The Prix Goncourt was awarded, as of right, to Jonathan Littell for Les Bienveillantes (Galli- mard). Les Bienveillantes, the Kindly Ones, is the name usually given to the Furies. The narrator of this masterly novel, Max Aue, the director of a lace factory, is writing his account of the second world war, in which he served on the wrong, i.e. German side. Notable for his sane and reasonable tone of voice the narrator divulges, without much compunction, that he is a former Nazi, an SS officer who was present in all the main theatres of war, initially in Lithuania and the Ukraine, and latterly in a devastated Berlin.
He is also notable for his imperturbable sense of right and wrong, or rather his conviction that these terms are implausible. The gas chambers? On whom do we lay the blame? On the guard who releases the gas or the railwayman who switches the points so that the train travels in one direction rather than another? In the end no one is responsible.
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