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Hitler's Niece: A Novel

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Ron Hansen:Both Johns provided models of how one sanely lives a writer’s life. Both were very opinionated but tolerant of and even interested in differing points of view. Both wrote literary fiction that was also commercially viable. Something I’ve endeavored to do without comparable success. John Irving began as my teacher but became very much like an older brother to me. And perhaps above all, both so extravagantly praised my writing that I was encouraged to persevere. Mine rhymes with whittler which is an English word meaning one who complains a great deal. But you can call me Uncle Adolph.” It is fiction which included many interesting, bizarre facts about Hitler, the hyptonic affect he had on people, the psychotic group of misfits with whom he surrounded himself, and the fact that he could have actually been the one to murder his niece who was supposedly the only woman he really loved. The report said that she committed suicide but there's also reason to believe otherwise. In rating Hitler’s Niece I’m not going to wimp out with “It started out a two stars but ended up a four so I am giving it a three.” For me it really was a four star book most of the time. But I am still going to put it out on Bookswap where it might just pop up for someone else who is not sure about more Hitler. GR worked for me this time; I would never have heard of this book without GRs. Hello? are you asleep yet? I nearly was. As you see, this stuff could have been cut and pasted from some really dull textbook. And there’s much more… but I’ll spare you. It’s not like this is stuff you need to know to understand what’s going off in the life of Adolph, it’s all just noises off, and anyone with the merest grasp of German inter-war history can do without Ron’s history lectures.

Hitlers Niece, First Edition - AbeBooks Hitlers Niece, First Edition - AbeBooks

I read Hitler's Niece when it came out a few years ago, and I thought it was pretty dry. Much of it sounded like the author was repeating what he had read in history books; he didn't dramatize the situations well. He did have one bit of dialogue that I found clever and memorable, but the rest of the book was pretty boring -- and this is coming from someone with a very high interest in Geli's life! Ron Hansen chose to explain Geli's death in his novel by having Hitler murder her. That's OK, given that this is fiction, but I don't think he did a good job of explaining Hitler's motivation to kill her. Hansen also had some really silly scenes, such as one where Goebbels reads to Geli right out of his diary. JO:How do you decide what you want to write about? Where does inspiration come from? Have you ever started a work only to find out that it is either impossible to finish or, upon delving deeper, it starts heading in a direction you weren't planning for? JO:Do you have a regular writing schedule? What are some good practical ways to encourage such a schedule for young writers? Ernest Hemingway had two famous bits of advice for budding writers—“Write about what you know and keep it simple.” Is there any sort of advice that you give young writers regarding what makes a successful writer?

Many if not all these books are now a fixed and vital part of the Catholic literary landscape. So popular and important is Hansen as a writer that it’s fair to say that for many budding Catholic writers, Hansen titles invariably share shelf space with Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Spark, O’Connor, Percy and theother usual suspects. Well, the main event in this novel is the grisly pas-de-deux of young Geli and the not-quite-fuhrer-yet. There’s a strong and profoundly unhealthy titillation of the reader going on here, of dripping prurience, a literary leer in lederhosen. This evolving relationship between Geli and her uncle is laid out by Hansen in clumsy, stage-managed scenes. He lards his narrative with awkward exposition detailing Hitler's political machinations and he resorts to increasingly

The Human and the Monstrous - Boston Review

In the end though Geli at the young age of twenty three commits suicide however the author gives a very graphic view that it was Hitler who had killed her and not Geli herself. We then get to read just how far the Nazis are willing to go to cover up this scandal and protect there Fuhur and the Nazi Party. The book also gives a very good insight into the mantipilative, hard boiled mind of Adolf Hitler. Fortunately for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Nebraska-born and Catholic-raised novelist Ron Hansen dismissed reports on the death of Catholic fiction as greatly exaggerated.

