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A review by faintgirl
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
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.