Fatherland
Length Of Time In Possession : 4 weeks
Fatherland, by Robert Harris alongside Laurent Binet's HHhH was my book clubs choice this month.
The novel takes place in an alternate universe in which Germany and not the UK/USA won World War 2. It is now the mid Sixties, Adolf Hitler is still the Fuhrer and the nation is gearing up to celebrate his 75th birthday. In the midst of this, policeman Xavier March is on hand when a corpse is discovered and from there, uncovers a dark conspiracy.
I found myself slightly frustrated with Fatherland. The concept of a Nazi victory is a really interesting idea, particularly from the perspective of the victorious nations, the UK and the USA and how those countries and thus the globe in itself would have differed as a result. England and most of Europe under German rule, no setting up of the United Nations, no Israel etc. Fatherland however is not that book.
Instead the focus is Germany itself, and what is Germany like under a German victory? Well, exactly what it was like during war and pre-war Nazi Germany, obviously! The Germany depicted actually feels like post-war East Germany which fell to Communists and the Secret Police as depicted in the wonderful 2006 film The Lives Of Others. It's hard to not see this as an opportunity wasted. Instead the focus on the impact on Germany itself feels rather self-explanatory, than in any way exploring something new.
SPOILERS FOLLOW.
The changes in the world mentioned aren't exactly that major or delved into in any way. Joe Kennedy, John F Kennedy's father became President instead, Heydrich survived his assassination attempt, the Nazis bombed New York and then became the Cold War opponents, Russia and the US are allies. These aren't really spoilers of Fatherland, as each is only mentioned in the briefest passing.
In the end the central conceit of Fatherland is that policeman Xavier March uncovers a conspiracy to cover up what the Germans did during the Final Solution and is rocked by the revelation of the Holocaust.
This entire premise is laughable on pretty much every level.
Firstly, the Nazis weren't the least bit ashamed of their solution to "the Jewish question", didn't consider Jews fully human, and thought they were absolutely doing the right thing. So the idea that they would try and hush it up on either a national or international level is bogus.
Secondly, the presupposition is apparently that by removing the 12 architects of the Final Solution, Heydrich eliminates the proof that it ever even happened. This is stupid beyond words. What about the 100s of SS officers who worked in those camps? The doctors, the train drivers, the local agents who rounded people up, and then by extension their families and friends. They all knew what was going on. Likewise the SS WAGs of whom there are many astonishing pictures. What about the Vel d'Hiv round up in Paris? That wasn't even the Germans it was the French police!!!!
Many Jews got out both to the UK and to the US and Canada, before the supposed Nazi victory. It was known, and in a widespread way.
Thirdly, through March there is this notion that the 'average German' believed the lie that the Jews had en masse been deported to Russia, and any disquiet they felt they kept quiet about. This is like saying that across Germany millions of adults believed their parents that their dog was happily living on a farm, when it was in fact dead. Many 'average Germans' (and Dutch and French) risked and lost their lives hiding Jews in their homes. Why? Because they knew they were getting killed en masse that's why!!!!
So expecting anyone to believe any of this is balderdash and the entire concept holds no water.
A disappointment.
Verdict : 5/10
Destination : Charity Shop
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Book #1 Exodus by Leon Uris
Exodus
Length of time in possession before being read : 2 or 3 days
Exodus is the story of birth of a nation. The nation of Israel as a sovereign state recognised by the UN in 20th Century History. It begins at the close of World War 2 with many post Holocaust Jews endeavouring to be repatriated to the Jewish state promised them by the international community. It is very different from Anita Diamant’s Day After Night, which focused on female refugees themselves and not just because it is a better novel.
We are introduced early in the novel to its two central protagonists. One is Kitty Fremont, a bereaved American nurse, who has some intrinsic anti-semitic prejudices and Ari Ben Canaan, a native Israeli and a hard as nails freedom fighter, part of early Mossad. Kitty joins a party of immigrants in order to remain close to an orphaned girl, slowly finding that she falls in love with Israel and the other characters we meet.
In addition to the post war narrative we also get several other narratives, the journey of Ari Ben Canaan’s forefathers; Yakov and Jossi Rabinsky, as they travel from a closed East European ghetto to Palestine, joining the small groups of Jewish settlements in the late 1800’s, as well as aspects of Ari’s own childhood.
So too, do we get the Holocaust survival stories of Karen Clement and Dov Landau, each with very different stories to tell. The final strand is the birth of a Nation, a birth of blood, grief and loss as the Arab Nations turn on the returning Jews for control of what was once Palestine beginning what is now a 70 year Middle Eastern Conflict.
