The Kindly Ones discussion

what about you?

This a 5 WOW Novel. It is up there with the greats. IMO

I have read many reviews of this work. So often, there is the complaint of the pornographic nature and details of SA Obersturmbannfuhrer, Maximilien Aue's sex life and his sexual dream states as detractions from the novel. The copious sexuality and 100 plus pages dedicated to it, in my mind, were used as a literary tool to make the reader uncomfortable - as we often become inured to the violence that surrounds us. The endless war/s that are going on right in the world are fine examples. We choose to ignore them, with their 1,000,000s of dead and our role/s in them. They are just not part of our lives - because, we choose to ignore them. We are the good Germans. The gross sexuality in the novel could not be ignored – it would not allow you to feel anything, but, creepy-crawly. It made you feel dirty and sexually sick just for having read it. I have not read one so critic refer to this. To me, it was obvious. The barrage of sex went far beyond the character development of Aue as your average Nazi sexual sickie-poo or the writers interest in sex writing. It was the inescapable “FEEL” of violence and the horrors of the Nazis extermination policy and the war for the reader through a pornographic medium.

The novel does need a “WARNING!!! Not for the prudish reader!!!!” label on it. I can see how many a strong reader would put it down as the sex becomes too uncomfortable and deeply disturbing for many to continue reading. But, it is supposed to. It is part of the horror and the pain. The question I ask is, why can we read the other horrors and not be so very disturbed?

This is clearly not a book about the narrator, Aue IMO. He is the vehicle. He takes us to an insane, violent and disturbing place in human history. He is our window into the mindset of the SS/SA and Nazis... Certainly, the weaknesses of German fascism are exposed through Aue's daily interaction with his peers and their conduct of the war.

The macabre meets reality here over and over and over. It could be a King horror genre novel - only it is about something that was too real. It is about something that has happened and that happens again everyday. Scary scary stuff. This protagonist could be a member of the next Great Khan's Horde, a derivatives market bankster, a Likud party faithful or even your local corpo-globalist party functionary looking the other way in the name of so-called freedom for profitable free trade - regardless of the human cost. ****Litell is an outspoken peace activist on war everywhere and the on going abuses perpetrated against innocents everywhere. I do believe this is his message in The Kindly Ones.

Worst of all, he could be you! Aue says this. It is true!

I have to praise Litell here. While, He situations are certainly centered around the holocaust of the Jews in Europe; it is made clear 10s of millions of innocent others died too. His understanding of food shortages during the war in Europe were well researched - that food was used a death tool for the Soviet urban masses is not often referred to. And he clearly states, the holocaust of the Jews was only the beginning/the first step of the master plan of the final solution. Given time, it would have included clearings and eliminations on scale undreamed of. You name the Untermensch, they were to go down - the special final solution way. Absolutely frightening stuff. This is not spoken to much with the focus on the Jewish Holocaust today.

The writer's dream-states are wonderful. Our narrator's mental decay from his Einsatzgruppen attachment in 41 until his evacuation from Stalingrad in 43 is incredible... Where this dream state begins is not clear - somewhere between his Caucasus assignment and Stalingrad. Where his mental decay/stress, health, hunger, exposure and fever finally begin to overwhelm his consciousness. He gradually deteriorates into dream state. So much so, his shooting in the head is not that much of a departure from his fever induced so-called reality we are reading leading up to the wound. The sex dream state at his sisters estate is powerful as well. This was a huge piece of literature.

A GREAT READ!!!

Should have added the "The Kindly Ones" (the Furies = Eumenides )is loosely based on Aeschylus's Oresteia. It does add some spice and really makes the ending of the book go out in a big way.

The Kripos Weser and Clemens are great the way they pop up almost anywhere and at anytime as the Furies - German, Ellroy or Dashiell Hammett detectives.

Is the SS man Thomas Hauser Apollo? His attitude certainly reflects a beyond this world view of things???

An amazing book.

Lysergius: I am amazed this wonderful book died here in Amerika.

Esp. given the Amerikan fondness for holocaust literature.

Was it the book's homo and other sexuality or its great length or its detail or its whatever? I don't have any answers.

It is the most incredible work of historical fiction and literature that folks (even well read ones) have not even heard of here. At least, that I can think of anyways.

A shame, that. As it is IMO in the top 25 books, I have read - and I have read 1000s in my lifetime (to include, a good to large sampling of the 100s of books on the so called "Best Book Lists")

I really cannot figure this out?

Is it, that it is "French" as was published during the Freedom Fries insane Bush-Cheney days here (not that those days have gone away)?

Perhaps, it is to close a look at the road Amerika and even the Zionists themselves have embarked on. The dark road to total Fascism and their very own new holocausts.

T

Goodness knows. That being said, I don't really care. Just psyching myself up to reading it again!

