I used to have a Francophile sit across from me at work. When
I grew too bored, I could always count on some excitement by provoking
him over the topic of Vichy France and French participation in the Holocaust.
Eventually, he would run from the cubicle, shrieking that France was a
great nation and incapable of anti-Semitism. Then to his own horror,
he read a book about Marshal Petain and was forced to finally accept that
the French people were willing, even eager, participants in the extermination
of European Jewry. I can't wait until he reads this fact-based story
by Brian Moore, one of the truly great Catholic novelists of recent decades
(see Orrin's review of Black
Robe).
Moore's novel literally starts with a bang as Pierre Brossard, a 70
year old Catholic Frenchman, outguns an assassin who has been sent to kill
him. On the assassin's body he finds a statement from the "Committee
for Justice for the Jewish Victims of Dombey", claiming responsibility
for the execution of Brossard. It turns out that Brossard has been
a fugitive for over forty years, having participated in the murder of 14
Jews in 1944. During that time he has been protected by sympathetic
members of the Catholic Church, provided with funds, hiding places, transportation
and false papers. At one point, they even secured a presidential
pardon for him, but then he was charged with a "crime against humanity",
against which the pardon offers no dispensation.
But now times have changed and many of those in the Church and in government
who protected Brossard have passed on and others simply want him out of
the way, lest his prosecution serve as a model for subsequent trials.
Moreover, the succeeding generation of officials does not bear any sympathy
towards him, so they too are on his trail. What follows is a thrilling
chase, as Brossard is pursued by Church, State and the shadowy committee
and by "friend" and foe alike.
Beyond the basic thriller premise, Moore also offers an examination
of the often ignored war guilt of France. Initially it seems possible
to feel some sympathy for Brossard and the other aging collaborators, to
the extent that they were motivated by anti-Communism and anti-modernism.
But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that, at heart, they were driven
as much by genuine hatred of Jews as by any other less repulsive motives.
Moore based Brossard on an actual person, Paul
Touvier, and the story's essentials, from the assistance of the Church
to the presidential pardon, are all historical, though Touvier was captured
in 1989 and died in prison. These, of course, are facts that stand
in stark contrast to the myth that DeGaulle consciously chose to cultivate
instead, of the French people as proud heroes of the Resistance, standing
firm against the Nazi oppressor. In fact, just as Jonah Goldhagen's
great book Hitler's Willing Executioner's (see review)
has forced us to rethink the question of how limited was German responsibility
for the Holocaust, it is long past time to reconsider whether Vichy France
was truly an aberration or whether it was in some sense a manifestation
of French popular opinion. This is especially important in light
of the concurrent rise in present day France of both the Muslim population
and the extremist Le Pen Party. As France, a nation obsessed by the
concepts of Frenchness and French blood, approaches the moment where the
classic Gallic Catholic French will be outnumbered by immigrant Muslims,
it is necessary to either anticipate the possibility that this will bring
genocidal violence or else to, once again, close our eyes and feign surprise
when presented with a fait accompli.
Brian Moore brilliantly combines a page turning thriller with a thought
provoking look at some of these issues. The result is an outstanding
novel which, like much of Moore's work, defies the limitations of genre
to probe vital moral issues.
David Sandberg's response:
Your hatred of France and its people demonstrates to all the world
your lack of savoire faire and elan. You are a swine. While it may be true
that France has had some problems with anti-Semitism in its past - this
country cannot hold itself blameless in the treatment of minorities. In
terms of sheer numbers - slavery in the American South and the treatment
of indigenous peoples in the US is a far worse crime than anything done
by the French. You are a pig. You are an uncivilized pig. Civilization
is a French creation. the capital of the world is Paris - everyone knows
this you addled cretin.
