THE KINDLY ONES, Jonathan Littell's chronicle of the SS Officer Max Aue on the Eastern Front during World War II, is a tremendous work, as well as tremendously flawed--and I would not recommend it to anyone, unless I knew specifically to whom I was recommending it. Any book that attempts to portr...
I would like to say that I loved this book. In a way I did. I like the way it was written, a combination of fiction and fact, and you don't really know what to believe is the truth. Also, because I'm a second world war junkie, I read just about everything about it. And this book was so intense an...
What is one to make of this book? It is clearly a work of genius (and blatantly attempted in my opinion). Littel weaves together Moby Dick, Baba Yar, James Bond, Les Miz, even a touch of fantasy/sci-fi. The statistical comparisons to the VietNam War at the very beginning might be worth the pri...
La seconde guerre mondiale vécue au travers d’un officier SS homosexuel comme une grande épopée dans toute son horreur. Un livre long mais on ne s’arrête pas, des paragraphes fleuves mais avec un sens de la description extraordinaire qui génère de vraies émotions si c’est tellement souvent des ém...
Je moet er moeite voor doen, maar absoluut de moeite waard. Zeker de proloog is fantastisch. Gruelling but fascinating. Virtuosic writing, including a sentence that went on for two pages!