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fionnualalirsdottir's review against another edition
Assigning a star rating to this book is impossible. I can see why it was necessary for it to be written - to remind us of what we are capable - but that doesn't make this book readable. Personally, I couldn't get beyond page 120 or thereabouts. My difficulty lay in reconciling the chilling, dispassionate voice of the narrator with the brutal and horrifying scenes he was witnessing. I became paralysed by the awful, stomach churning fear of what he would recount next. I have never experienced such a feeling from a book. I had no choice but to abandon it.
marc129's review against another edition
2.0
There is so much I could say about this book. First of all, it is simply impressive how much information Littell has collected on World War II and especially on the internal kitchen of Hitler Germany; I recognized a lot of what I had read in Ian Kershaw’s books (especially his Hitler biography): the ongoing internal competition between the various power centers of the Reich, the increasing anarchy, and especially the mechanism of "Dem Führer entgegen arbeiten". Of course, I cannot judge whether Littell's fictional exposition on Nazism is completely correct, but he certainly succeeded in illustrating what the internal coherence of Nazism was and how the war horrors “logically” derived from that coherence. Of course I know that this is a very controversial proposition, because many war criminals used it to try to diminish their personal responsibility.
And that's exactly what the main character and narrator, Dr. Max Aue, a prominent member of the SS, is doing in this book. Regularly Aue states that all the main players of Nazi-Germany in fact were ordinary people like you and me, people that just wanted to play their role in a "Weltanschauung" that for them was logical and natural, and thus that they were not the sadistic demons they were represented to be after the war. Of course, since Hannah Arendt we are already aware of this, but Littell makes Aue also state quite another view: after his frequent contacts with Adolf Eichman, for example, he stresses that Eichman certainly wasn't an ordinary, banal man, but rather a top professional who only wanted to achieve the goal he had been ordered to achieve. This book is full of this kind of perverse ambiguities, constantly putting the reader on the wrong leg. All the time we have to be aware that Aue brings us an apology and thus his story is full of revisionist elements. Handsomely done, surely, but very difficult for the reader.
Many reviews emphasize that the big weakness of this book is the lack of focus. And that's right, because Littell does not seem to be able to choose between an epic-wide evocation of a crucial era (such as Tolstoi in “War and Peace”), a philosophical-ethical reflection on the horrors of a totalitarian state (such as Vasily Grossman in “Life and Fate”), and a psychological portrait of an apparently normal but actually very sick mind (in this case, Dr. Aue). Sometimes Littell/Aue gives 100 pages of detailed information about troop movements or discussions between Nazi bosses, then suddenly a flashback from Aue on his incestuous relationship with his sister, followed by another long-eyed violent horror scene, and so on. Of course, this introspective part (because we obviously have to do with the version that Aue itself gives us) is very interesting, and Littell also explicitly connects it with the theme of the mental health of Nazism. This seems to me a key passage to understand this novel:
"Since my childhood, I was haunted by the passion for the absolute and the transcending of limits; now this passion had led me to the edge of the mass graves of Ukraine. My thought had always been radical; now the State and the Nation also have chosen the radical and the absolute [...]. And if this radicalness was the radicalness of the abyss, and the absolute revealed itself as the absolute evil, then one ought, I firmly thought, to follow them all the way down, with the eyes wide open. “
But, as noted, Littell does not really manage to balance this personal story of psychological perversion with the wider story of the horrors of Nazism. Instead, we get a sequence of sometimes boring, descriptive passages about the war operations, detailed descriptions of war crimes (especially the Babi Yar Massacre near Kiev, Stalingrad's Hell, the terror of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the deadly marches at the end of the war), vivid and sometimes highly philosophical conversations and occasionally also the perversions of Aue himself.
In the last 100 pages of this book the Aue character completely derails: his acts not only become outright shocking (with some pretty graphic scenes), but sometimes also ridiculously hilarious (his encounter with Hitler for example). Perhaps Littell wanted to indicate that we should not take his story too seriously.
No, this novel, although at times very impressive, certainly is not an overall success. Personally, I think that 1400 pages (in my edition) really is too much. If you really want to read an extended book about war and dictatorship, I would certainly recommend the 1.000 pages of Vasily Grossman's "Life and Fate". (2.5 stars)
And that's exactly what the main character and narrator, Dr. Max Aue, a prominent member of the SS, is doing in this book. Regularly Aue states that all the main players of Nazi-Germany in fact were ordinary people like you and me, people that just wanted to play their role in a "Weltanschauung" that for them was logical and natural, and thus that they were not the sadistic demons they were represented to be after the war. Of course, since Hannah Arendt we are already aware of this, but Littell makes Aue also state quite another view: after his frequent contacts with Adolf Eichman, for example, he stresses that Eichman certainly wasn't an ordinary, banal man, but rather a top professional who only wanted to achieve the goal he had been ordered to achieve. This book is full of this kind of perverse ambiguities, constantly putting the reader on the wrong leg. All the time we have to be aware that Aue brings us an apology and thus his story is full of revisionist elements. Handsomely done, surely, but very difficult for the reader.
