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On the German Reaction to Jonathan Littell's Les bienveillantes

2009; Duke University Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/0094033x-2008-019

1558-1462

Klaus Theweleit,

Research Article| February 01 2009 On the German Reaction to Jonathan Littell's Les bienveillantes Klaus Theweleit Klaus Theweleit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google New German Critique (2009) 36 (1 (106)): 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-2008-019 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Klaus Theweleit; On the German Reaction to Jonathan Littell's Les bienveillantes. New German Critique 1 February 2009; 36 (1 (106)): 21–34. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-2008-019 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsNew German Critique Search Advanced Search This article addresses criticisms of Jonathan Littell's 2006 novel about the Holocaust, Les bienveillantes. Littell's German critics largely panned the book for its lack of literary merit or as a failed contribution to historical scholarship on the genocide of European Jewry. The article questions the expectations of these German critics, their insistence on literary convention and almost proprietary claims to insight into the Holocaust. It is the departure of Les bienveillantes from “the novelistic aesthetic of the nineteenth century” that enables the novel's achievement as a portrait of perpetrators in all their human complexity. The text of this article is only available as a PDF. New German Critique, Inc.2009 You do not currently have access to this content.