Empathetic violence

I've attempted to start reading ‘The Kindly Ones’ (2006) several times over the years, but without success. This time, I was more determined, driven by Delphine de Vigan's ideas about fiction and truth. I managed to force myself through the first 100 pages, but then I became bored. I struggled through 200 pages, 300 pages, and finally gave up at 350 pages.

The initial premise of following the psychological interior of an SS officer during World War II intrigued me. Littell creates a realistic work, but he spends a long time describing seemingly trivial details. We follow the SS officer almost in real time, everything he does, all the people he talks to, his questions, doubts, and discomforts, but most notably, his enormous indifference to everything. While initially this indifference made it easier for me to visualize the Nazi crimes, making the graphic violence more emotionally neutral, gradually this indifference began to taint everything, rendering everything meaningless.

Littell uses the character of Maximilien Aue as a human window into the historical reality that has taken place, but in doing so, he not only makes the mistake of making him indifferent, even if the qualities of psychopathy sustain him. Aue's indifference is continually permeated by complaints, which, like it or not, end up making him human in our eyes, sometimes even generating empathy on our side. And that's problematic, almost criminal.

It's remarkable that the book, written by an American who studied in France and wrote in French, was received as a masterpiece in that country, even winning the Goncourt that year. However, abroad, particularly in Germany, England, and the USA, the book has been vilified and labelled with expressions such as ‘pornographic’, ‘disgusting’, ‘sensationalist’, or ‘repellent’.

If you enjoyed Ellis's 'American Psycho' (1991), you might find ‘The Kindly Ones’ worth investing a few weeks of your life into, unlike me.