KEY POINTS:
CAGING SKIES
By Christine Leunens
Random House, $27.99
I've always wondered how Hitler was able to convince the German people to support him. The early chapters of Caging Skies show how the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated so they could support the idea of a pure race.
When the novel's hero, Johannes, is maimed in the course of his duties, you expect a sort of Damascus Rd experience, but no, he just returns home to find his parents giving shelter to Elsa, a Jewish girl.
His relationship with Elsa takes up the rest of the book. At one point we find out she is pregnant, then Johannes realises she is not pregnant anymore. How she gets from one state to the other is not explained.
I kept waiting for some revealing experience, but the overlong book goes from one drab paragraph to another.
Leunens writes in cliches and is fond of inventing words such as "unideal".
This book was described in Le Monde as "a beautiful novel, powerful, varied and ambitious". I don't agree.
- Detours, HoS
