Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bookchew 's review for:
The Zone of Interest
by Martin Amis
Difficult and confusing read. When there are breaks of clarity in the otherwise obscure writing (so much untranslated German), the proverbial "banality of evil" that shows through is masterfully conceived. The Nazi Commandant Paul Doll is a clownish caricature in the vein of Nabokov, Gogol, or Chekhov; we find in him a darkly comic portrayal of authority that manages to bumble about unchecked. Thomsen's rampant sexuality but supposed "good intentions" reminded me of Lolita's Humbert Humbert. These two characters struck me, but the book as a whole--it's structure, plot, syntax--did not work for me. I felt somehow alienated by the vast use of German vocabulary, and the obfuscation of characters through use of long, honorific titles or nicknames... impossible to follow who, exactly, is talking, to whom, and about what. This book might be a candidate for a reread, but only after I've learned fluent German.