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A review by laurapk
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
2.0
There is no reason why this book needed to be this long. It started off as a potentially interesting exploration of the banality of evil, it promised accuracy but then it got bogged down in fever dreams. Hundreds of thousands of words that are a fever dream. You want to understand how the Holocaust was possible and how it may happen again and may be starting again as we speak? Read "The Escape Artist", read the "Night" trilogy, read from the perspective of the victims as well. Of course we are all capable of re-enacting the holocaust. The proof is in this novel's publication as well: Ellie Wiesel had to cut down his account of real events written from the perspective of a Jewish man who survived Auschwitz to a merely 100 pages, because we cannot tolerate such atrocities described by the victim. But when the atrocities are written from the perspective of the perpetrator? We will publish a 970 page book without paragraphs. The French published both works. And one received accolades right off the bat. Explain that to me.
The whole banality of evil is also undermined by the author's decision to have the main character be gay and incestuous. That cliche was being challenged for its homophobia and inaccuracy back in 2007 when the book was published, so the author cannot claim not to have know. It was a conscious decision which cheapens the reality: that a lot of people, not a few special ones, collaborated enthusiastically in the evil acts of WW2 and will do so again (may try to do so again, based on recent events). I do not care for the myth of the Androgyn, for subverting the expectation of beauty, for the Dostoevskyan philosophy, for the War and Peace comparisons. The final result is a repulsive tone-death experiment that failed to contain itself. An editor and some discipline could have made this an interesting interrogation of evil and xenophobia. Instead it became the fever dream of a deranged incestuous homosexual. And do not compare it with "2666" -- that novel actually bothered to insert an anchor in the name of Lalo; 2666 actually made the reader understand how we become enured to evil, without forgetting about the victims, without spitting on them. There was light in that novel; there was only indulgence in "The Kindly Ones" and insufficient thought on harm. Go ahead and defend this novel, but I learned more about the themes and history of this book from the perspective of Holocaust survivors. I regret the time I spent reading this novel, it did not deliver on its promises.
The whole banality of evil is also undermined by the author's decision to have the main character be gay and incestuous. That cliche was being challenged for its homophobia and inaccuracy back in 2007 when the book was published, so the author cannot claim not to have know. It was a conscious decision which cheapens the reality: that a lot of people, not a few special ones, collaborated enthusiastically in the evil acts of WW2 and will do so again (may try to do so again, based on recent events). I do not care for the myth of the Androgyn, for subverting the expectation of beauty, for the Dostoevskyan philosophy, for the War and Peace comparisons. The final result is a repulsive tone-death experiment that failed to contain itself. An editor and some discipline could have made this an interesting interrogation of evil and xenophobia. Instead it became the fever dream of a deranged incestuous homosexual. And do not compare it with "2666" -- that novel actually bothered to insert an anchor in the name of Lalo; 2666 actually made the reader understand how we become enured to evil, without forgetting about the victims, without spitting on them. There was light in that novel; there was only indulgence in "The Kindly Ones" and insufficient thought on harm. Go ahead and defend this novel, but I learned more about the themes and history of this book from the perspective of Holocaust survivors. I regret the time I spent reading this novel, it did not deliver on its promises.