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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
I'm not rating this because I only got to p. 73. I'm not tough enough to read this book, although I would like to be able to. The narrator, Dr. Aue, is a fascinating character who has enough self awareness to describe his getting involved with the Nazis as being drawn in by the Devil, but who also deceives himself about his ability to cope with the atrocities he has committed. However, I can't cope with reading in harrowing detail about the atrocities, so I will leave this book for others to review.
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Reading “The Kindly Ones” is like roaming around a dilapidated mansion – it begs you to explore; it is both fascinating and repulsive. The book is very ambitious, and it’s a pleasure to read literature that takes on a serious if uncomfortable subject, and literature that takes itself seriously. I would have given this five stars, and I do find it largely successful, but there are some snags in the subplot that don’t quite work.
The overarching historical plot works well. The protagonist, Maximilien Aue, visits the WWII hot spots: Babi Yar, Stalingrad, Auschwitz, and Berlin as it falls. I found the perspective gripping. And rather than finding his interaction with actual notorious Nazis ridiculous - Himmler, Speer, Eichmann, Höss, Mengele, Hitler and Bormann, his mustache brush - I found the approach better than fictionalizing the bigwigs with aliases we’d have to guess at. Mostly, I appreciated the point of view – I’ve read other WWII novels but few if any in which we’re escorted through by a perpetrator of the Holocaust. It’s a privileged if disgusting view. While there is obscene crime in the book, no need to get all righteous about it and refuse to read on. (If your stomach is weak, don’t even try this book.) The protagonist would tell you that everything that happened in WWII was caused by human beings, not monsters or genetic mutants. Aue himself doesn’t seem designed to represent some horrid beast. For the most part, he appears to be a cultivated, educated but otherwise ordinary man sucked into the infernal machine.
And yet – and here comes my problem with the subplot – he’s not some ordinary man. He is one fucked-up cookie with some heavy issues, mostly being obsessively in love with his twin sister, with whom he longs to be one. And he unfairly despises his French mother, whom he feels betrayed his German father, thus setting up psychologically Aue’s allegiance to the Fatherland. And he is not just compelled to murder as a consequence of war, but he’s also an out-and-out murderer. Aue would also have preferred to be a woman. No sin there, but definitely not some ordinary guy tricked into doing the devil’s business. His sexual perversions don’t stop at desiring his sister. He also gets it on with a specially whittled tree branch at the tail-end of an excessive and prolonged masturbatory orgy. The fantasies! Ugh. I was both surprised and not surprised that “The Kindly Ones” won the “Bad Sex Award” for fiction in 2009. Not for sex that takes place – rather a wet dream. Oy.
At the end, Aue is pursued both by oncoming Russians but also by “the kindly ones,” aka the Furies, for his personal crimes. I both enjoyed this mix of main plot/subplot and found it distracting. And in all cases, Aue knows he is guilty and yet doesn’t seem to regret anything, for various reasons.
On the downside, the author does tend to go off on tangents that can be worse than tedious – they’re sometimes hard to follow. Many deal with bureaucratic issues, but for me the most exasperating was the long monologue on Caucasian linguistics by Aue’s friend Voss. I suppose the point about the difficulty and/or futility of being able to identify a language’s/people’s true origins was clear, still the author really begged the reader’s patience. I can only imagine that such passages are intended to play up the contrast of how tedium exists alongside horror. Nevertheless, whereas I would have given up on other books, this was too interesting to put down. Once the dull spots were slogged through, it was easy to get caught up again.
My favorite parts of the book were the hallucinatory segments. When Aue’s arm frees itself from his body of its own accord and goes off shooting wildly, disconnected from him. When he is shot in Stalingrad and suddenly he’s swimming the Volga, then floating about in a dirigible with a mad scientist type. When the masturbatory episode exhausts itself and Aue imagines a dead figure in the snow.
Finally, I liked the figure of Helene. It was important to me that she was part of the book. The scene where Aue tells her what the deal out east really is brings it home for me. She says the German people will have to pay for their crimes, and Aue responds, yes, if they lose, their enemies will be pitiless. But Helene says even if the Germans win they are going to pay. So true! I found her a sobering anchor-point in this sprawling book. Unfortunately, Helene has to be abandoned, because Aue is guilty and condemned and although human, he must be divorced from human comfort.
The overarching historical plot works well. The protagonist, Maximilien Aue, visits the WWII hot spots: Babi Yar, Stalingrad, Auschwitz, and Berlin as it falls. I found the perspective gripping. And rather than finding his interaction with actual notorious Nazis ridiculous - Himmler, Speer, Eichmann, Höss, Mengele, Hitler and Bormann, his mustache brush - I found the approach better than fictionalizing the bigwigs with aliases we’d have to guess at. Mostly, I appreciated the point of view – I’ve read other WWII novels but few if any in which we’re escorted through by a perpetrator of the Holocaust. It’s a privileged if disgusting view. While there is obscene crime in the book, no need to get all righteous about it and refuse to read on. (If your stomach is weak, don’t even try this book.) The protagonist would tell you that everything that happened in WWII was caused by human beings, not monsters or genetic mutants. Aue himself doesn’t seem designed to represent some horrid beast. For the most part, he appears to be a cultivated, educated but otherwise ordinary man sucked into the infernal machine.
