BOOK THREAD

Wade T Oberlin
Nope, not familiar with that documentary. Looks interesting. I was supposed to write a paper on the Vichy regime in university, Piere Laval in particular, but flunked.

Louis Ferdinand Céline's role during the Second World War and the road towards it is subject of a debate that fascinates me to no end. He was a walking contradiction, an anti-semite, humanitarian, misanthrope, doctor, pacifist, anarchist and war hero. I just can't wrap my head around the man.

Primo Levi wrote interesting books about the Holocaust. He was an Italian jew who survived Auschwitz. His book _Is this a _man?__ is best known. I never finished it, but it is considered one of the best books of its kind, because unlike most holocaust survivors, instead of trying to reinterpret the camp experience to be able to some kind of a life, Levi tried to understand what he had seen in the camps and what it had done to him. His writing is merciless. There is no us-against-them-rhetoric. He describes himself and his fellow inmates as darkly as the people holding them there. His essays _The saved and the drowned_is really good. He addresses the fact that although the war is over, the companies that were involved with the Nazi's were still around. The company that build the ovens in the death camps was still around under the same name in the decades after the war, which was painful to Levi. I guess it shows that money or business does not judge its clientele.

Levi was influenced by Tadeusz Borowski, whose book _This Way to the Gas Chamber, Ladies and Gentlemen is also a good read. Amazing title too. He's also written a book called _City of Stone, which I haven't read yet, but is supposedly better. Borowski was a Pole who worked in the camps and survived the war. He was not jewish. In the introduction to the edition I have of _This Way_there is an amazing anecdote about him. The story is that he is somehow able to secretly sneak into a neighboring women's camp where his fiancee is held. He finds her. When she recognizes him she has to cry. Both are in camp dress and bold. Inmates would get their hair removed to prevent lice. Borowski supposedly said on this occasion: 'Don't worry. Our kids will have hair.' Powerful stuff and funny as well!

I'm from the Netherlands. The Dutch surrendered to the Nazi's in 1940 and were freed by the Allies in 1945. They had very little to say about their own faith. After the War the resistance myth was installed, which boils down to pretending the resistance movement played in important role in defeating the Nazi's - it didn't - and it had broad support among the population. This myth made it possible for most Dutch people to feel good about themselves after the war. Had they not supported the important resistance after all? Of course they had done so in silence. You could not speak about such things out loud during the war of course, but in their minds they had all hated the Nazi's and rooted for the resistance.
A Dutch historian called Chris van der Heijden wrote a really good book about the subject called _Grijs _Verleden , which means 'Grey past', arguing the very few people backed the resistance and very few people were convinced Nazi's as well. Most people were somewhere in between, trying to get on with their lifes. He is considered an apologist for this by many, He quotes W.F. Hermans a Dutch author whose works have been translated in English a lot. Hermans is my favorite Dutch writer. I highly recommend _De donkere kamer van _Damocles which has been published in English under the tile The Darkroom of Damocles.

I guess evil in man is something that fascinates. I've read most of The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo, which was good. It got a bit repetitive near the end though. Zimbardo claims evil is created by circumstance.

More than what causes people to do heinous things, I'm interested how people deal with that kind of stuff. There's this book by Kurt Vonnegut, _Hocus _Pocus__ I think it is, in which there is a character who tells these awful stories, which always end with: 'You know what I did? I laughed like hell!' I really liked that. A cruel laugh might be the best laugh.

Wade T Oberlin Yeah, they say it was Céline's attempt to kick himself into writing again. You can feel the struggle throughout the book. He wrote the German trilogy after which was an attempt to clear his name. People say those books are not as good as the Journey and Death on the Installment Plan, but I still like them in part because I constantly wonder what is fact and what is made up.
One of the books of the German trilogy was recently adapted into a comic book by two French artists. I am guessing it has not been translated into English, but it's worth checking out:

Recently finished a book titled " Indsigtens sted" (Place of enlightenment) by danish author Erwin Neutsky-Wulff. Its about a school teacher getting drawn into the world of the occult with blood sacrifices, ceremonies and what not. Pretty disgusting and really well written in a way where every thing seems real and gives you the chills and gets in to your brain in a really unsetling way. Especially these passages where the main character ascends into the astral plane and scenes describing demonic entities.
Unfortynately i don't think any of Neutsky-Wulff's work is translated into english.
Now i'm reading J.G. Ballard's "Drowned world" in a not too good danish translation. Guess i should try and get the original instead...
A friend just reccomended Harry Crews so now i'm waiting for The Hawk is dying to arrive at the local library.