@article{41b4b5dc-430f-4090-a604-1df0f6b89387,
author = {Aurélie Renault},
title = {The distorsion of reality: review of the reality in The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell},
journal = {Cahiers ERTA},
volume = {2013},
number = {Numéro 3},
year = {2013},
issn = {2300-4681},
pages = {83-98},keywords = {Hitler; nazi argumentation; pineal eye},
abstract = {In Jonathan Littel’s “The Kindly ones”, Aue, the nazi homodiegetic narrator, affected with a forehead wound, feels as if he were endowed with a third eye, a pineal one, which would enable him to see beyond the opacity of things. This third eye leads him to direct a particular look on reality, which is apparently distorted: seized with hallucination, Aue comes to see, in Hitler, a Jew who would dissimulate his earlocks. Similarly, at the end of the novel, this pineal eye leads him to capture nothing more than a single aspect of reality: the Führer’s nose, which he has a sudden urge to twist. What causes this distortion of reality, this surge of incoherence in the midst of a work reflecting the nazi argumentation? The hypothesis of our reading consists in maintaining that this pineal eye turns Aue into the puppet of the author, who is thus addressing a cryptic discourse to his reader. Beyond the theme of resistance, an ontological reflection is coming to light: with Hitler merging into his antithesis, namely the Jew, mankind can only be perceived as one and the social Darwinism upheld by the supporters of nazism as empty of meaning.},
doi = {10.4467/23538953CE.13.006.2119},
url = {https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/cahiers-erta/article/la-deformation-du-reel-comme-mode-de-relecture-du-reel-dans-les-bienveillantes-de-jonathan-littell}
}