1392 pages
German language
Published Feb. 23, 2008 by Berlin Verlag.
The Kindly Ones (French: Les Bienveillantes) is a 2006 historical fiction novel written in French by American-born author Jonathan Littell. The book is narrated by its fictional protagonist Maximilien Aue, a former SS officer of French and German ancestry who was a Holocaust perpetrator and was present during several major events of World War II. The 983-page book became a bestseller in France and was widely discussed in newspapers, magazines, academic journals, books and seminars. It was also awarded two of the most prestigious French literary awards, the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and the Prix Goncourt in 2006, and has been translated into several languages.
I typed quite a long reviiew of this book, and then went back to correct something and Good Reads lost everything I typed.
To sum up, this is an interesting realistic, surreal, badly writtten, badly translated, and badly edited book.
I dopn't feel like rewriting everything that Good Reads lost right now -- maybe another time, thoguh by then I probably won't remember what I said or why I said it.
