Jonathan Littell
Le Benevole

Is it possible to fall in love with a story but, at the same time, feel overwhelmed by it? Perhaps yes.

In life, it often happens that we must confront our own ghosts; less often, perhaps, do we encounter those of others.

But the story I want to tell you about “concerns you, you'll see it concerns you.”

It is difficult to try to talk about a book, even a faint phrase, whose subject is the drama of the Shoah; even more difficult if the one recounting the events is, though fictional, a Nazi officer.

I didn't believe a novel could intimidate me, instill in me deference, admiration, and at the same time, repulsion. I did not imagine what a shattering effect it could have on me, yet "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell had the quality, if it can be called that, of having aroused all this in me.

I will try to speak to you about it with deference, perhaps fear, almost reliving those fears of a thirteen-year-old, a hand covering the mouth, the fear of being overheard in the act of confessing, to one's desk mate, unspeakable secrets.

At the dawn of the Second World War, a young and brilliant law graduate, due to homosexual impulses and to avoid worse troubles, ends up joining the National Socialist Party, thus embarking on a military career. He will follow, in various roles, the different phases of the extermination, on the Ukrainian front first, and then on the Soviet front. After risking death from a bullet lodged in his head, Maximilian Aue, despite being deeply penetrated by Nazi ideology, undertakes a long and painful path of abstraction and renunciation, living the twilight of the delusional Nazi dream.

The events narrated in the book, sadly known to most, except those relating to the protagonist, as mentioned a fictional character, make one's blood run cold: the thoroughness with which the author meticulously describes every event that occurred during that period makes one reflect on human barbarism but, as absurd as it may seem, it is not the main thing I appreciated about this book. Without wanting to downplay the masterful pen that frescoes the pages of this book, or the meticulous work of historical reconstruction, what really destabilized me is the clear analysis of the events that led the protagonist of the book to perform certain actions and, in the end, to arrive at the absolute conviction that, all things considered, anyone else in his place would have done the same.

Perhaps this is the question the book plants in the mind of the reader.

I trembled, wavered, meditated... I tried to put myself in that situation to understand, to find an answer.

Well, that answer did not come; the reading of the book only had the explosive effect of a depth charge searching for a submarine, which detonates in an instant, giving you no time to reflect, understand, pray for crimes you did not commit but for which, I felt partly responsible, as if I, too, had participated in that monstrous and senseless massacre. Is this perhaps the sin of which the human race is stained? Is this truly the crime of which, above all others, history must preserve the memory as a warning for future generations?

The aspects on which I should have focused to do justice to the novel would make the review too lengthy, so I tried to dwell on what struck me the most. I just add that it is a demanding book, like none before: exhausting, demanding, and, in some instances, verbose. But it is a venial sin, at 1000 pages of history, I think it can be forgiven.

What I ask of you, what I really wish you would do, should you ever decide to read this wonderful and unmissable writing, is to ask yourself if you are willing to give yourself to this book, ready as never before for unconditional love, because that is what you will have to do. And to confront yourselves, to challenge your convictions for a moment, because this is what the author will ask of you.

I forgot, reading here and there among the reviews published online, I was struck by a comment on one of them which I quote verbatim: “I lent the book and did not ask for it back. I am glad not to have it at home anymore.”

I did not have the courage to disagree.