German countryside, she looks to him, hoping he'll tell her he loves her. Instead he tries out a line of newly penned verse: "And high above the world," he says, "on the cold fastness of the Kehlstein, 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. cloying, melodramatic prose. He describes how Hitler's glare swung toward a friend "like a farmer's scythe in wheat," and how Göring wept uncontrollably, like "a planet of grief." But, of course, the primary cause of Mr. Bukiet’s dyspepsia is that one of my characters is Adolf Hitler. I have dared to say that a tyrant, a monster, and evil incarnate was first of all a very ordinary man. In fact, the only thing extraordinary about him was the immensity of his hate.

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

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. 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? portion of the book, as bizarrely comic figures, narcissistic oddballs, whose biggest sins are egomania and self-absorption. Hitler's idea of flirtation is to boast about himself and his destiny, while "Doktor Hitler’s Niece,a novel by Ron Hansen, suggests an answer. Hansen is the author of several other books including Desperadoes,a lucidly deadpan replay of the Wild West, Mariette in Ecstasy,a lyrical portrait of an American saint, and Atticus,a National Book Award nominee. He is an excellent writer, capable of drawing attention to his style when he wishes and letting his narrative speak for itself when need be. He is in command of words and scenes. He has a moral intelligence and a literary curiosity. He cares about letters and he cares about life. Nonetheless, Hitler’s Nieceis a staggeringly misconceived and genuinely atrocious book. 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 his

Springtime for Hitler, in Love With His Niece

She watched his shadow shift shapes on the floor as he crossed to her. She shivered with cold. She felt the feather bed sag with his weight as he sat just beside her. ‘Aren’t you the randy harlot,’ he said with a smile. ‘To try to rush me like that.’

Geli Raubal Historical Fiction - Axis History Forum

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. 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. Roll up, ladeezngentlemen, don’t be shy. Let Ron take you by the hand and lead you step by step closer to Hitler’s very bedroom. Yes! You will see with your own eyes the gorgeous unclothed form of 19 year old Geli – it rhymes with gaily! - in all it's slurplable loveliness; yes! you will see what romping with the future fuhrer is all about. Yes! You will see with your very own eyes - only one dollar one average sized dollar, thankyew - you will see the PENIS of the FUTURE FUHRER! Nobody does it like Hitler! Roll up! Mr. Bukiet condemns me for "relegating the most virulent, violent pathology to a pathetic deviancy." I do not. Rather I point out those aspects of Hitler’s personality–jealousy, treachery, possessiveness, sexual perversity–that would have been immediately obvious and oppressive to his niece. I need to remind the reader that the majority of my novel concerns the years 1927 to 1931. We primarily know Adolf Hitler for the evils that had not yet happened. Geli could not have imagined her uncle, who held no public office and could not even vote, would ever become chancellor of Germany, let alone could she have foreseen the Röhm purge, Kristallnacht,world-wide war, or that six million Jews would be exterminated in the Holocaust. The pathological virulence and violence that Mr. Bukiet wants explained–or does not want; he’s not sure–would have been only hinted at in her uncle’s odious demands on his niece, and that is what I have sought to depict. 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

I was not immediately drawn into this book, thinking “Do I really want to know more about Hitler?��� But I read it in a couple of days. This book is well written plus a lot of things: romance, drama, history, pop-psychology, lifestyles of the rich and famous, mystery. The book is definitely at least R-rated, maybe X if you are timid about these things, but could be made PG-13 with some cutting and airbrushing. Ah, yes, there are the “Unspeakable things” that leave a lot to the imagination. niece to pose for him nude, molests her sexually and compels her to perform degrading acts. " You hate! You destroy!" Hansen's Geli screams at her uncle. "You'll do to Germany just 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? Need and obsessive desire, however, don’t imply love. For love to exist, the lover has to be able to consider, empathize with and fulfill the beloved’s own needs, as a separate individual. Hitler can’t do that. He “loves” his niece like a man who is incapable of real love. His idea of flirtation is bragging incessantly about himself. His idea of “affection” is engaging in perverse and demeaning sexual rituals. His idea of respect for women gives way to a fundamental misogyny and traditionalism that require them to serve him, and his idea of passion is possession and control of the object of his desire. One of the proposed plans for Germany’s national Holocaust Memorial includes a wall of a million books–one for every six dead Jews. I assume that this wall would, in recognition of the culture the ancestors of its builders destroyed, include scholarship and literature from The Talmud to Sholom Aleichem, but that most of its scores of thousands of linear feet of shelf space would be devoted to the Holocaust itself. Indeed, practically no other subject has engendered such a sheer volume of print. Maybe this single event has proved so compelling because it invariably provides more questions than answers. Yet if "who,""when" and "where" are relatively easy to answer, and "what" and "how" have led to exhaustive analyses of the machinery of extermination, by far the most enduring questions begin with "why."

The Human and the Monstrous - Boston Review

that tragically were not the speculative imaginings of a novelist, crimes that have been consigned to the margins of this inept and voyeuristic novel. Oh Geli – meine kleine gehaltenmitgemütlichemkirchenkunsterschwartzeweldekirschtorte, is that a hard or a soft G?” 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. JO:The notion of “Catholic Fiction” is a slippery one---because its representatives can include everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Walker Percy (not to mention everyone from Chaucer to Ron Hansen). Considering the world of difference that exists between Bilbo Baggins and Binx Bolling, though, how do you define this term---“Catholic Fiction”---and how do you understand yourself as a Catholic writer in this mode?who was 19 years his junior) also changes as she grows up. From a watchful father figure he becomes a smarmy suitor and eventually a wildly jealous and possessive warden. displayed in this author's earlier books ("Marietta in Ecstasy,""Nebraska") but also trivializes Hitler's historical crimes by dwelling, pruriently, on his private foibles. had a moist handshake and radiated "a fearsome seething and contempt." Of Hitler his sister observes: "The family always, always underestimated him. No wonder he was so distant."