Many reviews emphasize that the big weakness of this book is the lack of focus. And that's right, because Littell does not seem to be able to choose between an epic-wide evocation of a crucial era (such as Tolstoi in “War and Peace”), a philosophical-ethical reflection on the horrors of a totalitarian state (such as Vasily Grossman in “Life and Fate”), and a psychological portrait of an apparently normal but actually very sick mind (in this case, Dr. Aue). Sometimes Littell/Aue gives 100 pages of detailed information about troop movements or discussions between Nazi bosses, then suddenly a flashback from Aue on his incestuous relationship with his sister, followed by another long-eyed violent horror scene, and so on. Of course, this introspective part (because we obviously have to do with the version that Aue itself gives us) is very interesting, and Littell also explicitly connects it with the theme of the mental health of Nazism. This seems to me a key passage to understand this novel:
"Since my childhood, I was haunted by the passion for the absolute and the transcending of limits; now this passion had led me to the edge of the mass graves of Ukraine. My thought had always been radical; now the State and the Nation also have chosen the radical and the absolute [...]. And if this radicalness was the radicalness of the abyss, and the absolute revealed itself as the absolute evil, then one ought, I firmly thought, to follow them all the way down, with the eyes wide open. “
But, as noted, Littell does not really manage to balance this personal story of psychological perversion with the wider story of the horrors of Nazism. Instead, we get a sequence of sometimes boring, descriptive passages about the war operations, detailed descriptions of war crimes (especially the Babi Yar Massacre near Kiev, Stalingrad's Hell, the terror of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the deadly marches at the end of the war), vivid and sometimes highly philosophical conversations and occasionally also the perversions of Aue himself.
In the last 100 pages of this book the Aue character completely derails: his acts not only become outright shocking (with some pretty graphic scenes), but sometimes also ridiculously hilarious (his encounter with Hitler for example). Perhaps Littell wanted to indicate that we should not take his story too seriously.
No, this novel, although at times very impressive, certainly is not an overall success. Personally, I think that 1400 pages (in my edition) really is too much. If you really want to read an extended book about war and dictatorship, I would certainly recommend the 1.000 pages of Vasily Grossman's "Life and Fate". (2.5 stars)
glenncolerussell's review
5.0
“Please, mein Herr, shoot the children cleanly.”
― Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones
Such a fiercely compelling novel, one of the most evil stories ever told. I had to listen to the audio book while taking my walks and let all the evil from the novel run down my legs and out the bottom of my feet; so much evil, thus my initial reluctance to write a review and highly recommend. However, the writing is excellent and the insights on human nature, history and culture numerous.
The first-person narrator starts his story by telling us nowadays his head begins to rage with the roar of a crematorium, that when he is at a bar he pictures someone entering with a shotgun and blasting away; that when he is watching a film in a theater he imagines a live grenade under the seats; that when he is among dozens of happy families on a pleasant Sunday afternoon attending a festival in the town square he sees a car filled with explosives blowing up, turning the festivities into unending carnage, blood and guts everywhere, groan, screams, pitiful cries filling the air and then a long harrowing silence and emptiness for the survivors.
Such are his thoughts since, as he also tells us, he is a veritable memory machine, unceasingly manufacturing memories whenever he has the time to think. Thus, he discovers when he once took a leave-of-absence from his responsibilities as manager of a lace factory, he can’t be left alone too long to think.
So, Little’s novel has Maximilien Aue recounting memories in the spaces between his normal round of work and family, recounting memories as a man in his mid-fifties currently living in 1970s France. And what is the focus of his memories? Back when he was a young man, an Untersturmführer, that is, a Nazi SS Lieutenant living through the bitter cold and mass killings at the Russian Front, the slaughter of the concentration camps, the murders he committed with both his own pistol or his own hands, the perversions of his personal life and violence of his family life, all recounted and reported in chilling detail, in a narrative voice unflinchingly calculating and as cold and as hard as steel, say the steel of an abandoned tank in subzero January. As a good number of readers have remarked once finishing this thousand pager, not an easy read, in many respects, a downright harrowing and horrifying read. Once read, never forgotten.
Rather than the killings, slaughter, perversions and other violations of humanity in Max’s waking life, I will synopsize four of the Nazi SS officer’s vivid, intense dreams:
ONE: Max is on a high cliff watching a procession of gondolas glide down a river, he clearly sees his gorgeous identical twin sister sitting cross-legged, her long flowing black hair falling over her perfectly shaped breasts. (Sidebar: in real life Max is sexual infatuated and romantically in love with Una, his identical twin sister). Max shouts her name many times. She raises her head and their eyes meet. At this point Max feels violent stomach cramps, undoes his pants and squats down, but instead of shit, real live bees, spiders and scorpions gush out his anus. He screams out and then turns his head and sees identical twin young boys staring at him in silence.
TWO: Max is gliding at different levels high up in the sky looking down, almost more like a camera than a human, looking down at a huge city set out on a uniform grid, seeing thousands and thousands of blue-eyed men and women and children, faceless, moving mechanically through birth, growth, adulthood and death creating a perfect equilibrium which reminds Max of what an ideal concentration camp would be like.
