Newsday review of AtD

[pynchonoid]

For me, it's the disarmingly friendly way Aue comes on
from the start, although that set bells ringing, too,
the conviction he expresses that he and I, the reader,
are on par morally. There's a little delay before the
trick is apparent (I haven't actually committed any
war atrocities, for starters, although it is true that
I fantasized about fragging a certain platoon leader
once in the sometimes tense environment of S. Korea
just outside the DMZ, in '73), but it was enough of a
gap for me to start questioning my own knee-jerk
"You're not one of us, buddy, you're a monster"; the 
voice pulled me right in.  

I suspect Litell composed the novel in his head in
English and more or less simultaneously translated it
into French, which might be something like the way a 
German speaker like the narrator of his novel writes
French, translating from German.  (I haven't read any
of the articles in French publications about the
novel, thus shielding myself from spoilers and from
planting any prejudicial seeds in my reception of it,
so there may be info out there that undercuts this
notion - if Littell did a lot of research in French
books, that could  have an impact on the novel's
diction, for example.)

That's how I speak and read French, while my son, who
attended K-12 schools where the primary language of
instruction was French, speaks and writes the
language, with very close to native fluency although
not quite as fluent as his English.

-Doug


--- Michel Ryckx <mryc2903 at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> Having read about 700 pages in Les Bienveillantes
> [love that very 
> classic french], I am constantly wondering why, in
> this morally 
> disturbing novel, I like Aue, the SS main character,
> and not Blicero.
> 
> Michel.
> 


 
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