And yet – and here comes my problem with the subplot – he’s not some ordinary man. He is one fucked-up cookie with some heavy issues, mostly being obsessively in love with his twin sister, with whom he longs to be one. And he unfairly despises his French mother, whom he feels betrayed his German father, thus setting up psychologically Aue’s allegiance to the Fatherland. And he is not just compelled to murder as a consequence of war, but he’s also an out-and-out murderer. Aue would also have preferred to be a woman. No sin there, but definitely not some ordinary guy tricked into doing the devil’s business. His sexual perversions don’t stop at desiring his sister. He also gets it on with a specially whittled tree branch at the tail-end of an excessive and prolonged masturbatory orgy. The fantasies! Ugh. I was both surprised and not surprised that “The Kindly Ones” won the “Bad Sex Award” for fiction in 2009. Not for sex that takes place – rather a wet dream. Oy.
At the end, Aue is pursued both by oncoming Russians but also by “the kindly ones,” aka the Furies, for his personal crimes. I both enjoyed this mix of main plot/subplot and found it distracting. And in all cases, Aue knows he is guilty and yet doesn’t seem to regret anything, for various reasons.
On the downside, the author does tend to go off on tangents that can be worse than tedious – they’re sometimes hard to follow. Many deal with bureaucratic issues, but for me the most exasperating was the long monologue on Caucasian linguistics by Aue’s friend Voss. I suppose the point about the difficulty and/or futility of being able to identify a language’s/people’s true origins was clear, still the author really begged the reader’s patience. I can only imagine that such passages are intended to play up the contrast of how tedium exists alongside horror. Nevertheless, whereas I would have given up on other books, this was too interesting to put down. Once the dull spots were slogged through, it was easy to get caught up again.
My favorite parts of the book were the hallucinatory segments. When Aue’s arm frees itself from his body of its own accord and goes off shooting wildly, disconnected from him. When he is shot in Stalingrad and suddenly he’s swimming the Volga, then floating about in a dirigible with a mad scientist type. When the masturbatory episode exhausts itself and Aue imagines a dead figure in the snow.
Finally, I liked the figure of Helene. It was important to me that she was part of the book. The scene where Aue tells her what the deal out east really is brings it home for me. She says the German people will have to pay for their crimes, and Aue responds, yes, if they lose, their enemies will be pitiless. But Helene says even if the Germans win they are going to pay. So true! I found her a sobering anchor-point in this sprawling book. Unfortunately, Helene has to be abandoned, because Aue is guilty and condemned and although human, he must be divorced from human comfort.
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
As Benevolentes é um livro com muitas partes boas, discussões interessantes e com partes curiosas. Não é um livro fácil. Não só pela temática, mas também pelo tamanho e complexidade. Com certeza deixei de pegar inúmeras referências. Littell fez uma pesquisa grandiosa e colocou o que pode no livro.
O livro poderia ser menor, mas não sei o que o autor poderia tirar. Sinceramente, nem se consigo analisar direito. Mas tenho certeza que ninguém sai ileso da leitura.
É uma história que pode ser várias coisas e pode não ser uma leitura agradável. Nem todo mundo vai gostar (isso é uma certeza), mas sinto que aprendi algo lendo o livro.
Não sei se recomendo.
O livro poderia ser menor, mas não sei o que o autor poderia tirar. Sinceramente, nem se consigo analisar direito. Mas tenho certeza que ninguém sai ileso da leitura.
É uma história que pode ser várias coisas e pode não ser uma leitura agradável. Nem todo mundo vai gostar (isso é uma certeza), mas sinto que aprendi algo lendo o livro.
Não sei se recomendo.
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I’ve never encountered a book more in need of an editor. If cut to its core, this book had a lot of potential to be very insightful, but the point got lost in all the tedium and useless asides.
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Incest, Xenophobia, Excrement, Antisemitism, War
Moderate: Child death, Death, Vomit, Murder
Minor: Rape, Torture
I got to about page 300 in this (I lost the marker unfortunately). I don't think I will pick it back up again (and probably want to start from the beginning if I did). I thought I could get past the gratuitous violence and I couldn't. I think I was daring myself to read it in the first place and miscalculated my reaction. Many of the reviews talked about the violence and how unnecessary it was and I didn't want to agree and i think I do. It's a shame, I would have liked to have seen where it went, but just couldn't stomach the death and destruction.
By no means do I think it is a terrible book per se, but it is hard not to feel like he was writing certain passages for the shock value and I just couldn't take the manipulation.
By no means do I think it is a terrible book per se, but it is hard not to feel like he was writing certain passages for the shock value and I just couldn't take the manipulation.
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes