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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Book Review

I just finished a quick but well-written book over the weekend that I thought I would recommend to my readers. The title is Not Me by Michael Lavigne. The story is told from the vantage point of Michael, a middle-aged Jewish comedian, separated from his wife and son, and tending to his dying father. His father, who has always presented himself as a Holocaust survivor, hands Michael a box of journals which contain some writings with some pretty stunning clues as to the man's wartime activities, which leaves Michael struggling to connect the dots as to the truth about his father's past. The journals recount the story of a Nazi accountant who worked in a concentration camp, and then manages to escape the Allies at the end of the war by impersonating a Jewish Holocaust survivor and emigrating to what was then Palestine. The narrative is complicated by the question of whether the journals are works of fiction, or his father's actual memoirs of his experiences during the wartime years, and the story works through the confusion from the son's perspective nicely. What's interesting is how the author, in telling the story, seems to blur the line between victim and perpetrator until the reader's sympathies become a bit mixed up - and I am quite sure that that is not entirely a good thing when it comes to the subject matter at hand. Though one certainly feels some sympathies toward the father in the novel, and the author certainly works hard to make the point that there is a large gray area between what's "right" and what's "wrong", as well as how subjective the concept of identity can be, it was hard for me to see the father as having been an altruistic character, despite him being portrayed as being a devout Jew and having been involved in many Jewish causes in later life. That said, I would obviously never suggest that every literary work has to have some sort of moral message - so the book is still worth a read even if I can't empathize with some of the characters as the author seems to expect us to. The book also includes some interesting tensions between three generations' worth of father-son relationships.

The book actually reminded me of a different book I had recently read, Those Who Save Us, which tells a similar story of a grown child uncovering some long-buried secrets regarding a parent's wartime activities - in this case, a daughter about a mother. In terms of the actual secrets being uncovered, the author of this book does not have to work as hard to blur the line between victim and perpetrator - the mother of the main character is clearly a victim, despite her wartime activities in which she has an affair with a Nazi officer out of self-preservation - as well as a hero - in her own right, as compared to the father in Not Me, who I cannot characterize as showing any heroism throughout the book. Also, in Those Who Save Us, though the mother is portrayed as a sympathetic character, there is no attempt whatsoever to mitigate the evil in the portrayal of any Nazi sympathizers or Nazis proper, as there is in the pages of Not Me.

All in all, both books are worth picking up, though I wouldn't recommend reading them back-to-back, as the similarity in themes might get a bit repetitive.

If anyone has read either/both of these books and would like to treat this thread as an impromptu book-club meeting, feel free. I would be happy to join in.

42 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read yesterday of Nazi videos going to Youtube and decided to look for them. Unfortunately, they are there all too easy to find. Such propaganda is as disturbing when seen as any other "confusing" literary material. As a Boomer reaching the twilight years I begin to wonder what the world will be thinking about the Holocaust by the time we are gone.

9:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read "Not ME" and I did like it too. But I think that the father does come off a bit more altruistic than you think he did. There is a scene where the mother writes a letter to her son about finding her husband praying in a shul, and the details about the father being honored by so many charities. I think the point is made that the father has atoned for his sins and that he is no longer the Nazi he was during the war.

8:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read "Not Me" and found it fascinating, but somewhat disturbing. There are so many untold stories about what Jews went through during the Holocaust. Truth and fiction often get blurred.
As long as we're talking books, I'd like to recommend a (very different) book called The Covenant by Naomi Ragen. It tells a fictional story about a group of 4 old women (Jewish and Gentile) who surtvived the Holocaust together, and, 50 years later, band together to help rescue a Jewish father and his daughter that have been kidnapped by Arab terrorists in Israel. A truly fascinating read.

8:32 AM  
Blogger orthomom said...

Anon 8:10:

I didn't see it that way. I agree that the author tried to make the case that the father was a changed man and no longer the man he was during the war, but I'm not buying it. First of all, the man was presented as someone who was actually aware and involved in what was going on in the concentration camps, and did not express any remorse at all at that time. Further, even during his time in Palestine, he is constantly expressing his distaste for Jews, and considering whether to bolt over the border to Israel's Arab neighbors to inform them that he is actually their ally and not the Jew he has been impersonating. The question is how the book got from that point to point B, where Herschel is suddenly the UJA poster child as well as a devoutly religious man. I just didn't think it made the case in a substantial enough fashion for me to really view Herschel as a changed man. What made you feel that he really changed his stripes and atoned for his Nazi years?

8:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For a positive YouTube Holocaust video see the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZihm6VlYjo

9:31 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

OM, which of the two do you recommend more?
I'll return the favor and mention 'A Thread of Grace' by Mary Doria Russell. It's worth reading just for the subject matter (Italians during the Holocaust) but also because it's a really, really good book. The author happens to be a convert to Judaism. I think you might also like her other novels.

7:12 PM  
Blogger YMedad said...

I will look if I can find a real reference but this was actually a real case a few years ago here in Israel. The book is a fictionalized treatment of an actual instance.

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You previously had an article about a supposed Frum Jew who was fired from Virgin Airlines for observing Shabbos.

I would like to clarify this incorrect piece of article for you.
I had worked with Avraham Abada when he was working in JFK. He sued and won $115,000 dollars claiming he was a observant Jew and shomer shabbos. This was a ploy because he was fired and had no job so he had to sue so he can make some money.

Truth is Avraham Abada is Gay and had engaged in homosexual sex in JFK for several months with another employee. We didn't want a lawsuit so we had to let him go and he was fired.

But Avraham Abada lied and falsified records so he can claim that he was fired for being shomer shabbos. Avraham Abada lied and has never been religious or shomer, it was a ploy to fool everyone.

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