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Review Corner! This time: Germania by Brendan McNally

I don't know what to call this. Seriously, I don't. Is it an alternate-history spy-thriller or a butt-kicking Jewish psychic revenge-story set in the last day of the Third and Flensburg Reich? I have no clue.




To be honest, it doesn't really matter, as I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it royally, although it took me some time to read. Not that the book is long; only 360 or so pages, but I was getting tired of WW2 stories in general and needed a break.

The story is essentially about four former Jewish child stars, named Ziggy, Sebstian, Manni and Franzi, in the last days of the Third Reich. Yes, you read that rightly. It is about how they, after being separated for more or less 12 years, try to get back together and eke out an existence in the ruins of, in one case in particular, their beloved Germany.

The story seems pretty straightforward, but thanks to the multiple protagonist cast, it gets quite complex quite fast. Add to the fact that we get to see things from some prominent Nazis' perspectives (Speer, Himmler and Dönitz) and things get very complex, but never confusing.

McNally also has a wonderfully clean, uncluttered language, which I put down to him being a journalist and American. In my experience, American journalists all channel Ernst Hemingway to a certain degree. A laudable ambition, in my book.

I have a few minor quibbles though, and I will deal with them here, since people don't come here to hear how good something is, do they?

Firstly: McNally has been bitten by the fly that carries Dan Brown-disease. This disease causes author's to split their chapters into tiny 3-6 page clips that barely count as paragraphs in some ways. I can see the basic idea behind it: to give more "speed" to the writing and give people the chance to finish a chapter before getting off the tram/bus/tube/unicorn to work. The problem is that in some works, like this, it can leave large portions of the book feeling very chopped up. Flow and pacing goes out the door. There is one point in particular, towards to middle of the book, where we get four very short chapters, that would've played better rolled into two larger ones. Or maybe just one very large one, but that is stretching things.

Also, talking about flow and pacing brings me elegantly, sort of, to the next point: Germania is McNally's first novel, and to be honest that shows. A lot.
Case in point is that the later chapters read much better in terms of "feeling" than the earlier ones, and one early chapter in particular comes to mind as being rather flatly written, quite belying the fact that Albert Speer has just escaped from death by a narrow margin thanks to the appearance of Manni Loerber. I never got the feel that Speer was in physical danger, quite apart from the fact that we all know he survived the war. This is what suspension of disbelief is all about, people!
If you can make the audience truly believe, and feel, that a historical character is about to die, you have done things right.
Also, to borrow from Yahtzee, the few physical fights described feel a bit awkward and "flow like a river of bricks". They aren't many, but it is sad when you can say you've read better fight scenes on fanfiction.net, although that was exquisitely well-written fanfiction. About ninjas.
Overall, I missed the feeling of being part of something, that I usually get from reading fiction. I could cut away the "I'm reading a book"-feeling, y'know?

Thirdly: Americans! Use your Imperial system or learn the metric system properly. Don't switch between them. Oh, and there's no fucking chance in Hell that a Kübelwagen could get from Marienschule to Schloß Glücksburg and back on only one (1) litre of gasoline. It's 15 km there and back. You can barely do it with today's engines.

Lastly: McNally has really done his research and his way of writing the historical people, especially the Nazis, comes off as well informed and well-rounded. These people aren't caricatures, with the possible exception of Himmler. Contrary to what people think, Speer isn't my favourite in this book. It's Dönitz. He might at first glance come off as your average die-hard military, but beneath, he has this ironclad sense of duty, which doesn't disintegrate the moment he realises he can go no other way than unconditional surrender. Despite his bull-headedness, I liked him, odd as it might sound.
And this complexity of the historical people, and in some cases antagonists, is a problem. About halfway through the book, I found myself more fascinated with Speer, Dönitz and von Friedeburg than with the Loerber brothers. Something is amiss when you have to think of the main characters as Batman-villains to regain interest in them (Ziggy's Two-face, Franzi is the Riddler, Sebastian the Scarecrow and Manni is the Joker). This probably sounds harsher than it really is, but it is apparently a very common critique of the book. So at least I'm not alone in thinking this.

Let's end on a lighter note than this though. The book does contain one of my favourite lines delivered by any character, ever. And it is of course one of Speer's:
"You have coffee?" which is closely followed by "You still have coffee?"

Oh, and my favourite Loerber brother? Manni. No contest.