I loved this book, each different strand was as compelling as the last and no section bored me. Interesting, informative, engrossing, entertaining, I had but one qualm against it: The book, written by a Jewish author feels biased. The Arabs are described as primitive, lazy, lacking in education or motivation and are rarely described in any positive light and their political standpoint is not given any consideration let alone balanced consideration. A thunderous hit at the time of publication, it is not very hard to see why.
Destination : Keeping this book
Verdict : 10/10
Length of time in possession before being read : 2 or 3 days
Exodus is the story of birth of a nation. The nation of Israel as a sovereign state recognised by the UN in 20th Century History. It begins at the close of World War 2 with many post Holocaust Jews endeavouring to be repatriated to the Jewish state promised them by the international community. It is very different from Anita Diamant’s Day After Night, which focused on female refugees themselves and not just because it is a better novel.
We are introduced early in the novel to its two central protagonists. One is Kitty Fremont, a bereaved American nurse, who has some intrinsic anti-semitic prejudices and Ari Ben Canaan, a native Israeli and a hard as nails freedom fighter, part of early Mossad. Kitty joins a party of immigrants in order to remain close to an orphaned girl, slowly finding that she falls in love with Israel and the other characters we meet.
In addition to the post war narrative we also get several other narratives, the journey of Ari Ben Canaan’s forefathers; Yakov and Jossi Rabinsky, as they travel from a closed East European ghetto to Palestine, joining the small groups of Jewish settlements in the late 1800’s, as well as aspects of Ari’s own childhood.
So too, do we get the Holocaust survival stories of Karen Clement and Dov Landau, each with very different stories to tell. The final strand is the birth of a Nation, a birth of blood, grief and loss as the Arab Nations turn on the returning Jews for control of what was once Palestine beginning what is now a 70 year Middle Eastern Conflict.
I loved this book, each different strand was as compelling as the last and no section bored me. Interesting, informative, engrossing, entertaining, I had but one qualm against it: The book, written by a Jewish author feels biased. The Arabs are described as primitive, lazy, lacking in education or motivation and are rarely described in any positive light and their political standpoint is not given any consideration let alone balanced consideration. A thunderous hit at the time of publication, it is not very hard to see why.
Destination : Keeping this book
Verdict : 10/10
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Book #98 Day After Night by Anita Diamant
Day After Night
Day After Night covers a period of history not often covered by fiction. Though there are plenty of books about the Holocaust, I do not know of many which cover the decision of many Holocaust survivors to travel to Jewish homeland Israel/Zion to be repatriated. There is, I am told Exodus by Leon Uris, a monster hit in the 1950s, but I have not read it and so this book was my first brush with this period.
The novel focuses on four women Zorah, Leonie, Tedi, and Shayndel who all survived the persecution of their race in different circumstances and are all seeking a new start. Thrown together at British detention centre Atlit, tentative bonds begin to form between the broken and distrustful women.
It is so so hard not to compare this book to The Red Tent, the Diamant novel I read last month. Where the prose in that novel is lyrical and beautiful, Day and Night is far plainer and less engaging. It is hard to feel involved with the women at times, and I hate to say it but at times they bored me, which feels like a terrible thing to say given the subject matter.
There are little pockets of greatness here and there, particularly in the way in which the women's dealings with Lotte are described, and the individuality of each woman's origin, but something about it feels like more of a history lesson than a story, less character than simply archetype, like its purpose is solely informative. For this reason it is a bit colourless as a novel, yet as the fates of each character were rounded up, I did shed a tear so I was definitely moved at the end.
Unlike the Red Tent though it is not a book which lights up your mind and imagination. At best I would consider it a 5 or 6/10
Day After Night covers a period of history not often covered by fiction. Though there are plenty of books about the Holocaust, I do not know of many which cover the decision of many Holocaust survivors to travel to Jewish homeland Israel/Zion to be repatriated. There is, I am told Exodus by Leon Uris, a monster hit in the 1950s, but I have not read it and so this book was my first brush with this period.
The novel focuses on four women Zorah, Leonie, Tedi, and Shayndel who all survived the persecution of their race in different circumstances and are all seeking a new start. Thrown together at British detention centre Atlit, tentative bonds begin to form between the broken and distrustful women.
It is so so hard not to compare this book to The Red Tent, the Diamant novel I read last month. Where the prose in that novel is lyrical and beautiful, Day and Night is far plainer and less engaging. It is hard to feel involved with the women at times, and I hate to say it but at times they bored me, which feels like a terrible thing to say given the subject matter.