THREE: In a dark bedroom Max sees a tall beautiful woman in a long white dress. He recognizes the woman is his sister. She suffers uncontrollable convulsions and diarrhea, black shit oozes through her white dress causing Max to experience great disgust and nausea.
FOUR: Max exchanges cloths with his sister Una, he putting on her dress, she putting on his uniform. He sits in her chair at her dressing table and then Una carefully makes up his face, combing his hair, applying lipstick. Una then straps on an ebony phallus. After an intense session of intertwining like snakes, Max rests on the floor and says he is her sister and she is her brother to which Una replies that you are my sister and I am your brother.
Of course, we could envision what a psychoanalyst, either a Freudian or a Jungian or an analyst from any other school would make of Max’s dreams. Let me simply conclude by saying that anybody wishing to read this novel must be prepared for the many more brutal, cruel and murderous scenes of Max’s waking life, reminding me of the hell scenes of the artist Hieronymus Bosch . Again, one of the most evil tales ever told.
dizzzybrook's review against another edition
Not a DNF, I just do not currently have the emotional bandwidth for something this bleak.
champers4days's review
5.0
An amazingly well-written book from such a charged and controversial perspective. The subject matter obviously makes this not the easiest read in the world, and the author is DEFINITELY not shy about depicting the grotesque and disgusting in a straight-forward, direct manner. If you think you can get past those two hurdles, I HIGHLY recommend for anyone interested in World War II.
criminolly's review
4.0
Hard to decide exactly how to rate this. In the one hand it’s a pretty spectacular achievement. On the other it’s a bit all over the place at times and is incredibly long. Video review coming soon once I collect my thoughts.
n0niim's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book, but I've only been able to read it in its entirety once. This is not because of the amount of pages (ca. 900), but because it's a heavy read. It's an intense, haunting story, and it sucks you in, so beware. A must-read if you're interested in World War II.
faintgirl's review
1.0
I'm really not sure what to say about this one. Dr Aue is a Nazi bureaucrat, mostly tasked with the logistics of "The Jewish Question" who travels throughout World War Two in time and place, happening to end up at most of the crucial junctures of the conflict and meet many of the men making the critical decisions. Aue prides himself on efficiency and is incredibly monotone in his descriptions. This leaves most of the beginning of the book pretty boring, lots of lists of ranks and tactical positions, small towns in Poland and the Caucasus and long ideological conversations. It was such an enormous tome that I can't remember whether Aue somehow ended up in Stalingrad or at the concentration camps first, but as you can imagine things get pretty horrendous and the detail delivered in monotone is more effecting.
I could cope with that. I believe that these stories need to be told, that we need to remember the facts and the brutality to avoid making such enormous mistakes again. But things start to unravel in The Kindly Ones. As more is revealed about Aue's private life, Littell tries to paint him as more and more deviant. Outside of his devotion to the intricacies of his job and Nazi idealism, he was a twin, deeply in love/lust with his sister, who has since married a famous composer. He also hates his step father, who he may or may not have killed along with his mother on a trip home. We are privy to his worst sexual fantasies, his rather twisted ideas of eroticism, and way more bodily fluids and references to "my sex" than I ever imagined possible. Perhaps that's a translational quirk, but it was really irritating.
The other thing that drove me mad was the fact that when things started to really fall apart, Aue always managed to meet up with his buddies, be caught up with by the police chasing him despite Stalingrad or Berlin being blown to smithereens around him, creating a ridiculous contrived ending. I was shocked by the lack of mercy shown by the allies in the destruction of Berlin by the end, but it was the pure facts that moved me in the novel, not the awful pretentious writing and the cheap tactics of his personality traits.
I can't say any more. But this was a mission, and not particularly worth it.
I could cope with that. I believe that these stories need to be told, that we need to remember the facts and the brutality to avoid making such enormous mistakes again. But things start to unravel in The Kindly Ones. As more is revealed about Aue's private life, Littell tries to paint him as more and more deviant. Outside of his devotion to the intricacies of his job and Nazi idealism, he was a twin, deeply in love/lust with his sister, who has since married a famous composer. He also hates his step father, who he may or may not have killed along with his mother on a trip home. We are privy to his worst sexual fantasies, his rather twisted ideas of eroticism, and way more bodily fluids and references to "my sex" than I ever imagined possible. Perhaps that's a translational quirk, but it was really irritating.
The other thing that drove me mad was the fact that when things started to really fall apart, Aue always managed to meet up with his buddies, be caught up with by the police chasing him despite Stalingrad or Berlin being blown to smithereens around him, creating a ridiculous contrived ending. I was shocked by the lack of mercy shown by the allies in the destruction of Berlin by the end, but it was the pure facts that moved me in the novel, not the awful pretentious writing and the cheap tactics of his personality traits.
I can't say any more. But this was a mission, and not particularly worth it.
edustoryramos24's review against another edition
5.0
WWII told from the side of the SS, by a Frenchman. Arguably best WWII novel ever (certainly best I've read) and an eloquent comment on post WWII German guilt and hipocrisy