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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Absolute classic of the alternate history genre. In the places where it feels cliched, that may be because it set the bar for other books to follow. Reads like a fully realized, deeply researched think piece on what a victorious Nazi Germany might look like coupled with a genuinely thrilling and suspenseful mystery.
Note to self: Remind me that I do not like reconstructed historical novels in which Adolf Hitler wins and Nazism rules the day. This and "The Plot Against America" were horrible.
Fatherland is at its best when it focuses on the alternative-historical setting and the historical characters. Berlin and Germany feel genuine, the alternative reality is well based in research and well constructed using an appropriate portion of imagination. Everyday lives of victorious Nazis are written convincingly, and Hitler is used as an influential figure that makes his presence known without really showing up.
The plot is far from being excellent. But considering how difficult it is to build a story that is both creative and credible, I have to say the main storyline eventually turns out to be good. The reader doesn't understand what the real story is up until the end, and the main mystery, despite actually being very predictable, still feels right and is impressive once unraveled.
So where does the book go wrong? Ironically, the main characters aren't half as convincing as the historical side characters. March's personality and his conflict with the Nazi ideology severely lack depth, and he's more like an American than an SS officer. We know he's an unusual cop, not much of a Nazi but the explanation to all that remains superficial and unconvincing. There's no character development when it comes to March, he does what he does because the author compells him and not because of his own personal will as a character. Also the idealization of the USA is propagandistic and generic, weakening the book's intellectual value.
The worst part is the American journalist. She influences the plot a lot and that's solely because she's an American. She has almost no other trait or personality aspect, she's an American inserted in the Nazi world and she disrupts this world, not because she's a well written character with a real struggle that stands on her own feet but because she keeps fighting for good old freedom, because she's from the USA.
Therefore Fatherland is well worth reading for its handling of a post-war Nazi Germany and how it draws from historical events and characters. It is a good thriller if you can manage to just disregard how bland the two main characters are, and love the book for its world.
The plot is far from being excellent. But considering how difficult it is to build a story that is both creative and credible, I have to say the main storyline eventually turns out to be good. The reader doesn't understand what the real story is up until the end, and the main mystery, despite actually being very predictable, still feels right and is impressive once unraveled.
So where does the book go wrong? Ironically, the main characters aren't half as convincing as the historical side characters. March's personality and his conflict with the Nazi ideology severely lack depth, and he's more like an American than an SS officer. We know he's an unusual cop, not much of a Nazi but the explanation to all that remains superficial and unconvincing. There's no character development when it comes to March, he does what he does because the author compells him and not because of his own personal will as a character. Also the idealization of the USA is propagandistic and generic, weakening the book's intellectual value.
The worst part is the American journalist. She influences the plot a lot and that's solely because she's an American. She has almost no other trait or personality aspect, she's an American inserted in the Nazi world and she disrupts this world, not because she's a well written character with a real struggle that stands on her own feet but because she keeps fighting for good old freedom, because she's from the USA.
Therefore Fatherland is well worth reading for its handling of a post-war Nazi Germany and how it draws from historical events and characters. It is a good thriller if you can manage to just disregard how bland the two main characters are, and love the book for its world.
I accomplished everything on my to-do list yesterday, including finishing this, except for vacuuming. I'm calling it a win.
Compared to CJ Sansom's DOMINION, another alt-history where the Nazis won, this one has the edge. The ending was still a bit too open-ended for my taste, but it didn't taint the overall reading. At one point I was positive we were going to get dual POVs, but I liked the choice of sticking with March through the whole book. Glad I read it!
Compared to CJ Sansom's DOMINION, another alt-history where the Nazis won, this one has the edge. The ending was still a bit too open-ended for my taste, but it didn't taint the overall reading. At one point I was positive we were going to get dual POVs, but I liked the choice of sticking with March through the whole book. Glad I read it!
Excellent. Evokes a sense of what Germany may have been like had the war been won by Hitler - East Germany in the sixties, as evoked by the film The Lives of Others for example. Great plot that charges along, and a great denouement that is entirely plausible.
So there was a previous review that I had read, which really summed up how I felt about this book nicely. It mentioned that that particular reader was disappointed because he thought it would have included more about the historical reference of the alternate history. It would be a crime mystery, however also detailing the setting as much as the mystery. The setting and that time period took a great backseat to the mystery, which is the part I was most looking forward to. I didn't quite care for the mystery part; it wasn't bad, just eh. As mentioned in a previous update, it was difficult to keep some things straight (characters, names for things) due to them being in German.
One of those "what if the nazis won" alternate history novels, this is one of the most mainstream-style reads I've picked up yet. The triumphant Germany of the 60s serves as a backdrop to a police thriller/murder mystery. Berlin's been restyled according to nazi tastes and fantasies - giant looming buildings house the SS and other arms of the ever-reaching government. A tour guide, in one bit, consistently describes certain monuments as "20 times larger than the one in France". Everyone from school children to grannies belongs to a uniformed offshoot of The Party. Well, you have to admit - if there is one thing the stiff right arm boys had going, it was a deep understanding of symbolism and how to use it.
So here's my question - could Germany have hidden the slaughter of Europe's Jewish population from the rest of the world? Could 11 million people have gone up in smoke without the general population of, for instance, America knowing? I mean, we, as a society, certainly ignore some atrocities (Darfur), but in this day and age we do know they're going on. In a time before the internet, before fax machines, before automated media, in a tightly controlled situation, could they have pulled it off? Even then, I have my doubts. The vast majority of people will do nothing to stop a great evil, but a secret spread among workers, those who built the camps, those soldiers running the camps and trains, those filing the paperwork, even the camps neighbors seems to me to be a secret unlikely to be kept. What say you?
(I just now realized that HBO did a tv version of Fatherland in 1994, with Rutger Hauer Miranda Richardson. Shit, I'd watch that. I wonder if I can rent it.)
final thought: I wonder how long the nazis will continue to be such an effective boogyman. Will they eventually pass into mythology of a sort, devil figures from a shady past?
(http://epicdystopia.blogspot.com)
So here's my question - could Germany have hidden the slaughter of Europe's Jewish population from the rest of the world? Could 11 million people have gone up in smoke without the general population of, for instance, America knowing? I mean, we, as a society, certainly ignore some atrocities (Darfur), but in this day and age we do know they're going on. In a time before the internet, before fax machines, before automated media, in a tightly controlled situation, could they have pulled it off? Even then, I have my doubts. The vast majority of people will do nothing to stop a great evil, but a secret spread among workers, those who built the camps, those soldiers running the camps and trains, those filing the paperwork, even the camps neighbors seems to me to be a secret unlikely to be kept. What say you?
(I just now realized that HBO did a tv version of Fatherland in 1994, with Rutger Hauer Miranda Richardson. Shit, I'd watch that. I wonder if I can rent it.)
final thought: I wonder how long the nazis will continue to be such an effective boogyman. Will they eventually pass into mythology of a sort, devil figures from a shady past?
(http://epicdystopia.blogspot.com)
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The main character is definitely an authorial self insert and the characterization feels very dated to the era it was written, but... I have to admit it was a lot of fun to read and I was hooked by the suspense. A bit like potato chips for the brain.