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Curzio Malaparte was a disaffected supporter of Mussolini with a taste for danger and high living. Sent by an Italian paper during World War II to cover the fighting on the Eastern Front, Malaparte secretly wrote this terrifying report from the abyss, which became an international bestseller when it was published after the war. Telling of the siege of Leningrad, of glittering dinner parties with Nazi leaders, and of trains disgorging bodies in war-devastated Romania, Malaparte paints a picture of humanity at its most depraved.
Kaputt is an insider's dispatch from the world of the enemy that is as hypnotically fascinating as it is disturbing.
Kaputt is an insider's dispatch from the world of the enemy that is as hypnotically fascinating as it is disturbing.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a remarkably neglected classic of modern European literature.
Malaparte, an Italian diplomat seconded to the German army, explores the moral breakdown of WW2 Europe. His surreal account carries us on his travels, from the Warsaw Ghetto, through the Balkans, and to the frozen forests of Finland. A fascinating, but challenging, book that makes us ask if we would have had the courage to resist the barbarism that tore through Europe.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Curzio Malaparte is the pseudonym of Kurt Erich Suckert, born in South Tirol (part of Italy). As a reporter he travelled extensively through German-occupied Europe during the Second World War and did not shun the front lines. But he also had access to the "Big Names" of fascism, such as Himmler, Franck (the governor of Poland) and the son-in-law of Mussolini. But above all Malaparte remained an outsider with deviant opinions that landed him in Italian prisons a few times.
In a rather unemotional style (for most of the book) he describes the everyday horrors of war: sleeping in a house with a horse carcass rotting next to it, the upper ten of a city playing bridge while at the same time the Jews of their city are massacred. But also the dinner conversations at Governor Franck's place, in which the arrogance, absence of (self)reflection and total lack of humor of the other attendants are both stunning and revealing. And the 'beau monde' of Italy which is more concerned with the latest developments in the love life of Mussolini's son-in-law than with the fact that Italy is very obviously losing the war.
But Malaparte also describes the everyday miseries of war: a father who hides some small presents in his backyard so that his kids think in the morning that the English fighter planes were there to drop of presents rather than bomb the city to pieces. To me this was the most touching story in the book.
A well-written book with as a minor criticism that the story does not relly lead anywhere, but this is probably normal for an autobiography: real life very seldom leads to something.
In a rather unemotional style (for most of the book) he describes the everyday horrors of war: sleeping in a house with a horse carcass rotting next to it, the upper ten of a city playing bridge while at the same time the Jews of their city are massacred. But also the dinner conversations at Governor Franck's place, in which the arrogance, absence of (self)reflection and total lack of humor of the other attendants are both stunning and revealing. And the 'beau monde' of Italy which is more concerned with the latest developments in the love life of Mussolini's son-in-law than with the fact that Italy is very obviously losing the war.
But Malaparte also describes the everyday miseries of war: a father who hides some small presents in his backyard so that his kids think in the morning that the English fighter planes were there to drop of presents rather than bomb the city to pieces. To me this was the most touching story in the book.
A well-written book with as a minor criticism that the story does not relly lead anywhere, but this is probably normal for an autobiography: real life very seldom leads to something.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Malaparte was an opportunist, social climber, raconteur and political amateur. He was also a gifted writer. How much is truth in this book, and how much is not, is actually irrelevant if one accepts this as the particular document of a fickle man during the war. The book is a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes, his encounters with personalities, most of them reviled. Whether or not Malaparte actually met them, spoke with them as he relates or whether or not he changed his opinion of them as the war for Italy took a downward course is open to conjecture. What he did do however, was to add to the mythology of war and its horrors. Himmler in a Helsinki lift and later a white blob in a sauna, and a murderer; Hans Frank as a cultured pianist, and murderer; the wives, girlfriends, their table talk that comes around always to the murder of Jews.
Kaputt is the title and the meaning is the destruction and end of European "Culture" as it appeared to be in the 1940s. The book does not dwell on war, and if you want a description of war or camps, this is not for you. If you want to experience the ambiguities and contradictions of people under pressure in a highly charged life and death situation, then you will get something from this book. The book was published in 1944 when the war was still going and the extermination of Jews, Gypsies and the "unfit" was taking place and as such is important as being perhaps an indicator that within the elites in the Fascist countries, people (WAGs insluded) - did know what was happening, despite post war denials of this.
Kaputt is the title and the meaning is the destruction and end of European "Culture" as it appeared to be in the 1940s. The book does not dwell on war, and if you want a description of war or camps, this is not for you. If you want to experience the ambiguities and contradictions of people under pressure in a highly charged life and death situation, then you will get something from this book. The book was published in 1944 when the war was still going and the extermination of Jews, Gypsies and the "unfit" was taking place and as such is important as being perhaps an indicator that within the elites in the Fascist countries, people (WAGs insluded) - did know what was happening, despite post war denials of this.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
TOO INSINCERE AND SELF-AGGRANDISING TO BE WORTH MORE DESPITE THE STYLE...
Although very well written with very evocative descriptions, the book has an insincere dishonest tone that detaches the reader from many of the scenes - imagined or not - of the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Easily Me
Haunting houses of hurt....
FACT OR FICTION? Where do all these tales come from...the imagination, the reality or a mix of the two....inbetween.... Read more
Published 8 months ago by DOGG
We all lost the war
Malaparte's book is a superficial documentary about the horrors of the Second World War, the arrogance of the nobility, the cynicism of the fascist leaders and some aspects of... Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2010 by Luc REYNAERT
A strange witness to war
The other reviews are not wrong in the detail given and their giving this a good star rating is apt.
I would like to emphasise the impressions I got from this book. Read more
I would like to emphasise the impressions I got from this book. Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2010 by H. Tee
"The Dead Were Fleeing from the Train"
This book was published in 1944 in Italy and in English in 1946. It covers events the author claimed to have observed in 1941-43, presented in seemingly random order, while he... Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2007 by Reader in Tokyo
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