Zone of Interest
I was reading Martin Amis’s latest book Inside Story (see April’s post) when I realised the degree of interest Amis has for the darkest days of the Nazi regime. The dedication to Zone of Interest includes Primo Levi, Paul Celan, his mother-in-law, daughters and his wife – mentioned after the phrase ‘to the countless significant Jews and quarter-Jews and half-Jews in my past and present’. This close affiliation must be what gave Amis the confidence, and permission, to write about the Holocaust, and to do so from a number of perspectives. While it is seemingly obvious in the subheadings, I read some pages of the first chapter before I realised that the novel was changing viewpoints. The main protagonist is ‘Golo’ Thomsen, an intellectual and privileged SS Officer, a skirt-chaser and ultimately a Romantic who turns against the regime. He survives the war largely due to an uncle who is an out-an-out supporter of Hitler and high up in the ranks. Thomsen nevertheless informs on a colleagu