This isn’t particularly amazing as a work of fiction — it’s clever, but also rather simplistic — but it is pretty fascinating as an historical document. It was published in 1938, and clearly registers an awareness of how dire and violent things were in Germany already, and it was an instant best-seller in the US, which is to say: people knew. Or, they sort of did. I guess that’s the thing, is how this murky sort-of-knowledge become terrifyingly concrete.
Anyways, not to be a total downer, but it really makes you question literature’s ostensible ethical powers, to think about people thrilling over this story. I guess my negative feelings are fueled, in large part, by the fact that I don’t think the story really helps you understand anything about the situation; it’s not really nuanced or psychologically penetrating. So what good does it do, really?
Kasia Reads 