Oh, man, I love Werther so much. I don't think I would have loved it when I was actually young, but that's just one of the many benefits of getting old and growing a sense of humor. I didn't mention that Werther loves Ossian, the fake Gaelic epic poet whose fakeness Sam Johnson was so adamant about. Werther is a pre-debunking-of-Ossian figure who, at the climax of his emo pining, reads to Charlotte a long passage from Ossian, in his own translation. <3 And it is so, so short! You have nothing to lose but your patience. <3
"A writer must, above all, be truthful about himself," Phil writes in his diary, as the introduction to a horrible account of him killing two kittens and then striking his wife over and over again in a blind rage - a peak of violence his own father never reached, for all his selfish cruelty. I agree with the sentiment but I wish honesty were a little more effective as a preventative measure.
Phil's feelings about Hitler are complicated, I think. He's got that writer's craving to empathize his way into everything and it leads to him making some unjustified conclusions about what Hitler is actually like and what his goals are - through analogy with himself and his dead cousin Willie (the other fictional H.W.). The narrative makes some noticeable effort to distinguish Phil's (and not!Mosley's) politics from open antisemitism, mostly by making all the open antisemites with speaking parts oafs. But then Phil will read a quote by Hitler that to anyone reading in 1967, or today, is clearly just an ugly slab of disordered ranting about the Jews - and latch onto the one phrase in it that resonates with his own feelings about brotherhood or craftsmanship or the Great War being a crucible or whatever. And then just not particularly notice the rest - to the point that he's a little taken aback when one of his children asks him, "Are the Jews really to blame?"
Which is something that a lot of people did do at the time - and something that happens in political affiliations all the time, then and now - just thrill to the thing you thrill to and ignore the bits you don't like or don't care about, or don't want to think about right now because the thing you want is more important. I'm reading a bio of Hitler right now (thanks/no thanks to Phil whining about how no one ever bothers to get to know the real Hitler :|) and a lot of the support for the NSDAP in 1933 was like that - some people were really into the whole Nazi message, but there were a lot of voters who didn't particularly like the antisemitic scapegoating or the open violence, but were willing to ignore it because they hated Communism or catastrophic unemployment or the current government more, and didn't care that much about whether some people who were definitely not them got beat up or shot by the SA along the way.
Sorry, that was a long aside. :|
Anyway, I think it's admirable in a way - it's definitely valuable as a historical record - and it's still interesting as a novel, though it can make for some jarring reading and some frustration. I actually suspect HW is being slightly less honest about his past political committments than he is presenting himself as being - but that's just based on how smudged and vague most of Phil's political talk is compared to how specific the books have been about nearly everything else. But that may be unfair. Maybe that's just the way Phil and H.W. both were. (He's definitely streamlined his sexual history, though).
ETA: I am excited about An Experiment in Criticism! It looks like tonnes of fun.
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Date: 2019-02-20 06:05 pm (UTC)"A writer must, above all, be truthful about himself," Phil writes in his diary, as the introduction to a horrible account of him killing two kittens and then striking his wife over and over again in a blind rage - a peak of violence his own father never reached, for all his selfish cruelty. I agree with the sentiment but I wish honesty were a little more effective as a preventative measure.
Phil's feelings about Hitler are complicated, I think. He's got that writer's craving to empathize his way into everything and it leads to him making some unjustified conclusions about what Hitler is actually like and what his goals are - through analogy with himself and his dead cousin Willie (the other fictional H.W.). The narrative makes some noticeable effort to distinguish Phil's (and not!Mosley's) politics from open antisemitism, mostly by making all the open antisemites with speaking parts oafs. But then Phil will read a quote by Hitler that to anyone reading in 1967, or today, is clearly just an ugly slab of disordered ranting about the Jews - and latch onto the one phrase in it that resonates with his own feelings about brotherhood or craftsmanship or the Great War being a crucible or whatever. And then just not particularly notice the rest - to the point that he's a little taken aback when one of his children asks him, "Are the Jews really to blame?"
Which is something that a lot of people did do at the time - and something that happens in political affiliations all the time, then and now - just thrill to the thing you thrill to and ignore the bits you don't like or don't care about, or don't want to think about right now because the thing you want is more important. I'm reading a bio of Hitler right now (thanks/no thanks to Phil whining about how no one ever bothers to get to know the real Hitler :|) and a lot of the support for the NSDAP in 1933 was like that - some people were really into the whole Nazi message, but there were a lot of voters who didn't particularly like the antisemitic scapegoating or the open violence, but were willing to ignore it because they hated Communism or catastrophic unemployment or the current government more, and didn't care that much about whether some people who were definitely not them got beat up or shot by the SA along the way.
Sorry, that was a long aside. :|
Anyway, I think it's admirable in a way - it's definitely valuable as a historical record - and it's still interesting as a novel, though it can make for some jarring reading and some frustration. I actually suspect HW is being slightly less honest about his past political committments than he is presenting himself as being - but that's just based on how smudged and vague most of Phil's political talk is compared to how specific the books have been about nearly everything else. But that may be unfair. Maybe that's just the way Phil and H.W. both were. (He's definitely streamlined his sexual history, though).
ETA: I am excited about An Experiment in Criticism! It looks like tonnes of fun.