Customer Reviews

The Good German

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Joseph Kanon's The Good German is a well done, muliti-genred (if that's a word) piece which I found quite interesting. I don't normally read spy thrillers, but the New York Times' review was so glowing, I couldn't resist. I wasn't disappointed. The Good German is part spy thriller, part love story, part historical fiction. It is the story of Jack Geismar, a reporter, returning to post-WWII Berlin in search of the woman he loved before the war. He finds much more than that. An American soldier is murdered in the Russian controlled section of Berlin. Something strikes Jack as simply not right in the story and he tries to get solve the riddle of the murder. Kanon's exploration of Berlin focuses very well on the nuances and grey areas in war, and in particular WWII in Germany. There really aren't many "good" Germans in this novel, just people who were trying to survuve any way they could. Kanon is superb at bringing to light how the presence of the Nazi's clouded good and bad, so that good people did horrible things for seemingly "good" reasons. Or were these good people, were they good reasons? Kanon gives us no clear answer. The Good German is satisfyingly thought provoking in that respect. My few quibbles with the novel are the number of amazing coincidences (which may be standard in the spy thriller, I don't know) and at times the pacing gets a little bogged down. Other than that, The Good German is an enjoyable, well done novel.

I read this book in two sittings and only because I'm too old to stay up ALL night and still be productive the next day. That is to say, this is one exciting read -- I even blocked out my fear of flying as I zoned in on the absorbing story during my recent flight. I enjoyed Los Alamos, but I'm happy to say that Kanon has continued to develop as a writer -- this book is by far his best yet. Kanon does a masterful job portraying post-war Berlin around the time of the Potsdam conference and all the intrigue, scientist-chasing and frenetic behavior during the last days of the Nazi regime. I don't know if Kanon meant to tip his hat to Hemingway's Jake Barnes, but I found his Jake to be an extremely well drawn portrait of our hero-journalist. The pacing is excellent, the dialogue credible and the plot absolutely mind bending. In terms of genre, I'd put this between Le Carre, Folliet, Clancy combining the best elements. Ultimately, Kanon outdoes them all for just plain good writing. My head is still spinning from the labyrintine plot -- read this one with a friend so you can compare notes. If I could even find a small quibble, I'd say the fortune telling scene was a bit over the top and perhaps Jake's original motivation to pursue a murder mystery once he found Lena, but I was very willing to suspend any disbelief. The Good German succeeds on every level (also a very touching love story) and is already one of my very favorites from this year. Superb reading from one of the best writers out there -- don't miss it.

As others have said, The Good German is a blend of historical fiction, a spy-thriller and romance. When I began reading it, I worried that one of these elements would simply be used as a ploy to interest us in an otherwise unremarkable novel. It would be easy to cloak a run-of-the-mill love story or spy-thriller in such a dramatic historical setting. Kanon, however, never abuses this history. In fact, the moral dilemmas of WWII are at the center of this book, examined both in the broad context of the broken environment as well as the specific context of the character's relationships.

Kanon refuses to provide simple answers to the atrocities of WWII. While the twists and turns of the plot had me turning the pages, threaded throughout is the question, "How could the Germans do it?" Kanon's exploration of this question, placed within such a vivid recreation of post-war Berlin, led me to set the book down on numerous occasions, lost sometimes in thought and sometimes in despair.

The romance felt a little more forced than other scenes, sometimes being a little boring or even annoying. Kanon is tracing an important story with the romance, illustrating the distance we must go to understand the lives of Germans under the Nazis, but in the telling it fell flat. He certainly has moments, but often it seems the couple is just tracing the same ground with seemingly no development.

But this is a minor gripe in what is a heavy novel. Kanon doesn't back away from the gritty details or the inch-by-inch compromises humans make with evil, and he doesn't leave the reader to point fingers either. In wrapping such unrelenting dilemmas in such weighted circumstances, Kanon has succeeded in writing a good story- an important story.

Kanon's The Good German has a slow start - designed to immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the Berlin of the early post-war months. It is July 1945, the time of the Potsdam Conference. Kanon' s ability to take you virtually by the hand and to lead you through a place is exemplary. Here, it is particularly dramatic: ruins, bombed out houses, roads blocked by rubble, empty spaces where, before, Berliners had lived - and where the protagonist himself had lived as a journalist. Jake Geismar, supposedly reporting on the Conference, is really in Berlin fulfilling a promise, a quest. Kanon's portrayal of Berlin is accurate - based on visits to the modern Berlin and his in depth research of the Berlin at the end of WWII and the changes since then. You could easily use it as a tour guide of a different kind.

But of course, Berlin of 1945 is not the story. The story of the returning US journalist and his German girlfriend leads the reader like a red thread through the book. Her family is mixed in with the plot. The description of day-to-day life in difficult times gives the story reality and perspective. People do a lot just for a package of cigarettes.

