Monday 3 August 2009

2 reviews: The White Tiger and Mother Night.





Summer reading kicking in so here are two more reviews posted in some form on Facebook.
Bleak. An examination of the duplicity of an American Nazi who was also a spy.

Very well written and explores why Nazism triumphed amongst people - as we all come from Mother Night - the Darkness. So the spy has no heroism or any belief. Reflected also in America's justification for fighting - personified in the pathetic soldier O'Hare who sees it as his mission to track down Campbell after capturing him originally as a Nazi.

The human exception to this is his relationship where he wants to create a nation of two - "Das Reich der zwei" - an escape from the world.
As the fate of the two show - the work is dictated from Campbell's cell in Israel as he faces a war crimes tribunal this escape is a pipe dream.
It also works well as an expose of the sections of post-war American society that were attracted to the Nazi right - a faint echo of Roth's plot against America.
So a lot to think about in quite a brief piece - it is quick to read. But actually more brutal in its view of humanity than Slaughterhouse 5 so not easy. Made into movie too with Nick Nolte - may try and track that down.

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