HHhH

By Laurent Binet

Book Overview

"Captivating . . . HHhH] has a vitality very different from that of most historical fiction." --James Wood, The New Yorker

The basis for the major motion picture, "The Man with the Iron Heart " available on streaming and home video.

HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich," or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich." The most lethal man in Hitler's cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich seemed indestructible--until two exiled operatives, a Slovak and a Czech, killed him and changed the course of history.

In Laurent Binet's mesmerizing debut, we follow Jozef Gabc k and Jan Kubis from their dramatic escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to their fatal attack on Heydrich and their own brutal deaths in the basement of a Prague church. A seamless blend of memory, actuality, and Binet's own remarkable imagination, HHhH is at once thrilling and intellectually engrossing--a fast-paced novel of the Second World War that is also a profound meditation on the debt we owe to history.

A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250033349
• ISBN13: 9781250033345
• Release Date: July 2013
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Not a book for the simple

If you need a story to be spoon-fed to you in a linear, childlike manner, then avoid this book. There are a million books in the style of Max Hastings entitled "Operation so and so" but Binet does not set out to write one of those. His book is instead as much about the difficulties of historical research and a philosophical reflection on writing about real people as it is about the actual events that took place in the second World War. It takes a little while to understand his writing pattern, but once it is made one of the more interesting in the genre. He bounces between modernity as he learns more about the story and the actual history. He regularly plays with the cliches and tropes of the genre and messes with the reader. Personally, I found that this kept me engaged and on my toes. He reflects several times on how authors try to add dementia to what can easily be dead history, sometimes by engaging it and then walking it back. This seems to serve the purpose adding color without committing the faux pas of other authors. Binet is often both funny and insightful. His ability to poke at the flaws of his own French nation and unexpected thinking of his wit gives the book a fun flavor throughout. The non-linear nature, which some may find challenging to follow separates the book from the myriad of identical historical documentations and makes the book a joy to read.

If you don't know anything about historical research IT'S NOT FOR YOU

I love this book not just for the narrative of two WWII Czech and Slav heroes parachuting in to kill the Butcher of Prague but because of the way Binet writes in short segments, bouncing between past and present of writing the book and the villains, heroes, and bureaucrats of WWII. Anyone who has had to do research understands that a lot of choices have to be made about how much you have to lie to fill in the gaps when not all the data is present. It's sympathy. Additionally how the author writes doesn't hide behind fictionalization. Hundreds of thousands of people were executed by believers and opportunists, murders were systematically designed by brilliant fools, and the book shows just how cruel a mundane chauvinist looking for a promotion can be.

Awful!

Binet goes to extraordinary and sadly very successful lengths to make a book about World War 2 heroes instead about what a terrible author he is. He spends more pages whining about writing the book than actually telling the story. Truly one of the worst and, frankly, most embarrassing books I’ve ever read.