Reviews

• As with many others, didn't take this as some kind of Elders of Zion anti-semitic hit - to the contrary, important to show that anti-semitism animates many ethnic societies, and the difficult "Sophie's Choice" many have to make.

• I procured and devoured a Kindle copy of Helen Dale (nee "Demidenko"nee Darville)'s "The Hand that signed the paper" yesterday morning (Australian Eastern Standard Time.) I was in my early teens when it was initially published, and recall following the controversy which ensued avidly in the pages of Quadrant (where one of said magazine's founders (Richard Krygier) was close to my maternal grandfather's family since the War.) As fate would have it, I became personally acquainted with its author a couple of years ago, and subsequently have been embroiled in similar electronic (and occasionally physical) circles. While initially wary of her, certain exigencies of said acquaintance have sufficed to exonerate her in my mind from the wilder charges of anti-semitism which those of Robert Manne or Gerard Henderson's ilk have levied. Indeed, I'd venture to say that her remaining free from such prejudice despite subsequently facing substantial obloquy due to said book's reputation greatly testifies to her magnanimity, fortitude, sound judgement and essential decency. The novel itself was relatively short, and only took me one hour and forty five minutes to read, including distractions (due to it being a Kindle edition which I read, I'm not sure of the pagination. My own surmise from recollection, though, is that it's of similar length to a typical work of Flaubert or Anatole France, so c. 250 pp 8vo.) I found that the Queensland (and other Australian) scenes, while brief, added greatly to its verisimilitude and the plausibility of the author's "Demidenko" identity. Trivial details such as the tortured English syntax in "Vic" Kovalenko's Australian letter to Katya at her DP camp (whose errors struck me as highly plausible for a native speaker of a more synthetic language than English that naturally lacks definite articles) were of especial note here. As could be expected of a novel concerning matters so bleak as the Ukrainian Famine or the Holocaust, horror was replete throughout. Her style reminded me most of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness, but bits were redolent of Greene's "Lord of the Flies", Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" and Burgess' "Clockwork Orange" (I'll never hear "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in quite the same light again!) Gerard Henderson penned a fairly tendentious (paywalled:- http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/gerard-henderson/media-watch-dog-latika-bourke-repeats-demidenko-error/news-story/8c655084ac7ca15bc1807dcf1a2ec127) screed decrying various historical inaccuracies, for instance concerning the demographic composition of the Soviet Communist Party's upper echelons. Once one is satisfied that those matters were introduced to represent deeply held character views, though, said inaccuracies don't strike me as germane to a critique of its thrust. Indeed, a Nazi collaborator character who lacks elements of venality, cupidity, duress, shared desire, shared animus, shared ideology or a combination of the above would tend to strain one's credibility.

• Danville gets inside the mind of a monster - a more illuminating novel than other attempts to imagine the Holocaust, say for one example among many Martin amis’ recent book. To revile the book as anti-Semitic i believe after rereading it 20 years later is to miss the point. She was an incredible young talent and it’s tragic the bitter feud over her book seems to have ended her career as a novelist.

• At times bewildering in the narrative, but it is almost like that it is on purpose, it is indeed a story of bewildering times! It does an excellent job of providing insight into how people end up committing unspeakable atrocities, sometimes because the alternative may be even worse. Told through various vantage points and centred around an old Ukrainian man about to face a war crimes court in Australia. It is a story well told, at times harrowing more because of what it doesn't say, depicting the desperation and misery of victims of war we've rarely heard of. I like the "economy" of the writing, everything is there for a reason, nothing superfulous, and look forward to more from this author.

• Tough read about terrible treatment of Ukraine during 1930 collectivisation and then forced involvement in the holocaust after the German invasion.

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