Against the Stream: Growing Up Where Hitler Used to Live

Rating:
Summary: Self-absorbed
Review: A promising idea, severely hampered by the writer's self-absorption. The writer suggests that she will write about the nature of the town in which Hitler was raised (which is the town where she was raised as well) in an attempt to shed light on the nature of the support of Nazism amongst the populace, and how such support has become denied or hidden in recent years. She attempts to use her own personal history, including attempts to reveal the nature of the above through essay, in order to elucidate these themes.

This effort is severely undercut by a remarkably self-serving account of the writer's own striving towards recognition and award; indeed, the major theme of the book appears to be the insufficent recognition of the author. Although one might reasonably examine such themes as indicative of the resistance of the town to historical truths, the emphasis is instead placed upon the person of the author, with little analysis of the interaction of her person with the nature of the area, and how it served as a basis for support of Nazism, and later denial of such a role.

Rating:
Summary: Direct, Chilling, and Eloquent
Review: The story is told with the same sort of chilling and ironic distancing evident in the eloquent title. It winds its way, nevertheless, through the hearts of all of us. It is impossible to remain distanced from the narrative of betrayal and complicity, small evasions building to a whole fabric of dissimulation.
A special word should be added about the translation, which is bone-dry honest and, at the same time, poetic. Imogen von Tannenberg is some kind of genius.