Jim’s
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(group member since Aug 06, 2013)
Jim’s
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from the Jim Snowden Q&A Group for Summer of Long Knives group.
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Just wanted to open up a thread for people's favorite passages and quotes from the book. So if any of you have a favorite line or paragraph, here's the place.Oh, and there's one other thing for the now. I've got a reading coming up in a couple of weeks out in Yakima. I'll be recording it so that those of you who can't make it (most of you) can still hear. What I want to know is, is there any passage you'd like to hear? It has to be readable within 10-12 minutes, so we're talking about maybe five pages at the most.
So, for at least this next little while, this is an open request line as well. Any requests?
I'll see what I can do when I get back on Thursday.
Thanks for giving me a first hand account, Lilo. I was hoping you would. Would you mind if I quoted it in the blog post? I'll link back to your Goodreads profile or anywhere else you think appropriate.
It has virtually nothing to do with the book, but the next blog post will be about Christmas in the Third Reich. Keep your eyes open for the link.
Pleased to meet you, Skadi. I look forward to hearing more from you.
Lilo wrote: "And now to the contents of "Pfaffenhofen unterm Hakenkreuz":In 1922, there were only 10 NSDAP members in Pfaffenhofen (a town of some 5,000 inhabitants, 30 miles north of Munich). They were very ..."
By the way, this material seems like it would be of interest to my blog's readers. I'd be happy to have you guest blog about it, if you're interested. It may reach a wider audience that way.
Let me know what you think.
Lilo wrote: "Btw, Pfaffenhofen is only 30 miles north of Munich and 18 miles north of Dachau. And the Dachau area is where the basic story of your novel "Summer of Long Knives" is set. Right? Did you specify th..."Rolf worked out of central Munich, mostly. (The bulk of the novel takes place in the Lehel district, with detours to other residential areas and a stop at Stadelheim prison.) Rolf was called out to the Epp farm, the location in the story closest to the city of Dachau, primarily because he had experience with unusual homicides that the Dachau district office lacked.
The book you're reading sounds fascinating. What you've described so far speaks volumes about how organized the Nazis were and what their early campaign techniques looked like. I'd be curious to know if the street violence the Hitler and SA inflicted on Munich was also a part of their strategy in Pfaffenhofen, or if they chose a lower-key approach outside the major cities.
In the early twenties, in Munich, Hitler had his SA men drag a left-wing speaker away from his podium and beat him unconscious. (Hitler was arrested and went on trial for it, but the judge--who would later chair his putsch trial--gave him only a three month sentence, with a recommendation that he serve only one.)
Was Hitler doing things like that in Pfaffenhofen at this stage? When the book says the priest was "escorted out" by SA men, how exactly did they go about that?
Lilo wrote: "I sure will if you want me to."As I said, by all means. You might want to start with the book itself. What's the title? Who wrote it? Is it in German or English? The basics, really.
Congrats on the Mac Pro purchase. It's probably more computer than you need to access GR and Facebook, but if you want to do that while animating and editing your own movie at the same time, you'll have the technology.
Lilo wrote: "This book is an eye-opener regarding many other related facts, too, and I will be glad to discuss the contents of this book."By all means do so.
This review came up in one of my feeds yesterday. I'm writing a blog post to describe my own reaction to it, but I thought I'd show the review to you all and give you a chance to discuss. Are new stories of the Holocaust and the Nazi era still necessary? What more can they say that hasn't already been said?ReThink Review: The Book Thief -- Do We Need More Holocaust Movies?
By Jonathan Kim
Posted: 11/19/2013 5:06 pm
Read more
When I reviewed 12 Years A Slave, which is based on the true story of a free black man who was kidnapped and brought to the Deep South as a slave in 1841, I said that it might help America come to grips with the horrors of slavery and our nation's racist roots if slavery was addressed more often in film -- our most powerful storytelling medium -- the same way World War II, the Holocaust, and Nazism have been portrayed in popular entertainment over the decades, leaving little doubt amongst generations of Germans and the rest of the world (regardless of one's interest in history) that the Nazis' goals, beliefs, and methods were an absolute wrong and a crime against humanity. That said, with seemingly every aspect of this tragedy examined exhaustively, is it possible that all the lessons of World War II have been learned and there are no new stories left to tell? And does this explain why would-be Oscar bait like The Book Thief, which follows an orphaned girl in a World War II-era German village, feels so mawkish and unnecessary?
