Tag Archives: Wars of the 20th Century

January 7, 2011 · 1:57 am

The Ministry of Special Cases: What I Didn’t Know About Argentina

    Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Cases introduced me to the history of the disappeared in Argentina in the 1970s. Until reading the book I knew nothing at all about the country or its history, and yet I can’t help feeling I should have known this history, horrific and terrifying as it is.

The novel introduces the military junta, the kidnappings and the murders so slowly and with such hesitance – we first follow a mother, father and son, and then, after the son, Pato, is disappeared, just Lillian and Kaddish – that it isn’t until Kaddish interrogates a navigator on one of the death planes that the full force of the crimes are made clear to the reader. The comic character of Kaddish, forever incapable of doing anything right, likewise contributes to sense of understated violence. Indeed, in very few scenes does the reader encounter descriptions of the imprisonment of the disappeared or the circumstances of their eventual death. With one exception the point of view of the disappeared is never described, an effective way as any, I suppose, to communicate the force of their removal from the world and their families.

Kaddish and Lillian’s kafka-esque search for information regarding Pato’s whereabouts and the frustrating futility of all their searches are difficult to read. The occasional Kaddish-failure makes these scenes – inexplicably – humouros: a dark humour not often encountered. The poignancy of the novel comes from the fracture between Lilianne and Kaddish and the ultimate decision each reader must make whether to believe with Lillian or to believe with Kaddish, and to know that never knowing might be the most painful part of all.

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January 2, 2011 · 10:18 pm

To the End of the Land: Auspicious Start

    I don’t know why I chose to start with David Grossman’s epic – 600 page – To the End of the Land, perhaps I was persuaded by repeated appearance on top lists of 2010s or perhaps I wanted to tackle (and defeat) one of the longest books on the list early on, but I chose it and I’m glad I did.

The book follows Ora and Avram as they walk across Israel. Ora tells Avram the stories of her children and her life in an effort to fulfill the bargain she demands of fate: by telling the stories of her son, Ofer, she can protect him while he serves in the IDF. At first I found the meandering of both the characters and the stories of Ora and Ofer’s life to be tedious, but as I came to know their family and their histories I wanted to hear the stories, to fill out a little more of the portrait. That said, the novel could use a good edit. Early sections detailing Ora’s relationship with her cab driver and later scenes describing obstacles – both real and metaphoric – on their journey are too detailed, too frequent, too heavy to add anything to the narrative, rather they distracted this reader from the truly compelling story of how Ofer came to be born, how Avram came to be tortured, and what, if any, future the characters have with one another.

I had difficulty with the politics of the novel, too. Ora at once commands her son to never hurt anyone intentionally, fearing that if he takes a life he will irrecoverably change. Yet the novel takes as its basic premise the need for the IDF to exercise extreme force to prevent “terrorist” attacks. While both sons serve in the IDF, the novel takes for granted a reader who will implicitly sympathize with the soldiers. I have little complaint with the backdrop of the wars and the scant attention to historical details – this is not historical fiction in that it the narrative shows little interest in describing the military conflict and in fact assumes a surprising level of existing knowledge on middle eastern politics and history from the reader – this is a book about a family and the loyalties and sacrifices possible from and for family members. I do appreciate the climactic consideration of the schism between “soldier” and “man,” or between what constitutes civility and barbarism, however, I still wish this theme had received fuller scope in the novel, an explicit address of questions of inherent or cultivated or enforced violence beyond a single character to include the whole of the conflict.

In writing this minor critique of what I feel to be an otherwise powerful novel, I realize that perhaps my concern that the novel misses, or slights, these questions is misplaced. The narrative does wonder whether single events, single decisions, single omissions, can permanently change an individual, can kill whatever humanity exists within them. But somehow these questions seem to be evacuated of historical or political presentness. As if these are great philosophical questions that could be asked at any point in history, and that the war described is merely a convenient or expedient backdrop against which to ask and answer. Which seems like an impossible critique given that the fundamental motivation for Ora’s narrative — her son serving for a month in the second intifada — should guarantee the presence of historical context… and yet the narrative does seem drained of specific time or place, an eternal, an inevitable journey through a universal landscape.

In any case, whether I’ve ended up with a minor complaint or unexpected praise, the novel provides much to think about. Here’s hoping the next 99 continue to provide such rich (or, with my apologies, contradictory) responses from this reader.

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February 9, 2010 · 1:51 pm

The Kindly Ones: Furious

The translation of Jonathan Littell’s 2006 novel Les Bienveillantes, The Kindly Ones came out in 2009 and sold over a million copies in North America. Encouraging, perhaps, that so many readers are willing to commit to a 950 page novel; but then, I have to wonder how many make it though to the end, as this is a novel that begins with compelling questions and fascinating historical detail, but spends the second half (or thereabouts) in grotesque fantasies of incest, matricide and shit, all culminating in a dissatisfying ending that neither resolves – or returns – to the evocative questions of its introduction, nor offers a plausible plot resoultion.

That said, I recommend The Kindly Ones. The novel begins with Maximillan Aue – the first person protagonist – meditating on his involvement as an SS officer in the war and the Holocaust. He argues that no reader would have done anything differently, and that the extremity of the violence owes more to complicity of all normal, intelligent, rational people than it does to the psychopathic homicidal tendencies of any one. Not a new suggestion, but one worth posing at the beginning of a novel that traces the experiences of Aue and how he can – as a rational, intelligent man – participate.

The first half (or thereabouts) also sees Aue grappling with the morality of his – and the Nazis – crimes. A struggle exemplified in scenes where high commissions and panels of experts debate – using Biblical sources, linguistic analysis, food preparation and gift giving practices – whether a mountain people ought to be considered Jews or not (and thus executed). The absurdity of such a debate calls into question readers’ assumptions that all Nazis acted without consideration – if without cause. Indeed as Aue struggles with questions of responsibility, of justice and of guilt, the reader gains both an appreciation both for the ideological strength of National Socialism, and a kind of sympathy for his position – which the novel maintains, could just as easily have been us.

But following his time in Stalingrad, and a non-fatal shot the head, Aue loses his interest in debating moral questions or considering justifications for his actions, and instead devotes himself entirely to “his work.” All the while plagued by two policemen who accuse him of murdering his mother and stepfather (he did do, but in a blacked out state – a failing of the novel). He purses his work with some fervor until the fall of Berlin, when he escapes to the countryside to spend weeks smearing shit and having sex with corpses. The novel offers some limited justification for his “decent” to this kind of behaviour, alluding throughout the text to Orestes’ matricide and pursuit by the Furies (who later become The Kindly Ones). He makes it back to Berlin in time to meet Hitler (and bite his nose), and to murder his policeman pursuers, as well as his long time compatriot, Thomas. It just doesn’t make any sense. What was the policeman doing in the Berlin zoo? Or Thomas for that matter? And why all the shit and corpses and depravity? I get that it’s meant to mirror the decline of life in Berlin and the collapse of the German war effort, but all the same, it doesn’t allow for any the development of the complex questions of morality, civilization, justice and complicity raised in the first half.

Finally. I did appreciate what must have been extensive research – the novel introduced me to elements of the history I had never encountered before. Perhaps Littell would have done better to write two books, as it seems he had two different ideas for how to approach the Holocaust: moral quandary of the everyman, or pornographic violence of the man without morals at all. But as it is, he just wrote the one, and I’d say, despite it’s difficulties, its well worth the read.

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