H (is anyone getting notifications) Balikov's Reviews > The Memory Monster

There are several reasons why this book isn’t an “easy read.”

"I’d often asked myself if I would have been able to handle the awful chores of extermination (removing corpses from gas chambers, cleaning the chambers after each round, pulling teeth, setting bodies on fire, grounding large bones, etc.), thus extending my life a bit longer. The memories of survivors show that most of the Sonderkommando people had adapted to the work, and the rate of suicide among their ranks was low. I therefore concluded that I would have adjusted."

This is a novel about the holocaust that took place in Europe circa 1930s-1940s. It is told in the format of a long letter from an un-named man to another man who was (at times) his supervisory academic. It follows the former’s career from his early decision to focus on this subject matter as a doctoral thesis to his work in the decades that follow.
The subject matter is laid out in great and graphic details.
The writer is neither very appealing or sympathetic and his choices are often puzzling or distasteful.

Is this a great read?
I would not have chosen this book on my own. I could not read it except in small gulps. If it weren’t for a book discussion group, I might not have finished it.

Am I a better person for having absorbed all the details of the Nazi death camps provided by the author? Having been to a number of sites in Europe, I am not sure that this additional information was essential to my perspective on what took place and why it took place. There is a “never again” subtext that creates its own disturbances.

I believe that the discussion will be more interesting than the book, and I will update this review after it takes place.