There are little pockets of greatness here and there, particularly in the way in which the women's dealings with Lotte are described, and the individuality of each woman's origin, but something about it feels like more of a history lesson than a story, less character than simply archetype, like its purpose is solely informative. For this reason it is a bit colourless as a novel, yet as the fates of each character were rounded up, I did shed a tear so I was definitely moved at the end.
Unlike the Red Tent though it is not a book which lights up your mind and imagination. At best I would consider it a 5 or 6/10
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Book #6 Far To Go by Alison Pick
Far To Go
Far To Go tells the story of the Bauer family, there is a connection to the true life story of the family of Alison Pick who escaped Czechoslovakia for Canada during the war. In this, it bears some similarity to Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces which I read at the end of last year.
In Far To Go, the Jewish Bauer family find their lives both metaphorically and literally under threat as German aggression begins to absorb Czechoslovakia into its borders. Pavel Bauer who has lived a secular life does not really believe it will happen to him, but begins to identify with and explore his Jewish heritage when it comes under threat. Initially, he is unwilling to part with his precious son Pepik but as the threat of the Holocaust marches closer, he begins to consider to try placing his son on the Kindertransport, the initiative of a British man who saved the lives of many Jewish children.
Far To Go was longlisted last year for the Man Booker Prize last year but didn't make it to the shortlist and though it is not a bad book and is eminently readable, it is flawed and its potential is wasted I can see why it wasn't shortlisted.
The Kindertransport is a really different angle to take on the stories of the Second World War and would make an involving book. Unfortunately this isn't that book, the bulk of this book concerns Pepik's nanny Martha, her loyalty or in my opinion lack thereof to the Bauer family. It also covers the well trod ground of the encroaching fear and sudden oppression of Jewish communities in Nazi Occupied Europe.
Both Pepik and first cousin Tomas make it out of Europe on the Kindertransport but little to nothing is made of that experience and what that was like for children. In fact the first page of the book informs us that Tomas reached a family in the UK, he is never referred to in the novel again, and Pepik's experience is completely truncated. It just seems like a totally missed chance. Towards the end of the book it becomes all about main character Lisa's research, and how the story was pieced together as best she could from her research. In fact though the title Far To Go implies the journey and the front cover is of a child with a suitcase the novel is barely about the Kindertransport at all. And thats the disappointment. I think I would like to read a novel that is actually about that experience.
I also disliked the manner in which Martha is painted as a heroine of sorts at the end, when in point of fact she wasn't and ultimately sabotaged the safety of her beloved Pepik and Pavel.
So, yes, this novel whilst a very readable very well written book is a pretty big disappointment and though somewhat based on the Pick family experience is lacking in terms of anything new to say. It's still worth a read but if you wanted to read a novel about that era and asked me for a recommendation, I would recommend Markus Zusak's The Book Thief among others and this novel would not spring to mind instantly 7/10
Far To Go tells the story of the Bauer family, there is a connection to the true life story of the family of Alison Pick who escaped Czechoslovakia for Canada during the war. In this, it bears some similarity to Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces which I read at the end of last year.
In Far To Go, the Jewish Bauer family find their lives both metaphorically and literally under threat as German aggression begins to absorb Czechoslovakia into its borders. Pavel Bauer who has lived a secular life does not really believe it will happen to him, but begins to identify with and explore his Jewish heritage when it comes under threat. Initially, he is unwilling to part with his precious son Pepik but as the threat of the Holocaust marches closer, he begins to consider to try placing his son on the Kindertransport, the initiative of a British man who saved the lives of many Jewish children.
Far To Go was longlisted last year for the Man Booker Prize last year but didn't make it to the shortlist and though it is not a bad book and is eminently readable, it is flawed and its potential is wasted I can see why it wasn't shortlisted.
The Kindertransport is a really different angle to take on the stories of the Second World War and would make an involving book. Unfortunately this isn't that book, the bulk of this book concerns Pepik's nanny Martha, her loyalty or in my opinion lack thereof to the Bauer family. It also covers the well trod ground of the encroaching fear and sudden oppression of Jewish communities in Nazi Occupied Europe.
Both Pepik and first cousin Tomas make it out of Europe on the Kindertransport but little to nothing is made of that experience and what that was like for children. In fact the first page of the book informs us that Tomas reached a family in the UK, he is never referred to in the novel again, and Pepik's experience is completely truncated. It just seems like a totally missed chance. Towards the end of the book it becomes all about main character Lisa's research, and how the story was pieced together as best she could from her research. In fact though the title Far To Go implies the journey and the front cover is of a child with a suitcase the novel is barely about the Kindertransport at all. And thats the disappointment. I think I would like to read a novel that is actually about that experience.
