The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. It provides a thorough exploration of the book’s plot, characters and main themes, including the ideology of National Socialism in Germany under Adolf Hitler and the horrifyingly bureaucratic nature of the Holocaust. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 27-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Jonathan Littell
• Presentation of The Kindly Ones
• Summary of The Kindly Ones
• Character study
  • The narrator (Max Aue)
  • His sister (Una)
  • His mother and stepfather
  • His alter egos
• Analysis of The Kindly Ones
  • National Socialism: a political religion
  • National Socialism, Bolshevism and Judaism
  • The bureaucratisation of evil
  • The omnipresent tone of ‘scatology’
  • The music of atrocity

About The Kindly Ones

The Kindly Ones was first published in 2006 and won the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française, two of France’s most prestigious literary awards. Nonetheless, the novel was highly controversial, as it presents the atrocities of the Second World War from the point of view of a former SS officer, Max Aue. This unusual approach, combined with the author’s somewhat coarse writing style and graphic descriptions, makes The Kindly Ones a challenging and thought-provoking work.

About Jonathan Littell

Jonathan Littell is a contemporary Franco-American writer. Born to a Jewish family in New York in 1967, he spent much of his childhood living in France, where he completed his secondary education, before attending Yale University. He then traveled extensively, in particular to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Africa. The Second World War and the Holocaust have had a strong influence on his ideas and his writing; this is reflected in his first novel, The Kindly Ones.