The Zone of Interest (Vintage International)

When I heard a review of Zone of Interest prior to its release I immediately thought "oh hell no." But something about the concept (and the way the particular reviewer on NPR presented it) made me unable to stop thinking about the concept of this challenging novel.Romance. At a Nazi concentration camp. And not some kind of "boy in the striped pyjamas" type thing either. A story about the Germans who are running the camp and the ersatz rubber factory attached to it---THEIR romances, or at least their lusty thoughts that might possibly lead to romance. And don't worry, there is not a single cliched character or situation anywhere in this novel. And I mean anywhere.So, all right, I think. Martin Amis never leaves me with a "meh" and I've read a ton of those sorts of books lately. I need to rip into my psyche and tear it a new one the best way I know how--with a book.Mission accomplished.What's doubly fascinating about this book: you are immediately dumped into the heads of 3 characters, one at a time, 2 Germans and a Polish prisoner in charge of, well, "gleaning" from the dead is probably the nicest way to put it. But Mr. Amis spares no "Deutch" either. German words populate the narrative which at first is kind of amusing, as most of the words are pretty obvious, and sexual in their origin. Easy to figure out from context.But then, you realize that while one of the characters is musing about his frigid wife, he's doing so while meeting trains loaded with Jews, giving them a little speech and then pointing them towards the gas chamber. The narrative jumps around some but for the bulk of the story it's the tag end of the war when things are going more than a little pear-shaped for the Nazis.Which is why so many of the men in this book are going slowly but surely insane. They know what they are doing but are covering it up with euphemisms and jargon that, even in German, start to be come gruesomely clear to the reader. The moment you're reading along, merrily hoping this one, apparently very attractive German dude will hook up with the wife of his Commandant and realize you've just read and entire missive about a meadow that is heaving and roiling and emitting such foul gas into the air because it's stuffed full of dead people--from the point of view of the guy who put them there....well...its the sort of jolt you don't normally get reading a typical Holocaust novel.This book is NOT for the squeamish or for anyone who's a stickler for the Chicago Style manual either. But it is for anyone who loves the wild genre-defying concept of presenting many of the men (and women) who put millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others to death at the whim of one crazy man, as victims too. Victims of their own misplaced, nationalistic hubris and what not, sure but by the end, victims of their bad luck, of living the wrong time, under the wrong leaders who ordered them all to do a Very Wrong Thing.

In this masterpiece, Amis makes a fresh assault on the ability of a people to launch such concentrated hatred toward the annihilation of the Jews. My title is taken from the report of an American reporter in Berlin in 1918. From that point, "hallucinatory anti-Semitism and world historical flair for hatred" is sparked to culminate in the Final Solution. The world was saying "alas to less and less" (Auden) One of the characters wonders aloud about the conference where the idea was unveiled. Eight doctorates, and not a flinch or a protest emerged.The "Zone of Interest" unveils the story of "Who somebody really is." The narrators are a foppish consultant, Thompson; a Jewish worker or Sunder, and the Commandant, Doll, himself. The world is the fictionalized Auschwitz where the air has grown foul with the stench of the dead and the staff lives in pleasant surroundings. We are lulled at the outset by the story of Thompson falling in love with Doll's wife. The language is prosaic until shortly his best friend has to depart to partake in selection at the railroad siding as a punishment for his lack of discipline.What follows is the forced look each person must endure of their true selves in the mirror of the KZ. This is a story told many times with numerous views and commentary, yet this book is a fresh and deeply tortured visit to the world of the dark side of the soul. His prose is darkly, spry and sometimes disturbingly humorous. As the limits of what is forbidden are pushed further and further, the enterprise has moved in horrifying fashion from the taking of the "Jews off their high horse." Most poignant to me is Szmul, the Jewish man whose forced slavery work has rendered him vital to the working of the camp. He argues endlessly with himself over the issue of his own survival and his role as a witness. To Doll, this renders him a primary target for the gas chambers.Doll being the sole main character who believes his brief, has descended into madness. The others teeter perilously on their views of themselves searching for ways to escape the depth of their own involvement. This brings the current question, is anything less than full rebellion to the Reich a total damnation of the soul? Many a vignette involves the small resistances that ensue in the camp. Where does the reader stand in the mirror of the soul? I am deeply impressed with the scope and depth of this novel within the frame of a novel assessable to the reader and engaging to the mind.

At last! A marvellous book about the WW2, but able to share an unusual point of view. This is a journey into someone else's mind. And they're carefully chosen.

Lo siento por el que venga a conocer algo sobre este libro. Por cierto, lo he comprado. El autor y el tema me apasionan. Pero es que la situación del libro digital en España me indigna. Yo leo en inglés desde hace ya muchos años. Tengo más de 300 títulos en Kindle. 2/3 en español/catalán y 1/3 en inglés. Hay autores que sólo los leo en inglés. Me gusta leerlos sin el matiz añadido del traductor. Otros, no. Prefiero la sencillez de no tener que parar en un momento dado por una expresión hecha, un "phrasal verb" desconocido, o simplemente un nombre o adjetivo "raro". Sería también un problema, pero no indignante, si éste fuera que en los demás idiomas tampoco se traduce. Pero veo libro tras libro que en español (o catalán, o euskera) no existe versión en Kindle, y si en alemán, italiano, francés, portugués...NO LO ENTIENDO. O si. Tienen algo que ver las retrógradas y ciegas editoriales españolas???Como diria Groucho Marx... Que me lo explique un niño de 5 años!

As a German born after WW2 I tried (and try) to understand the Third Reich elite, how they acquired their prominent positions and what made them act the way they did. One can read history books and biographies, but this gives an outside view - at best.Can a novel lead to a deeper understanding? Martin Amis achieves this by having several narrators describe life and death in a Polish concentration camp.So, a fuller picture is drawn and the coexisting normality of extreme brutality and everyday family life of the commandant family are movingly described.This book makes one think, which is a compliment.It would be more readable for a German, if the German quotations intended to make the characters' musing more authentic, were correct German.But more thorough editing for the second edition can remedy this ...

Amis quotes 'nothing sane to report' in this book in reference to a report after WW1. This book is about that - no sanity existed in the third Reich. He delves into the insanity and its a gruesome portrayal. His is of course the master at this; getting into the minds of the disturbed. Usually though there is a balance with at least one character who grounds us. Not here. There is madness all around, but there is also tedium. It's the drudgery of life and the meaningless that he has captured. a very difficult read. You owe it to him and to us to keep reading though, this is just rising to the surface again.

It's hard to know what to do with this. Amis certainly makes a creditable attempt to get inside a very sick and confused mind, but is it a place we really want to be?