opinions about a nine-hundred page novel, based wholly on other people's work, that critics say wallows in sadism and does not add anything to Holocaust understanding? Because although I had not read the book, the reviewers awakened my intuition. Intuition is a very useful asset. And reviews I have read confirm my suspicions that this is an opportunist, out for himself and his own glory.

[Deseassaugs]

I'm not sure there's any writer who can't be called an opportunist. We write to be read and to be paid to be read, and if that's opportunism, so be it.

The issue with this novel is that, from my viewpoint as a writer, it's a poorly-written novel. It's dense with undigested research in a story told by an unsympathetic character with apparently no discernible character-arc or nuance in the way he's drawn. I rarely give up on a book, but this one--not from disgust with the contents, but with the results--was a prime candidate.

A writer who has handled his Third Reich research I think brilliantly is Philip Kerr in his Berlin Noir trilogy and the volumes following it. Though these are on the surface detective stories, they're also studies not just of wartime and post-war Germany, but of a certain cast of mind that resulted from being corrupted by a particular ideology.