Benevolent

This is excerpted from a December 2008 email from me to George Rodenbusch:

The relatively young novelist/philosopher Jonathan Littell (New York, 1967 - apologies for misspelling his name earlier) is an American, raised mostly in Europe, living in Barcelona, son of writer Robert Littell, of Polish Jewish descent. He lived in America until he was three and later returned to study at Yale. The title of "Les Bienveillantes" is literally "The Benevolents" or "The Kind Ones." However, some have hinted at an allusion to Aeschylus, and the book is alternatively called "The Furies", after evil spirits who were called "kind ones" as an appeasement.

In the book the executioner Max Aue (an SS officer involved in the Nazi death camps) provides a detailed account of his wartime dealings. Aue writes to find out if he can still feel or can still suffer after everything he has been through as a loyal subject of his country. What makes "Les Bienveillantes" unique is that Littell (courageously? and most certainly extremely controversially!) attempts to write from the perspective of the perpetrator, rather than from the victim's. That combined with a mind boggling knowledge of details makes the book an event.

Littel wrote the book in French but was himself uninterested to cooperate in preparing the English translation which will therefore only appear in 2009, well after translations in many other languages. He said in an interview that it took him 5+ years to write the bloody book, so that seemed more than enough to him. I guess he has a bit of (somewhat gallic arrogant/nonchalant?) point there.

I'm NOT advocating whether the book is right or wrong - it's a novel based on a radically different assumption, written from a very unusual paradigm. It's certainly not trying to portray the antagonist as the victim, on the contrary. The novel tells the story of the Holocaust from the point of view of an eloquent but heavily unsympathetic SS officer who is brutally honest. Or just plain perverse? Brave or crazy, literature or a stunt? Whatever the case may be, it kept me of the streets for a number of nights and did offer some unexpected new insights over and above the countless other books that I've read on the subject.

For many emotional blogs about this book, try http://frenchjournal.typepad.com/french_journal/2006/10/books_les_bienv.html

Footnote: I vaguely recall reading an article in the NY Times last year that people were protesting and trying to get the book removed from the shelves of the NY Public Library ...