I also disliked the manner in which Martha is painted as a heroine of sorts at the end, when in point of fact she wasn't and ultimately sabotaged the safety of her beloved Pepik and Pavel.
So, yes, this novel whilst a very readable very well written book is a pretty big disappointment and though somewhat based on the Pick family experience is lacking in terms of anything new to say. It's still worth a read but if you wanted to read a novel about that era and asked me for a recommendation, I would recommend Markus Zusak's The Book Thief among others and this novel would not spring to mind instantly 7/10
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Book #69 Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Sarah's Key
So, I went to see Terence Mallick's The Tree Of Life on Wednesday, and one of the trailers was for Sarah's Key starring Kristin Scott Thomas, who seems to be having a remarkable second career in French films. It looked like something I would watch and then the trailer stated it was adapted from a novel by Tatiana de Rosnay so I then went and bought it after I got out of the cinema.
Sarah's Key is set in Nazi-Occupied France and on a particularly dark episode of French history called the Vel d'Hiv roundup. The Vel d'Hiv roundup involved the forced corralling of French Jews into a stadium were they were kept in degrading conditions before being deported to their deaths at Auschwitz and other camps.
The majority of my knowledge of Nazi Occupied France comes from 'Allo! Allo!' that bizarre attempt to make both the courageous French Resistance and the sinister Nazi officers look like harmless simple minded clowns. I knew very little of actual occurrences within Nazi occupied France in the 1940's and neither does the main character of Sarah's Key, Julia Jarmond.
Julia is an American journalist who has lived in Paris for many years and is assigned to write a 60th anniversary piece on the Vel d'Hiv massacre. Alternating chapters with investigator Julia is the story of Sarah, a little girl rounded up with her family and taken to Vel d'Hiv. When they are arrested, Sarah hides her younger brother in a cupboard to protect him, intending to return for him. As Julia uncovers more and more about Vel d'Hiv it is Sarah's story and the way in which her present links to Sarah's past that drags Julia in and refuses to let her go.
It is a very well told tale with obvious cinematic qualities. Although it is called Sarah's Key the novel is much more about Julia and the way in which people deal with the guilt of the past crimes of themselves, their family, and in this case their nation. Much is made of the fact that it was not in fact the Nazis who rounded up these people but the French Police and authorities even though most of the memorial plaques blame the Germans alone, and make no acknowledgement of the French involvement.
Julia herself has an interesting story, an American married to a Frenchman with standoffish in laws and things turning sour, but the truly affecting parts of the novel are Sarah's. Although all Holocaust stories are sickening this particular story in the way in which it is told, the events which take place and the reverberations into the future has a unique feel, like it has something new to say and contribute to the records of that sorry period of history.
It is sentimental without being mawkish and tragic without being depressing to read, I'm really glad that I stumbled upon it in this way. I loved the character of Sarah and I look forward to seeing it on the big screen. 9/10
So, I went to see Terence Mallick's The Tree Of Life on Wednesday, and one of the trailers was for Sarah's Key starring Kristin Scott Thomas, who seems to be having a remarkable second career in French films. It looked like something I would watch and then the trailer stated it was adapted from a novel by Tatiana de Rosnay so I then went and bought it after I got out of the cinema.
Sarah's Key is set in Nazi-Occupied France and on a particularly dark episode of French history called the Vel d'Hiv roundup. The Vel d'Hiv roundup involved the forced corralling of French Jews into a stadium were they were kept in degrading conditions before being deported to their deaths at Auschwitz and other camps.
The majority of my knowledge of Nazi Occupied France comes from 'Allo! Allo!' that bizarre attempt to make both the courageous French Resistance and the sinister Nazi officers look like harmless simple minded clowns. I knew very little of actual occurrences within Nazi occupied France in the 1940's and neither does the main character of Sarah's Key, Julia Jarmond.
Julia is an American journalist who has lived in Paris for many years and is assigned to write a 60th anniversary piece on the Vel d'Hiv massacre. Alternating chapters with investigator Julia is the story of Sarah, a little girl rounded up with her family and taken to Vel d'Hiv. When they are arrested, Sarah hides her younger brother in a cupboard to protect him, intending to return for him. As Julia uncovers more and more about Vel d'Hiv it is Sarah's story and the way in which her present links to Sarah's past that drags Julia in and refuses to let her go.
