NP:Bienveillantes wins Goncourt

Mon Nov 6 10:09:42 CST 2006

Hi, 

I read a bit about the controversy concerning "Les Bienveillantes" and am rather skeptical myself, having read some articles about it but also the first few lines of the book, accessible on http://www.gallimard.fr somewhere.

As to the negative responses, they come form paris-based german historian Peter Schöttler. here's his rather devastating critique in german, freely accessible:
http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/29.10.2006/2864788.asp

The same article was published already some time ago in "Le Monde", here's the link, but you'd have to pay to read it:
http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=962100

It has to be said that Schöttler himself says that he is not able to and does not want to judge the quality of the novel in respect to literature, but rather wants to make a statement on the historical plausibility / credibility of the principal character, the PhD'ed, gay, intellectual SS officer named Dr. Maximilian Aue. He does that because Littel claims to have done (and has obviously done) extensive historical research for his novel. The problem with this is, that once you start talking about the meticulous historical accuracy with which a somewhat fact-based novel has been researched, people tend to take the novel as an account of "how it really was". (See also, for example, the case of the german film "Der Untergang" about the last days of hitler and his gang.) I do think it is the job of a serious historian to intervene here (since, in Ranke's words, it is the historian's job to tell it "how it really was", haha).

I also thought immediately of Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" when reading about the plot of "Les Bienveillantes"... but I think in Pynchon's case there is no problem with a supposed "historical realism", since the book is obviously an immense phantasmagory (spelling?).

Having read the first lines of it online, I guess I'll rather choose AtD to be the 1000-page novel I read this christmas. 

ciao,

Volker

PS: more Fun Facts about "Les Bienveillantes":
- The Book also won the "Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Française" in Summer

- The German publishing house "Berlin Verlag" is rumored to have paid 450.000 Euros for the translation licence, the americans are supposed to have paid the double of that amount (which is quite a lot for the sector of publishing literature, I understand).

- "Les Bienveillantes" ("the well-meaning") Are Figures from Aristophanes' Drama Cycle about Orest. Orest (somehow) kills his mother and is pursued by the "Erinyen" (german expression, don't know the EN translation right now), who are goddesses of revenge. In the end the god Apollo holds judgment over Orest and lifts his guilt off of him. Following this, the "Erinyen" are Transformed into the well-meaning, that is "Les Bienveillantes" in French.

enough now. - V. 

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:24:14 +0200
Von: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
An: pynchon-l at waste.org
Betreff: RE: NP:Bienveillantes wins Goncourt

> Sorry, it should be 'ce bouquin', need to devote more time to French
> books! 
> Lempriere's Dictionary exhausred all my energies, about to finish it. By
> the 
> way, there appeared some negative responses to Littell's book, can't find 
> now the link, one of the accusations being that he knows about WWII only 
> >from books. Now that's cheap! Tolstoy didn't take part in the war against
> Napoleon either.
> 
> 
> >From: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
> >To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: RE: NP:Bienveillantes wins Goncourt
> >Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:12:59 +0200
> >
> >Je vais lire cet bouquin. Some day, after AtD and a bunch of other books 
> >>from the queue.
> >
> >
> >>From: kelber at mindspring.com
> >>Reply-To: kelber at mindspring.com
> >>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >>Subject: NP:Bienveillantes wins Goncourt
> >>Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 09:54:55 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
> >>
> >>http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061106/en_afp/afplifestylefranceusbooksprize
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
> >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> >
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/