The Pork Butcher

by David Hughes

During the Second World War, a unit of the German army of occupation in France was troubled by partisan activity and decided on reprisals against the town of Oradour. As a result of that decision, the name of that small place is known around the world.
In the novel, a former soldier, who was swept up by his unit against his will on that day, for he had a rendezvous with a woman with whom he intended to escape, nevertheless took part in the massacre; many years later, he returns to Oradour on a kind of pilgrimage of penance. The visit is oddly pleasurable and oddly disappointing–until he finds a physical clue that destroys his last hope that he can be innocent in his own eyes.

Genres: Fiction

123 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1984

About the author

David Hughes was a British novelist. His best known works included The Pork Butcher (Constable, 1984) for which he was awarded the WH Smith Literary Award in 1985 and But for Bunter, published as The Joke of the Century in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hu... . See also http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4443...

Reviews

[Jarvo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps all criminals are compelled to return to the scene of the crime, even 40 years later? For its first two thirds this is a fairly compelling read. Forty years earlier the central character was a German soldier, involved in a notorious massacre in war time France. When he becomes terminally ill he resolves to return to the place where it all took place, and perhaps to get reconciled with his semi-estranged daughter along the way. So far, so good and even if it’s a bit cliched it works. But the final third involving an ambitious French politician who is full of rather stereotypically Gallic logic loses it’s way. Even the author’s rather clipped prose loses its edge. Still, I’ll remember the good bits.

[Elen Boore · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a really short book which tells the story of an old German man who’s been given 2 months to live & so goes to France where his daughter lives. He goes to Lascaud-sur-Marne (fictional name, referring to Oradur-sur-Glane) where in 1944 he participated in the killing of 700 men women and children by the Nazis. It’s old-fashioned so kind of weirdly written, quite vulgar how it speaks about sex. Other than that it’s quite poetic and blunt in the way it describes the protagonists emotions about what he did and living with that for 40 years without telling anybody. He even explains why he doesn’t feel that much guilt because he was obeying orders and how during war it is easy to disassociate yourself from the brutality of what you’re doing. Quite an uncomfortable read.

[Robert Bolton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this late author (and this book) only recently and am still surprised he's not more well-known. Perhaps it's just me. He is a very fine writer with a clean crisp style and this is a cleverly plotted story based on a real wartime atrocity. The author manages to get inside the head of an old German -- once a young Nazi soldier in occupied France but now aged and ill -- his young French war-time lover, his daughter who has become French, an English journalist, an important French politician, once a leader of the resistance and now destined for greatness, and a number of petty French village bureaucrats. First published in 1984 the story still resonates with post-war angst. A good read, both entertaining and thought provoking.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

the aftermath of WW2 and the guilt/grief of one man who goes back to France to atone. Pretty good as I remember, but not always convincing.

[James Mullins · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amazing gripping read from the first 2/3 of the books and the prose and descriptions were beautiful and so French. A captivating story of a man returning to the scene of crime 40 years later written beautifully.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short quick read.

[Cerisaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in a single sitting. The writing is beautifully descriptive, especially when evoking locations and a memorable picnic. Though short (120 pages), the novel is not slight, addressing as it does the question of German guilt through the story of former Wehrmacht soldier Ernst Kestner. He returns to the (fictional) village of Lascaud where, one hot June afternoon under orders, he did something that has consumed him ever since, a massacre based on Oradour-sur-Glane. I've said it over so often before, but never to anyone but me, I always thought that starting from the beginning was yet another chance of stopping the end happening.

The aspect of the book I like most is its portrayal of the relationship between Kestner and his estranged daughter Tina, who married a Frenchman and went to live in Paris to spite her father because she knew how sensitive he was to France, though not why. I was reminded of the BBC documentary, Storyville: My Nazi Legacy about two sons of top Nazis responsible for crimes against humanity and the shame and guilt passed on to their children, who struggle to reconcile childhood images of their fathers and the atrocities for which they were responsible. Kestner had been on the point of deserting from the army to be with Jannie, a local woman with whom he'd been having a risky affair, on the fateful day his unit was ordered into the village to murder the entire population. He has spent the intervening years as a butcher in Lübeck, unhappily married, a distant father unable to forget what he did, or his lost love. [Jannie] was present inside him only as images, glaring overlit pictures which, when they occurred to him, burned out as long as he could hold them, all the ordinary contents of his mind. They did not seem like memories. They had never faded at the edges.

It is a testament to Hughes' skill as a writer that though Kestner is not a sympathetic character nonetheless you feel his guilt, his need to confess, to seek absolution. It is unsettling to realise Kestner retains some sympathy for Germany's Nazi past, though this could be nothing more than nostalgia. It is troubling, too, when Kestner questions whether the French have made too much of something that happened forty years before whilst ignoring current tragedies, and his feeling (delusion?) he was vindicated by a love that made his actions so impossibly difficult to commit. The final part is a little weak and I think the novel would have worked better if Hughes had stopped short of those last pages, though I did like the scenes between Kestner and Mayor Lorion, who also feels guilty but in his case of absence not presence.

An elegant, over-looked gem of a novel that shows less can be more.

[Aileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ernst Kestner, a pork butcher in Lubeck, packs up and drives to Paris, picks up his estranged married daughter and takes her away for a few days. They head for Lascaud-sur-Marn, a small town which saw atrocities during the war. Along the way Ernst tells her the reason they are going there, he has a story he wants to get off his chest before his cancer finishes him.

Based loosly on the true story of Oradour-sur-Glane, this is a very powerful short novel that is all the more horrific in the everyday way it is told. The healing relationship between father and daughter is touching. My only critisim is of the last couple of pages which seemed totally unnecessary.

[The Final Chapter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Low 4. This short, undiscovered, gem of a novel concerns the poignant return of Ernst Kestner, a pork butcher from Lubeck, to the scene of a terrible atrocity of the Second World War in which he took part. Unable to escape the nightmarish memories of these distant events from his military service in occupied France, he must confront the ghosts of his past, accompanied by his daughter, who is oblivious of his dark past. An accomplished and sensitive portrayal of a delicate subject, this novel deserves wider readership.

[Makereta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe they made a film of this book some time ago and I would be curious to see it. This is a brilliantly written tale about guilt and reconciliation. Ernst Kestner, a pork butcher in Lubeck, is driving back to the small French village where he spent the summer of 1944. For 40 years Kestner has kept secret his memories both of janni, his French lover,and of the atrocity which brought his time in Lescaud-sur-Marn to an end. But now, in view of the state of his lungs, there is no need for secrecy any longer... Highly insightful, sensitive and lucid writing.