Un libro muy dificil de leer, tanto por la terrible historia como por la tremenda exigencia de conocimientos previos para paladearlo. Historia europea antigua y reciente, literatura, música, filosofía, terminología militar (especialidad 2a Guerra Mundial europea) estan entre lo mínimo que necesitas para no perderte en la narración. Aguante para tolerar la profunda maldad que describe sabiendo que es una novela pero que lo que cuenta y cosas peores ocurrieron en nuestra triste Europa y van camino de volver a ocurrir. Es fascinante, como un enorme grano de pus. Sabes que vas a sufrir pero también te ves impelido a reventarlo.
Un narrador despreciable, poco fiable, descarnado, monótono y locuaz en su monstruosidad pero que aterra más por lo semejante que por los rasgos de psicópata. Una historia en primera persona que te sumerge y solo te expulsa en ciertos momentos forzados como las secuencias oníricas y los delirios que salpican la historia.
Estructurada en partes cuyo tono refleja el crecimiento personal del personaje una triste invasión de Ucrania llena de brutalidad y exterminio amateur que va minando al protagonista.
Stalingrado donde la adversidad y derrota destruyen los últimos restos de humanidad de Aue.
Berlín: donde un Aue se acercamiento a la Solución Final como proceso industrial y despersonalizado.
El frenesí de la Solución final y el comienzo de la derrota en el frente del Este y por fin la caída del Reich y la huída tienen su contrapartida en la vida personal del protagonista que justifica los crímenes del nazismo mientras es incapaz de ver los suyos personales.
Solo las Furias, las Benévolas, podrán hacer pagar sus crímenes a quien consiguió (como Speer) escapar de la justicia de los aliados.
No se si podría volver a leerlo pero desde luego es un gran libro.

Gave up on reading it.

A 975-page novel probably isn't the best for the first "microreview," especially one as widely praised and condemned as Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones.

The book won two of France's highest literary awards before being translated into English -- although it is written by an American. It is the fictional, but exceptionally well researched, memoir of Max Aue, a Nazi SS officer who survived the war and remains unapologetic about National Socialism, its aims and his involvement in what became known as the Holocaust. When you combine Aue's lack of guilt with his incest, scatological references, brutal homosexual encounters and possible murder of his mother and stepfather, this is not a pleasant read. Still, it is an unquestionably intriguing and unvarnished exploration of the psychology -- or abnormal psychology -- of Nazism's true believers.

The readability of the work is not helped by its typography. Littell uses a quotation style with which Americans are unfamiliar, he loves commas and he avoids paragraph breaks. Thus, many paragraphs in the book's seven chapters, all named for 17th Century dances, can run on for two or more pages. Substantively, The Kindly Ones can be criticized as at times far-fetched given Aue's somewhat miraculous escapes from death and his personal contact with a true rogue's gallery -- Himmler, Heydrich, Speer, Eichmann and even, in a somewhat ludicrous scene, Hitler. But Littell's focus isn't necessarily external events or history. He tries to look much deeper, to take us inside how seemingly ordinary men committed such horrendous acts. He forces us to examine the question of evil in man, whether banal or otherwise. These are inherently unpleasant inquiries.

Littell sometimes lets Aue expound on history, philosophy and the arts at perhaps too much length. That said, the unique, albeit disturbing, perspective The Kindly Ones gives on some of history's greatest atrocities makes it a book that can and should be considered an "important" work of fiction.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie)

Un livre très dur qui parle de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale du point de vue d'un officier SS. On part de Berlin pour se retrouver à Stalingrad, en chemin on a des descriptions terrible sur la manière dont les nazis tuaient les gens, pour se retrouver à Berlin en passant par différents camps de concentration. Les descriptions sont horribles, le personnage principal Max Aue est monstrueux. C'est rare d'arriver à terminer un livre si volumineux alors qu'on a aucune sympathie pour le personnage. Dans les rares moments où on le prend presqu'en pitié, tout de suite un nouvel évènement nous le fait détester encore plus.

Impossible de donner des étoiles à ce livre. Je ne peux pas dire que je l'ai aimé, mais je l'ai trouvé intéressant. Parfois, c'était presqu'une fascination morbide pour le personnage - on espére presque qu'il finisse par devenir humain.

Това не е роман, това е целият Ад, набутан между две корици.

Има книги, за чието съществуване ни се иска да забравим, защото показват най-уродливата и отблъскваща страна на човешката природа, страна, за която не ни се иска да повярваме, че изобщо съществува. “Доброжелателните” е една от тях. Тази книга е нелицеприятна, нищо красиво, достойно и доблестно няма в “Доброжелателните”, както и във войната. Нито една положителна емоция няма да изпитате от четенето й. Въпреки това я препоръчвам силно, защото това е книга, която човек да си задава въпроси и да търси отговори, като едновременно с това припомня колко грозна може да е човешката природа понякога.

I have read this book and I have deep regrets. It is simply an awful, horrific story. But it is written well, a virtuoso novel, even though the details are overwhelming with such an abundance of minutiae about WWII that I had a difficult time following the characters, who was who and whatnot. I read somewhere that the author, Jonathan Littell read (researched) over 200 books in 18 months before embarking upon this nearly 1,000 page novel; at one point it seemed as if Littell were more concerned with including every bit of that research into the book than with the story, which gets buried in all the historical references.

Eruditely and carefully as this book was written, it fails magnificently to bring true insight into the human psyche; even if it purports to explore all the great philosophers, musicians, leaders...the one who should have been most affected, the main character, seems to be an outside observer because he is too remote and uninvolved. One wonders if this book was an excuse to plunge into one's (the author's) sexual obsession, no holds barred - the idea that sexual depravity goes hand in hand with amoral violence is of course nothing new. But the disconnect between action and introspection about the moral consequences of exterminating an entire race of human beings is so nonchalantly treated that it's not only unsettling, but it feels manipulative and unrealistic. When the main character, Maximilian Aue, at the end goes insane and loses all touch with his feelings, recall and emotions, it's no surprise. What is the surprise is that at the beginning of the narration, he sounds perfectly rational, sane after having lived through WWII to tell about his experiences in retrospect - the only problem is that those experiences don't seem to belong to the narrator because he "delights" in recalling the most gruesome aspects of those experiences. The story would have been more convincing had Littell used Omniscient POV instead of 1st POV for the simple reason one cannot conveniently remember some details and not others. You'll understand why when you read this book for yourself. And I do recommend that you read it with a most critical eye.

Here is a fuller review on the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030602860.html

It took awhile before I was ready to review this book because it’s a masterpiece. The core message of this piece is the destructive nature of the banality of evil.

You are told a first person account that the narrator claims immediately would be the recourse of anyone, even you! The reader knows before starting that this is the story of a nazi, but your judgement is reserved.

Reflection reveals that the actions of the narrator are evil, despite all the rationalizations provided. To paraphrase Laird Barron, evil is a force that doesn’t die it just finds a new host. The narrator is even shot in the head, but doesn’t die. The length of the book demonstrates that evil has no time, it’s eternal.

This is a tough, long read but it’s one of the most masterful books I’ve ever read.