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Les Bienveillantes
 
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Les Bienveillantes (Paperback)

by Jonathan Littell (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Price: £17.50 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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  • This item: Les Bienveillantes by Jonathan Littell

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Product details

  • Paperback: 903 pages
  • Publisher: Gallimard-Jeunesse (13 Sep 2006)
  • Language French
  • ISBN-10: 207078097X
  • ISBN-13: 978-2070780976
  • Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15 x 4.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 336,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #28 in  Books > Fiction > World > Untranslated > French

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Not the easiest read..., 7 Nov 2006
By J. Dubois "botanique" (Brussels) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
First of all, Littell's french is beautiful. He uses the language to it's best effect with subtlety and nuance.

This is not however an easy read - not so much for the story iself, which has it's gruesome moments, but for the protagonist's own intellectual meanderings. The line between recollection, trauma induced hallucination, nightmares and dreams is constantly blurred. In a story of this scale, keeping track of elements as fact or figment can be a challenge. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book greatly.

If you have read Kershaw's work on Hitler and Beevor's on Stalingrad, you'll enjoy this book as something of a personal account of this dark place in human history. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the book, was Littell's exploration of how German intellectuals of this period tried to rationalise evil with the same intensity medieval theologians reserved for debate on the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

The "banality of evil" indeed.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Monumental and highly recommended, 13 Feb 2009
By Paul Larivière (Mechelen - Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I am generally not someone to join a hype of any kind, and so it was with some moderate reluctancy that I decided to buy this book. I had read two totally opposite reviews in the local press, but then again, a good or bad review has seldom stopped me from purchasing a book, as one needs to read it oneself in order to make a sound albeit very personal judgement. I must admit the subject in its own right was the ultimate armtwister. I can say this book got me in its grip from the first page, and while initially there was that "littell" (no pun intended) voice at the back of my mind warning me for the big yawn to set in, it never came. At the contrary, this turned out to be the best "fiction" book I have read for some time, and I can easily understand the author got himself so many literary prizes. I admit that at some points the story required me to re-read some paragraghs in order to distinguish facts from dreams. This was especialy the case when Max gets shot through the head at the Stalingrad front. At that point the story becomes a weird feverish dream, almost as a modern version of Alice in Wonderland... Of course one of the main - shocking - features of this monumental work remains the way he and his fellow soldiers/officers have to deal with the clinical extermination of the jews. These scenes are described in a vivid and realistic way and the author takes the reader to the edge of the pre-dug massgraves, while hundreds and thousands of civilians and Russian soldiers are murdered. The fact that this book is written from the viewpoint of the perpetrators rather than the victims makes this book stand out. In the end the extermination issue boils down to an industrial process backed by a well organized bureaucracy where the infamous Adolf Eichmann makes his appearance as well. After all, he had to make sure the trains were kept to a strict schedule. The difference between the first mass-killings by the Einzatsgruppen, very personally involved, spending whole days killing people, using rifles and machineguns, and the much more organized clinical approach which was used later in the war when the killing machines were smoothly running and those involved had the relative comfort when people were reduced to mere statistics and balance sheets, is very much present. The author has clearly done his homework. The abundancy of details is awesome and it is refreshing to see he has made sure all the historical settings and personalities are spot on.
In all a book which will definitely leave a permanent mark, not only in the world of literature, but also on the mind of those who have read it. Absolutely to be recommended!
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