Hitler's Niece by Ron Hansen is a historical fiction novel following the life of Angelika Marie Raubal known as "Geli," the niece of Adolf Hitler who was found dead in Hitler's apartment in 1931 when she was only twenty-three-years old. Worst of all, what are the implications of this tawdry mess? Though Hansen surely condemns evil, his quest for the "real" Hitler unavoidably diminishes evil. Relegating the most virulent, violent pathology to a pathetic deviancy is too trite, and infinitely too meager. For all I know–and Hansen has done more research than this reviewer–these internal dynamics might have been part of Hitler’s psyche, but in emphasizing them the author implies that they are meaningful. Psychology is the bane of the contemporary novel, because it cares more about motives than actions or results. "Understanding" the incomprehensible is the first step to accepting the unacceptable. Hitler was, above all, what he did. Why he did it is irrelevant. In a recent interview with Mr. Hansen, Dappled Thingshad a chance to speak with the novelist about his work, its connection to his faith and to his vocation as husband and man of the cloth (he was ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2007), and his thoughts on the art of fiction in general. RH:I have had some lousy ideas for novels but gradually as I talk about them to friends it becomes clear that I ought to abandon them and start over. Some people, of course, may think I've gone ahead and published some of my lousy ideas, but each seemed good and necessary to me. Basically an idea lodges in your head, gets competition from other ideas over the years, but ultimately commands my full attention. I try not to psychoanalyze my choices of subject matter. I can’t recall ever having a plot that headed in a surprising direction, probably because I stew over the whole shebang before I begin. RH:“Write about what you know” is a pernicious recipe for dreary and unimaginative autobiographical fiction unless “know” means what you've learned through reading or other investigation. Although my own experiences color much of my writing, there’s little of my own life in the topics I choose. A good deal of Jim Shepard’s and my wife’s fiction is the product of research as well. I look for beauty of language in what I read so Hemingway’s urge for simplicity is also problematic, though especially in his finest stories there’s a rhythmic lyricism in his very plain style. My favorite piece of advice for beginning writers comes from John Gardner, that you should write the fiction you like to read. We immediately recognize phoniness or when a writer’s heart isn't in the material.

Hitlers Niece by Ron Hansen | Goodreads Hitlers Niece by Ron Hansen | Goodreads

death did not derail her uncle's rise to political power. Hitler would not die for another 14 years, when he committed suicide in his bunker below the garden of the Reich chancellery in Berlin. In what amounts to a highly speculative extrapolation of existing evidence and historical gossip, Hansen portrays Hitler forcing Geli to engage in kinky, incestuous sex. He gives us graphic scenes in which Hitler commands hisAs the novel progresses, Hansen's Hitler inexplicably metamorphosizes from an awkward, self-conscious outsider into a charismatic politician, sought after by women, and worshiped by colleagues. His relationship with Geli Another Ron, Ron Rosenbaum, wrote a great book called Explaining Hitler which includes an extraordinary interview with Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah. The irascible Frenchman launches into an apoplectic tirade about Hitler’s baby photos. These photos are an obscenity, he says. They should never have been published. All this analysis of Hitler’s life, his mind, his soul, it’s an abomination. Because psychohistory is a figleaf for revisionism. To explain is to understand is to justify. All right, so, don’t be giving Claude a copy of Hitler’s Niece for his birthday present. Because all the gruesome human Hitlers you’ve been previously spared are here! Look - jolly Hitler, jumping Hitler, jesting Hitler, joyful Hitler, happy Hitler, playful Hitler, cringing Hitler, oh no, surely not, no, he wouldn’t, yes yes it’s true - masturbating Hitler. They’re all here. Roll up. JO:Incidentally, have you ever thought about writing a novel about either St. Ephrem or St. Philip the Deacon, two famous deacons of the early Church? The preponderance of Ron Hansen novels are built around a historical framework— Hitler’s Niece, Exiles, the Westerns, your newest, A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion—and even Mariette in Ecstasyis given a concrete historical context—turn of the century, northern New York, etc. What draws you to history as a subject for fiction? Why are you so fascinated with history? Do you define yourself as a “historical novelist”? What distinguishes what you do from historical fiction? Later we’ll witness Hitler’s idea of love, but in the meanwhile we read in a state of queasy disbelief as the "man of destiny" gropes his niece who counts the number of times he’s reached second base. This is simultaneously prurient and grossly trivializing, as if history might have been different if only Hitler wasn’t sexually frustrated.

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