I don't know how it was received by readers in America or how many copies it sold in America, but asking readers to read a nearly 1,000 page novel is asking a lot, I don't care how intelligent or well-read you are, it's still a big time commitment for most readers. So there's that.

Then there's not just the sexual aspect, but the scatological aspect. There is so much shitting and diarrhea going on. I think maybe Americans are fairly comfortable with violence in books and movies, but extreme sex situations (which let's face it, the sex in this book is very extreme, the homosexuality is the least of it) and extreme shitting is probably a bridge too far for many American readers.

I doubt the book being of French origin had anything to do with it.

LobsterG: Thanks for the reply. But, I don't agree with you,

First: We are talking about a type book that would be read in serious reader circles anywhere. It was a French Book of Year award winner.

I will agree, TKO is not going to attract the supermarket check-out stand reader crowd. But neither does Pynchon or Eco or their ilk. And as far as big books go, the bigger the S. King -Horror- or Tom Clancy -Death/War- novels are, is all the better for the made un-dead American reader. They sell like hotcakes.

The "not normal sex" and other "unmentionable" settings in the book were there for a purposed reason. They were substitutes for violence. ***You are right, we are made inured to violence - globally. The sex/unmentionable stuff was there to make us uncomfortable - AND IT WORKED!

All the while, when the extreme violence was treated as just the pedestrian, the day to day, the matter of course, the business as usual facts of life for our protagonist in his world. The book flowed over the insanity of the violence. It was a brilliant approach, IMO

I am sure that being it being a French publication had much to do with its lack of almost any appearance in AmeriKa.

Every year, it is getting harder to get British publications here - the English world's publishing war is raging. Much of the Euro stuff is coming out ( as expected) of British houses. That the Brits are now more reactionary than ever does not help either. I have other authors, I have read in the past, whose work is just not getting printed in English any longer.

Plus, to ignore the reaction to all things French during these years, is choosing to ignore the facts of life here in the new Amerika.

1. You say that this book would naturally appeal to serious readers. But then you argue that readers were turned off by this book due to its French origins, because of a negative reaction "to all things French during these years." But the people who had a negative reaction to all things French were not the same subset of Americans as the serious readers subset. The negative reaction to French things was a right-wing, kneejerk phenomenon, arising out of Republicans in Congress, conservative comedians, moderate to conservative journalists, and all the commoners who follow these groups of decision-makers. The negative reaction to French things was an anti-intellectual trend. The serious readers are hardly anti-intellectual.

2. A doorstopper of a book by Stephen King or Tom Clancy is a very different matter from a doorstopper which is literary fiction. The former are horror and thriller genres. The majority of American readers are genre readers, not readers of literary fiction. Thus a doorstopper of a book aimed at the literary reader will have a much harder time getting a foothold than a doorstopper aimed at the genre reader.

Lob: OK points.

I do not think serious readers (intellectuals???) have any great insight to life (they just enjoy a different form of reading mostly). And, they are not protected from nor do they rise above cultural/political bias. Some of the brightest "intellectual" people, I know, have horrible nose-ring political views and cultural biases. Many were swept away by the darkness of the "New AmeriKan Era" - that is still with us. It certainly is still there at the Amerikan publishing houses.

Your point on genre is stronger - I'm a historical fiction genre reader - (really a sucker for trash Swashbucklers too). Got to have a genre, don't-cha?

Funny though; this is one of the best works of historical fiction ever written IMO. The European's are just doing it better these days. Sanchez-Pinol's "Victus" was another recent brilliant classic HF 21st Century novel.

Meanwhile in Amerika, mostly all we are producing is revisionist women's HF or fiction dressed up in historical motifs - like the overwritten and super forgettable, "All The Light We Cannot See" It won the Pulitzer! - Gag me with a spoon.

The Brits are doing the same now with the Booker Prize and HF. Where the baroque - wordy - disjointed time rafted novel style is now the rage too. And, mindless Yuppiedom rules supreme too. I recently read the Booker Prize award process described as "POSH BINGO!" Perfect!

There is little Yuppie to be found in TKO, IMO

I do not like reading pornographic literature. At least, I don't think so? That I love Pynchon so much disturbs me greatly.

Wait a second I liked TKO too?

Should I consider switching genres this late in life?

Do you know if GoodReads has a Best Pornographic novels list I could maybe take a glance at?

Has anyone noticed the similarities between this book and The Damned Balkans: A Refugee Road Trip? The authors apparently worked together in Africa at one time. Albeit the latter book deals with a different war, and is a celebration of the human spirit rather than its autopsy.

T wrote: "LobsterG: Thanks for the reply. But, I don't agree with you,

First: We are talking about a type book that would be read in serious reader circles anywhere. It was a French Book of Year award winne..."
Maybe the author just has a morbid fascination with the dark side, and he knew that framing his story as he did, he would have free rein to indulge himself without restraint. And that people would be both repelled and fascinated by it.