NP: Someone asked to report on The Kindly Ones

[Mark Kohut]

And it is selling in America.....
#1 Fiction from nation's major wholesaler.....which means NYTimes list for April fer sure. 
 
21 Hardcover Fiction KINDLY ONES LITTELL JONATHAN HR 9780061353451 0061353450 



----- Original Message ----
From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 10:42:57 AM
Subject: Re: NP: Someone asked to report on The Kindly Ones

Littel's descriptions of  babi yar and better yet, Stalingrad are most
impressive (in fact, I would argue one of the best descriptions of the
Kessel I've read)

In fact, there is a surreal episode involving an airship in the
Stalingrad section that in a sense is very pynchonian. as is indepth
conversations about languages and tribes in the Caucasus

If anything, there is less desxcription of the morbid sexuality so
reviled by critics and more on the numbing Nazi bureaucracy in all its
blind evil, e.g.

I'm also thinking Littell must've watched Syberberg's Our
Hitler--there is a vignette involving a speech given by Hitler (won't
reveal the details--it's too good) that is a mirror image of a shot
from that film.

Aue is a monster, yes but he's a human monster and I think that's
central to Littell's argument.

rich



On 3/15/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
> on Blue as the color of sad modernity [see Vineland passim]:
> "the room is dark, the filthy windows are tinted blue, since lace is fragile
> and sensitive to light,
> and this bluish light soothes my mind".
>
> Very Pynchonian images.
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