The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After reading some 60 pages I got impression, that it is a story written by some lunatic and I was ready to give it back to the library.
I waited few days to get some distance from the story and started again.
Some background info... I am an old man, born and grown up in Poland. Few of my close relatives were killed during the war, few survived German concentration camps. I met quite a number of survivors of concentration camps and read few book about them and about Holocaust.
This might explain that The Zone of Interest shocked and repulsed me.

Now is the time for my second opinion.
First point - most of reviews mentioned, that love is one of the subjects of this book.
Well, in my opinion it is lust not love.
Second point - I was shocked with many cases of factual nonsense.
Few examples -
One of main characters, the commander of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, lives in a street in Warsaw's Old City, very close to the Old City Square.
Well, it is 315 km from place of his work in Auschwitz.
Next one - Kommandant's Doll family lives in Dzilka St.
Again, there is Dzika St in Warsaw (Dzika means Wild), quite close to former Umschlagplatz where inhabitants of Warsaw Ghetto were loaded into trains destined for extermination camps. There is also Dzielna St nearby (Dzielna means Brave) crossing Ghetto area.
But Dzilka?
Anyway, any of these streets was not suitable for a living place for highly ranked German official.
Then misspelling of names of few Polish names and places. Just these were quite easy to spell and pronounce.
On my second reading attempt I came to conclusion, that these inaccuracies were not mistakes, but deliberate deformations made on purpose.
But on what purpose?
I thought that the key lies in Kommandant Doll thoughts and words. I have to say that I enjoyed the mixture of English and German text and unexpected placing of numerals in his texts.
Another interesting point were numerous quotations from some German propaganda about character and destiny of glorious Aryan race.
I appreciated effort and skill of the author in constructing these texts, but the question returned: for what purpose?
Somewhere near page 190 I came conclusion, that I will not get answer and gave up.
View all my reviews