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the complete review - fiction

Les Bienveillantes

by
Jonathan Littell

[an overview of the reviews and critical reactions]

general information | review summaries | review and reception notes | links | about the author

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Why we haven't reviewed it yet:
Haven't gotten our hands on a copy of the book yet


Chances that we will review it:
Very good -- but maybe only when the English version comes out

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  From the Reviews:

• "Mr Littell's research is meticulous. Aue mixes with the leading historical figures of the time, and the intricacies of Nazi bureaucracy are depressingly real. But the novel founders under the weight of its own detail. (…) As the Third Reich crumbles, so Les Bienveillantes falls apart. (…) At the Frankfurt book fair last month, publishers made frenzied bids for the foreign rights. They may be in for a pasting." - The Economist
  
  
• "Dans ses Bienveillantes, l'au¬teur a mis beaucoup de choses qu'il connaît : de la philosophie, de l'histoire, de l'économie politique, de la sémiologie, du pamphlet, du polar ; de la poésie aussi, quand le soldat exténué contemple le paysage ukrainien étrangement calme, au soir d'une bataille. Son gai savoir sollicite la santé du lecteur. Mais comment se fait-il que l'on dévore allégrement ces neuf cents pages comme jadis on croqua dans la pomme ?" - Étienne de Montety, Le Figaro
  
  
• "Still, if Les Bienveillantes is a work of genius -- and it is -- it is not due to the hammer blows of horror repeatedly delivered. It is due to the methodical exploration of one of the Third Reich’s most idealistic servants’ intricate descent into madness. (…) He makes you forget Jonathan Littell entirely, and instead lose yourself for dozens of hours in the mind of his book’s apparent creator -- in all his layered thinking, self-delusion, and erudition. (…) Thanks to the gifts of his young creator, Maximilian Aue lives: He belabors his points, bedazzles his superiors, bedevils his adversaries, and in his untoward but moving moments of innocence and naïveté (false and real), he beguiles his readers even as he numbs and repels them. But withal he lives. That is Littell’s accomplishment; it is a masterpiece." - Foreign Policy, Steven Englund
  
  
• "Tout cela est rapporté avec une élégance de langage qui contribue à la clarté des faits mais leur donne une réalité quelque peu étrange, les privant de la part d’opacité propre à tout événement traumatique." - François Eychart, L'Humanité
  
  
• "It seems that it is easier for the French public to read about anti-Semitism as a historical phenomenon in a blockbuster such as Les Bienveillantes than to face up to what is happening around them. This may well be what happens when you confront reality with the kind of bad fiction which, for all its claims of historical and philosophical authenticity, reveals nothing but the evil of banality." - Andrew Hussey, New Statesman
  
  
• "The novel is diabolically (and I use the word advisedly) clever. It is also impressive, not merely as an act of impersonation but perhaps above all for the fiendish diligence with which it is carried out. (...) This tour de force, which not everyone will welcome, outclasses all other fictions and will continue to do so for some time to come. No summary can do it justice." - Anita Brookner, The Spectator
  
  
• "(R)emarkable but flawed (…) a work that gets caught between a documentary-style fidelity to History and the aesthetic demands of literature. (…) The chief difficulty one encounters in Les Bienveillantes, however, is how far the particular aesthetic and formal concerns of literary writing can accommodate such subject matter. Max's family history, motifs of matricide and incest, and allusions to classical Greek drama are all integral elements of the work; and yet, leaving to one side the implications of using tragedy as a mode of recounting the rise of German National Socialism, ultimately the novel is condemned by the sheer historical weight of its subject to remain interpretive rather than creative." - Justin Beplate, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "Les Bienveillantes is absorbing for both the historical and the personal. Littell treats the Holocaust in a work of fiction by creating a believable, although despicable, individual whose personal problems are given as much attention as is his part in the extermination of the Jews." - Adele King, World Literature Today
  
  
• "Es liegt nicht an der homosexuell-inzestuösen Veranlagung des Muttermörders Aue, die den Roman in Teilen zum skandalösen Kitsch machen. Es ist die Poetik der Grausamkeit, mit der ein hochbegabter Gegenwartsautor zum Gewaltpornografen wird." - Michael Mönninger, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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Notes about the Reviews
and the Book's Reception:

       The book of the year in France, 2006, Les Bienveillantes attracted enormous amounts of attention for any number of reasons, including:

• It was written -- in French -- by an American (though Littell has now also taken French citizenship)
• It was the bestselling title in France for several months, selling over half a million copies in 2006 alone
• It was submitted to publishers through an agent -- not the way things are usually done in France
• Jonathan is the son of successful author Robert Littell
• Its sensational subject-matter (it's presented as the memoir of a particularly nasty Nazi) and its length both stand in stark contrast to many of the current French "literary" offerings
• It took two of the major French literary prizes

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Links:

• Official site (French)
• Brooklyn Author Shakes Up Paris by Jules Treneer in The New York Sun
• France falls in love with American's Nazi novel by Charles Bremner in The Times
• France succumbs again to a Nazi killer by Ben Hutchinson in The observer
• France’s 900-page Cause Célèbre by Joshua Cohen in Forward
• French literati unite to praise American's Holocaust debut by John Lichfield in The Independent
• Interview in The Guardian
• Profile in the FAZ (German)

• Chronicart.com (French)
• Le Figaro (French)
• L'Humanité (French)
• Jowebzine.com (French)
• Liberales (Dutch)
• Lire (French)
• New Statesman
• Quadrant Magazine
• Le Soir (French)
• Sydsvenskan (Swedish)
• Télérama (French)
• L'Unitá
• Die Zeit (German) (see also English version)

• See Index of French literature
• See Index of Contemporary American fiction

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About the Author:

       Franco-American author Jonathan Littell was born in 1967.

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© 2007-2008 the complete review

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