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Article: The SS version.(Books)(Schutzstaffel, a large security and military organization of the Nazi Party in Germany)(Les Bienveillantes)(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- June 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Les Bienveillantes, by Jonathan Littell; Editions Gallimard, 2006, 25 [euro].
IT IS HIGHLY DISTURBING to see the fall of the Reich and the Holocaust through the eyes of an unrepentant SS officer. We are used to Primo Levi and Imre Kertesz taking us down that terrible path and to fusing with the narrator. But this is different. In Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes, we giddily view events through the other end of the telescope. At one point, two Jews are hurried past so as not to disturb a garden party taking place alongside the Auschwitz camp fence. The shots that kill them are barely heard. So it is understandable that Les Bienveillantes hit France at the end ...
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Article: Jonathan Littell. Le sec et l'humide.(Book review)
World Literature Today;
March 1, 2009 ;
700+ words
...Jonathan Littell. Le sec et l ... the Holocaust, Les bienveillantes, which became a ... carried out for Les bienveillantes. In Le sec et l ... impressive novel, Les bienveillantes, there is something ...
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