Watch the trailer for The Book Thief below.
Based on Markus Zusak's best-selling novel, The Book Thief is about an illiterate nine-year-old girl named Liesel (played by a plucky, big-eyed Sophie Nélisse) whose communist mother seeks to protect Liesel by sending her to live in an otherwise idyllic, snowy German village. Her foster parents are Hans, a kind and playful housepainter played by Geoffrey Rush, and Rosa, a mean, brusque laundress played by Emily Watson. With Liesel heartbroken over her absent mother and the death of her younger brother, Hans consoles her by teaching her to read from a book she had stolen.
Books, as you'd imagine, wind their way throughout The Book Thief, as Liesel goes on to steal another book from a book burning rally and more books from the mayor's wife (played by Barbara Auer), who alleviates her sadness over her dead son by giving Liesel access to her personal library. From what I've gathered from the novel's Wikipedia page, the redemptive and destructive power of words is the book's main theme. Unfortunately, this gets lost among the film's several subplots, which often makes The Book Thief feel like a curiously sanitized take on Holocaust movies' greatest clichés.
There's the subplot of Hans' refusal to join the Nazi party and the pressure and scrutiny that draws to his family. To further prove Hans' bonafides as a "good German," Hans risks his family's safety by harboring a war buddy's Jewish son (played by Ben Schnetzer) in the basement, who befriends Liesel as he's nursed back to health. Then there's also the friendship between Liesel and Rudy, an angelic boy next door (played by Nico Liersch) who has a crush on Liesel, though Rudy's athletic prowess and Aryan looks draws the interest of the Nazis, who choose him to attend a special academy that would separate him from Liesel. There's also the townspeople's frequent retreats to underground shelters as Allied bombs land on the town, with Liesel comforting people by telling stories. And did I mention that The Book Thief is narrated by Death? That's right, Death himself (voiced by Roger Allam) as a gentle and bemused Reaper who takes a special interest in Liesel, which is a drag on the story and seems strangely insensitive considering that other thing going on in Germany at the time.
That thing being the Holocaust, whose horrors only figure lightly and fairly bloodlessly in the film when a group of Jews wearing yellow Stars of David are marched through the town. But the biggest problem with The Book Thief is its complete lack of anything new, informative, or insightful, making it feel like it was written by someone who knew nothing about World War II other than what they'd seen in a handful of movies, but really wanted to make sure you knew that some Germans during Nazi rule were actually pretty nice, which has also been duly covered.
But maybe the bigger issue is that, after decades and hundreds of movies, maybe there really isn't anything new to be said about World War II, the Nazis, and the Holocaust that hasn't been said (and said very well) before, unlike with slavery and the comparatively scant number of dramatic films on the topic. While it's important to make sure the Holocaust isn't forgotten, I don't feel the need to keep watching movies belaboring its lessons. Maybe that's why a film like 12 Years A Slave feels so important and needed while The Book Thief, while technically solid, just feels like unnecessary, boilerplate Oscar bait.
There's a new blog post on resistance to the Nazis in the 1930s that demonstrates how difficult Anika Wagner's position was.
There is a giveaway for this book on right now, so if you know someone who obsessively collects autographed copies of paperbacks, you might want to pass on the link. Do it quickly, though. The giveaway ends Thursday.
Was Rolf Wundt's attempt to create justice in Nazi Germany ultimately doomed? That's the main subject of last night's Twitter chat. Read the transcript here and tell us what you think.
Don't worry. I'm reasonably sure that the movie'll be around when you're done.
The Blue Angel (German version) is available on Netflix streaming. It's also out on DVD and Blu-Ray. One of the special features on the discs is Dietrich's screen test, in which she threatens to kick the pianist the next time he screws up her song. (This was part of the test, of course.) That footage is also available on YouTube.
