Siegfried

by Harry Mulisch

Book Overview

A bracing meditation on the nature of evil and a moving evocation of the human heart, Siegfried is one of Harry Mulisch's most powerful novels. After a reading of his work, renowned Dutch author Rudolf Herter, who had recently commented in a television interview that it may be only through fiction that the uniquely evil figure of Adolf Hitler can be truly comprehended, is approached by an elderly couple. The pair reveal that as domestic servants...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000HWYNIG
• ISBN13: 9780142004982
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Does not reach all the way...

This book is perhaps a bit more complex and deep than most readers, including I, are used to. I think he bases his book on a quote from Nietzsche: "When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." That is what the protagonist of the book does, and pays a frightening price for enlightment. Mulisch actually comes very close to explaining Hitler, and the nature of evil, in this book. I think many readers are put off by his slightly mystical explanation of the phenomenom of Hitler. However, many more authors have tried to explain Hitler from a purely rational POV and have failed. Hitler was banal, a blank, a nothing. He only defined himself as a leader. To thrive he was dependent on the unidivded attention of multitudes. I suppose here is where the book stumbles: Mulisch explains Hitler, but he does not explain his followers! Did Hitler have this ability to hypnotise because anyone could read in their own wishes and fears into Hitler's emptiness? Also, we will have to remember that towards the end of the book the narraor is not fully reliable (!). His ramblings, while very interesting, about Hitler's mystical connection to Nietzsche - Hitler as the negative opposite of the philosopher - can be seen as the insights of a man already insane. So, in short, my verdict is that this is an uncomplete masterpiece.

A sinister study of a distraught mind

Rudolf Herter, a famous Dutch author, arrives in Vienna for a reading and some interviews. But what he thinks is yet another mission to promote his latest book turns out to be the start of a sinister quest. During a television interview, in a moment when he was out of his usual set of answers, he makes a statement that not only surprises his audience, but most of all himself: I want to catch Hitler and place him in such an environment that his true spirit is revealed. When an old couple offers to help him reach this singular goal, he gets an answer to a question that he was not prepared to ask. With Siegfried Harry Mulisch wrote a very powerful and at the same time estranging novel. As one can imagine, a dive into the deranged mind of Adolf Hitler will not leave anyone undisturbed. But when that same experience leaves you with a discovery that is so horrible that it is better kept hidden from the public, its effect could be destructive. With a remarkable ease succeeds Mulisch in pulling the reader slowly into an idea that will spook the mind of any reader. The narrative is kept sober on purpose, as not to break the effect of its meaning. Sadly enough, just at the time the story reaches its climax, Mulisch decides to open up his full vocabulary to describe what it "actually" all means. Apart from being quite incomprehensible to the normal reader, it turns out to be completely unnecessary page stuffing. I can understand that an intelligent author sometimes feels the need to show off with some very deep thoughts, but in this masterfully build-up plot it fits like the devil in a blue dress. If you look at it from another perspective it could even be interpreted as an insult to the reader, where the author takes the reader by the hand to explain some difficult concepts. Apart from this let-down at the end Siegfried stay an intriguing study of a distraught mind that reads like a full fletched psychological thriller.

Being Nothingness

I just finished this book maybe 5 minutes ago and am so impressed with it. A fasciniating story with a real sting in its tail. I left one star off for the occasional lapses into overwritten philosophy quoting, but it's an intriguing and provoking book

Rather vain book on an intriguing subject

Rudolf Herter is an, in his own opinion brilliant, elderly Dutch writer with an Austrian background. After a lecture in Vienna he gets in contact with the former personal servants of Hitler and via them he finds out that Hitler and Eva Braun had a son and that this son met an untimely death. He thinks that through these revelations he has also gotten a better insight into the being of Hitler, but in the end this insight proves to be fatal.This book covers an intriguing subject, Hitler. The brilliant Rudolf Herter radiates his brilliance a little bit too obviously and this makes this alter ago of the author rather irritating, especially in the first part of the book. As the story develops, the book becomes more intriguing and more pleasant to read. But in the end the question remains whether Mulisch succeeded in explaining Hitler and one can wonder whether anybody will ever be able to explain Hitler.

Daddy Dearest. . .

This slim, deceptively simple novel recounts a week in the life of reknowned Dutch author Rudolph Herter, who, during the course of a promotional book tour in Vienna, meets an elderly Austrian couple with a shocking past. After the couple reveal a fascinating tale of their role in raising Hitler and Eva Braun's son, the story turns inward and we enter a harrowing journey into the brilliant author's mind as he wrestles with the nature of Hitler's evil. It's a thought-provoking yet oddly fun ride, with plenty of insights into Hitler's inner circle. Reminiscent in some ways of Ron Hansen's "Hitler's Niece" in its blend of fact and fiction, "Siegfried" will not disappoint fans of the genre, like me.