It is a very well told tale with obvious cinematic qualities. Although it is called Sarah's Key the novel is much more about Julia and the way in which people deal with the guilt of the past crimes of themselves, their family, and in this case their nation. Much is made of the fact that it was not in fact the Nazis who rounded up these people but the French Police and authorities even though most of the memorial plaques blame the Germans alone, and make no acknowledgement of the French involvement.
Julia herself has an interesting story, an American married to a Frenchman with standoffish in laws and things turning sour, but the truly affecting parts of the novel are Sarah's. Although all Holocaust stories are sickening this particular story in the way in which it is told, the events which take place and the reverberations into the future has a unique feel, like it has something new to say and contribute to the records of that sorry period of history.
It is sentimental without being mawkish and tragic without being depressing to read, I'm really glad that I stumbled upon it in this way. I loved the character of Sarah and I look forward to seeing it on the big screen. 9/10
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Book #9 The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
The Hare With Amber Eyes
I'm not someone who generally reads non fiction but this was my second non fiction book of the year so far. It had simply caught my eye, I had seen it shooting up the Amazon chart, seen it promoted at Waterstones, liked the sound of the title, and bought it with no real idea of what it was about.
On the surface it traces the history of an heirloom passed on to De Waal from his Uncle, but it is really more of a wider tale of inheritance and loss. The heirloom in question is a collection of Japanese netsuke, I was unsure about what these actually were until I looked it up, thinking they were somehow like the crystal owl figure my Nana had on her mantelpiece when I was young. The netsuke are in fact like artistic buttons, used for belts and kimonos, but each has a different scene or animal engraved on to it.
As De Waal traces the path of the netsuke through his family, so too does he trace his own roots and his own ancestry and it is De Waal's personal journey as he does so that involves the reader far more than the netsuke themselves. It is a sort of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' with an heirloom as the celebrity, and the man investigating his family doing it the hard way rather than having it done for him.
You feel his personal connection to his past as he stands looking at the home of his ancestors The Ephrussi Family in Paris, the buildings now used for other purpose. The story begins with Charles Ephrussi, a spare son not needed to follow into the banking business of his family, and allowed to pursue an interest in art, becoming friends with many of the great artists of his era; who buys the netsuke after a craze for Japanese art becomes popular.
As he uncovers their story he uncovers a history of flagrant Anti-Semitism in Europe that is truly shocking, long before the rise of Nazism, but as we follow the path of that history, we inevitably reach the events of the Thirties and Forties of the last century, but how did his family survive? And just how did they manage to hold on to their netsuke?
The Hare with Amber Eyes, is not just a family saga, but a story of hope, and how an object or a collection of them comes to symbolise that hope. It is an unusual story that I'm glad I read, and that I think that many would enjoy, and i think its current presence on the Amazon bestseller list is justified. 8/10
I'm not someone who generally reads non fiction but this was my second non fiction book of the year so far. It had simply caught my eye, I had seen it shooting up the Amazon chart, seen it promoted at Waterstones, liked the sound of the title, and bought it with no real idea of what it was about.
On the surface it traces the history of an heirloom passed on to De Waal from his Uncle, but it is really more of a wider tale of inheritance and loss. The heirloom in question is a collection of Japanese netsuke, I was unsure about what these actually were until I looked it up, thinking they were somehow like the crystal owl figure my Nana had on her mantelpiece when I was young. The netsuke are in fact like artistic buttons, used for belts and kimonos, but each has a different scene or animal engraved on to it.
As De Waal traces the path of the netsuke through his family, so too does he trace his own roots and his own ancestry and it is De Waal's personal journey as he does so that involves the reader far more than the netsuke themselves. It is a sort of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' with an heirloom as the celebrity, and the man investigating his family doing it the hard way rather than having it done for him.
You feel his personal connection to his past as he stands looking at the home of his ancestors The Ephrussi Family in Paris, the buildings now used for other purpose. The story begins with Charles Ephrussi, a spare son not needed to follow into the banking business of his family, and allowed to pursue an interest in art, becoming friends with many of the great artists of his era; who buys the netsuke after a craze for Japanese art becomes popular.
As he uncovers their story he uncovers a history of flagrant Anti-Semitism in Europe that is truly shocking, long before the rise of Nazism, but as we follow the path of that history, we inevitably reach the events of the Thirties and Forties of the last century, but how did his family survive? And just how did they manage to hold on to their netsuke?
The Hare with Amber Eyes, is not just a family saga, but a story of hope, and how an object or a collection of them comes to symbolise that hope. It is an unusual story that I'm glad I read, and that I think that many would enjoy, and i think its current presence on the Amazon bestseller list is justified. 8/10
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