Les Bienveillantes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Author | Jonathan Littell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | French |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Gallimard-Jeunesse |
| Released | 13 September 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 903 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 207078097X (first edition, paperback) |
Les Bienveillantes is a novel written in French by the American-born author Jonathan Littell. It tells the story of a SS officer who has taken part in carrying out massacres. The book, 900 pages long, was awarded the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious French literary award, in 2006.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The book is a fictitious autobiography, describing the life of Maximilian Aue, a former officer in the SS who decades later tells the story of a crucial part of his life when he was an active member of the forces of the Third Reich. In the book, Aue accepts his responsibility for his action in massacres of Jews, but most of the time he feels more as an observer than as an direct executor. Nevertheless, despite this feeling, Aue stays a soldier. In that way, he has been led to kill in action, during the battle of Stalingrad for example.
The book is divided into several parts :
-
- « Toccata » : introduction, presentation, and goals of this book
- « Allemande I & II » : Aue is a member of the Einsatzgruppen in Ukraine. He describes the elimination of the Jews and the Bolsheviks. This part ends when Aue is transfered to Stalingrad in 1942.
- « Courante » : Aue is a German soldier in the battle of Stalingrad. He survives the battle even if he has been wounded during the fight.
- « Sarabande » : Aue is in convalescence in Berlin and in France while his mother and step-father have been killed. Maximilian Aue was also awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class by Himmler himself for his heroic action at Stalingrad.
- « Menuet en rondeaux » : Aue is transfered to the Federal Ministry of the Interior headed by Heinrich Himmler where he will play an important role in the Final Solution. Two Reich commissioners, who are in charge of the murders of Aue's mother and step-father of Max Aue will have an inkling about his role in this case.
- « Air » : Aue visits his sister and step-brother in Pomerania. In this part of the book, Aue displays his homosexual feelings.
- « Gigue » : Aue escapes Germany and comes to France, under an assumed name. This part of the book is pretty (and intentionally) confusing. At the end of the book, Aue explains that he is currently a French citizen and that no one is privy to his past.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Maximilen Aue
He is a fictitious former nazi officer who worked in the SS troups during World War two. The book is written in the form of his memoirs.
Dealing with his private life we learn that Maximilen Aue's mother was French, while his father, who left his mother and disappeared from his life in 1921, was German. This fatherly non-attendance may explain why Aue later becomes a convinced nazi and why Hitler could have so easily taken the place of his missing father in his mind. Aue's mother goes on to marry a Frenchman, Moreau, who becomes Aue's step-father.
The narrator is presented as someone smart and able to speak many languages fluently: German, French, Greek and Latin. Moreover there is a point which is very unusual at this time: Aue is homosexual while he belongs to the nazi troops.
Aue spends his chilhood in France, before going to the College of Kiel in Germany where he obtains a PhD degree in Law. This student period was a way for him to leave home and a step-father he used to clash with.
[edit] Historical characters
Even if this book is a fictitious biography, we meet, throughout Aue's career, some famous characters :
- Important nazi dignitaries : Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Reinhard Heydrich, Hans Frank, Rudolf Höß
- French and Belgian quisling : Robert Brasillach, Lucien Rebatet, Léon Degrelle.
- Other real characters in the book : Otto Ohlendorf, Odilo Globocnik, Paul Blobel, Ernst Jünger.