(Reviewed:02-Jan-00)
Grade: (A)
Websites:
Book-related and General Links:
-ESSAY:
Going Home (Brian Moore, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of The Captain and The Enemy by Graham Greene, FATHER LOST ME
IN A BACKGAMMON GAME (Brian Moore, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, In Search of Buried Treasure
(Brian Moore, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of FLANNERY O'CONNOR Collected Works, MAKING A CASE FOR DISTORTION
(Brian Moore, NY Times Book Review)
-Interview
(from the Australian)
-ARCHIVES
: "Brian Moore" (NY Review of Books)
-Brian
Moore--Biography (Local Ireland)
-Brian
Moore (1921- )(Well Known Canadians)
-Canadian
Literary Archives - Brian Moore (Special Collections, University of
Calgary Library)
-EducETH:
Brian Moore
-FILMOGRAPHY
: Brian Moore (imdb)
-OBIT
: Brian Moore, Prolific Novelist on Diverse Themes, Dies at 77 (DINITIA
SMITH, NY Times)
-OBITUARY
: Author Brian Moore defied definition : The Irish-born novelist spent
his last 30 years living in California but probably came closest to finding
a sense of home in Canada. (Tuesday, January 12, 1999, VAL ROSS, Globe
and Mail)
-MEMORIAL
: Brian Moore: A writer who never failed to surprise his readers (Robert
Fulford, Globe and Mail, January 12, 1999)
-PROFILE
: An Irishman in Malibu (Tom Christie, LA Weekly)
-OBITUARY
: Brian Moore, 1921-1999 (Tom Christie, LA Weekly)
-ESSAY
: Brian Moore, 1921-99: Cool prose craftsman (Socialism Today)
-FEATURED
AUTHOR : Brian Moore (Read Ireland)
-Brian
Moore: Travels of a Literary Infidel (John Blades, Publishers Weekly)
-BOOK
GROUP GUIDE : The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore
-READER'S
GUIDE : Lies of Silence (College Net)
-ESSAY
: WHAT GREAT WEIGHT AND POWER COME IN SUCH SMALL PACKAGES (Anita Shreve,
Boston Globe)
-REVIEW:
THE STATEMENT By Brian Moore (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
THE STATEMENT By Brian Moore (Eugen Weber, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Catholics and Fascists ( J. Bottum, Catholic Crisis Online)
-REVIEW:
of The Statement by Brian Moore (John Wilson, First Things)
-REVIEW:
Bygones? The Statement by Brian Moore (Roger Kaplan,
Commentary)
-REVIEW:
(Mystery Guide)
-REVIEW:
Moral fable makes a 'Statement' about war crimes and 'justice' (David
Walton, Detroit News)
-REVIEW
: of The Statement (Book Page)
-REVIEW
: John Gross: Marked Man, NY Review of Books
The Statement by Brian Moore
Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice edited by Richard
J. Golsan
-Review
of Black Robe (NY Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt)
-REVIEW
: of Black Robe by Brian Moore (NY Times, James Carroll)
-REVIEW
: of Lies of Silence by Brian Moore (Francine Prose, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW
: of The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,
NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore (Thomas Mallon, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore (Brian St. Pierre, SF Chronicle)
-REVIEW
: Gabriele Annan: The Mahdi's Bullet, NY Review of Books
The Magician's Wife by Brian Moore
-REVIEW:
of Cold Heaven, A SPIRITUAL QUID PRO QUO (Frances Taliaferro, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of THE TEMPTATION OF EILEEN HUGHES By Brian Moore (1981)(JOYCE CAROL
OATES, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of THE TEMPTATION OF EILEEN HUGHES By Brian Moore (1981)(Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of THE COLOR OF BLOOD By Brian Moore (Clancy Sigal, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW
: of THE COLOR OF BLOOD. By Brian Moore (John Gross, NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of No Other Life By Brian Moore (1993)(Christopher Lehmann-Haupt,
NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of NO OTHER LIFE By Brian Moore (Henry Louis Gates Jr., NY Times
Book Review)
-BOOK
LIST : 1990 Booker Prize Nominees : Lies of Silence
-BOOK
LIST : MODERN NOVELS; THE 99 BEST (Anthony Burgess, NY Times, 1984)
VICHY COLLABORATION:
-OBIT:
Paul Touvier, 81, French War Criminal (DAVID STOUT, New York Times
July 18, 1996)
-Role
played by French civil servants and police in helping Nazis persecute Jews
(Reuters, October 1996)
-Literature
of the Holocaust (maintained by Al Filreis)
-French
Children of the Holocaust
-The
Vichy government (Encyclopedia Britannica)
-Keller
Jaguars WWII Internet Project: Vichy France
-Vichy
law and the Holocaust in France a book by Richard H. Weisberg, published
in 1996 by NYU Press and other documents related to the French legal system
-LINKS:
Simon Kitson's Vichy links
-Sources
for the Study of World War II and the Occupation in French History, Literature,
and Film
-Documents
of World War II
-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center: Multimedia Learning Center
-Never Again
Foundation
-REVIEW:
of Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell The Holocaust and the Catholic
Church: Some in the Vatican want to make Pius XII a saint. If they succeed,
"the Church will have sealed its second millennium with a lie" (James
Carroll, The Atlantic)
-REVIEW:
Tony Judt: Betrayal in France, NY Review of Books
The Holocaust, the French,
and the Jews by Susan Zuccotti
-REVIEW:
Robert O. Paxton: Tricks of Memory, NY Review of Books
The Vichy Syndrome: History
and Memory in France since 1944 by Henry Rousso
-REVIEW:
Robert O. Paxton: 'The Last King of France', NY Review of Books
Pétain: Hero or Traitor,
The Untold Story by Herbert R. Lottman
-REVIEW:
Stanley Hoffmann: After the Fall, NY Review of Books
Vichy France: Old Guard
and New Order, 1940-1944 by Robert O. Paxton
ANTI-ARABISM :
-ESSAY
: French author causes storm by attacking Islam (John Lichfield, 01
September 2001, Independent uk)
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