Jake's search for his love of the happier pre-war days through the ruins, the alleyways, is becoming increasingly desperate. Is she still alive? Where would she be? Finding an individual in those early post-war months in Germany was almost impossible; no records were available, the houses where they had lived often destroyed and no forwarding address - unless you were really lucky.

The story unfolds slowly at first, a hushed-up murder, and several dead-end leads. But things turn out to be a lot more complex as you go: more deaths and threats, intrigue and false allies. And the tension grows. It is a thriller after all: a thriller with political messages as well as interesting character developments. In addition to Jake, the protagonist, and Lena, his girlfriend, we meet intriguing characters, in particular among the Germans. While the Russians dismantled factories, taking home whatever technology they could find, a special team from the US's occupying forces were rounding up the scientists and experts who designed the technology in the first place. The Russians realized the problem and tried to get in on the act. Would it work? So, who is the Good German?

The events around the Potsdam Conference provide a useful backdrop. It fits the story well to observe the increasing tension between US and Soviet soldiers who easily turn to an exchange of gunfire to mask more sinister intentions. The context is the beginnings of the next war (the Cold War), at least in the minds of some US officials and military.

Kanon's book is in a category of its own. More than a thriller and more than a romantic story, it is a skillfully put together account of a complex situation in a difficult moment of time. It is successful as "a good read" and as a chronicle of events that gives the reader food for thought and reflection.

Jospeh Kanon is rapidly establishing himself as the master of the historical thriller. "The Good German" is his 3rd entrant in that genre, following "Los Alamos" and "The Prodigal Spy." Simply stated, Kanon's 3rd book is his 2nd best -- nearly as good as "Los Alamos," but not quite. The book is set in Berlin, 1945, at the time of the Potsdam conference. At times the action seems a bit forced and in other places the plot drags a bit ... but not much; I quibble, suggesting only that it does not quite match "Los Alamos," a truly superb book. "The Good German" still is riveting. You actually care what happens to the main players in the drama, focused on Jake Geismar, the protagonist, a war-weary correspondent seeking both (1) to solve a murder mystery involving a Russian general, a jaded old German cop, and some American occupiers of dubious morality, and (2) to resolve an old romantic triangle with Lena, his pre-war lover, and Emil, her mathematician husband who worked for the Nazis. What is true, what is moral, who is responsible for what ... big questions lurk under, or at, the surface throughout. This book captures the horror of war in general and of the Holocaust in particular. You see how regular people react to the unimaginable; the picture is often not pretty -- but you feel that the images of life, death, love, revenge, greed and more that you take away are real. Definitely read this book.

I read a lot of books as I sure most who post on here do. I have never written a review before but felt compelled after seeing the number of 4 and 5 star ratings on this book. I was aghast to say the least and my faith in Amazon ratings took a big hit. I too had high hopes for this...the setting, the nice maps at the start, the undeniable moral and human dilemmas to be explored. To his credit Kanon does explore these issues in some depth. But it is wrapped in an absurdly convoluted plot, a love story with no conviction whatsoever and dialog that is mostly an aggravation. There is little if any reflection or thought by the characters it is just endless blah, blah, blah. I still have no idea why Jake loved this woman or why she him. Or why he cared about the fate of Tully so much. The book is way too long, the plot twists mostly lame, contrived or confusing. But in the end I just didn't care what happened to any of them. I was just so glad I got this at a yard sale for 25 cents...that was what it was worth in the end.

This book takes place in Berlin 1945 and mostly is about the devastation, the beginning of the cold war, and the hero's bafflement that it could all have happened. A murder, which ultimately turns out to have political connections, is interspersed, and held my interest, but the murder is really subsidiary to the philosophical questions -- who, if anyone, is a "good" german? or for that matter, a "good" american or russian?
I loved this book for its character development and thoughtfulness. If, however, you read mysteries primarily for action, this one is not for you.

This could have been a great novel. The setting is interesting and fresh. The execution, however, is so heavy-handed and cliched. All of the characters are stock, one-dimensional stereotypes. The dialog is particularly tedious, with every character sounding the same, speaking in tired old chestnuts and chattering about the plot. As well, much of the dialog is repetitive, with the characters saying the same thing multiple times.

The book really begins to fall apart in the second half. Many of the scenes are nothing more than characters recapping the increasingly convoluted plot. And just to make sure you don't miss the point, the hypocrisy of certain characters is driven home over and over again.

By the end of the book, the uninteresting plot has become so twisted and convoluted that the central character has to recap the twists and turns for another character in the penultimate chapter.

The only interesting element of this book is "the greifer" subplot. That, however, seems almost entirely distilled from Peter Wyden's excellent biography "Stella," about a real greifer, so that it's hardly original or noteworthy. Some of the "catcher" scenes in Kanon's novel come straight out of Wyden's book.

"The Good German", by Joseph Kanon can be categorized by placement in a variety of genres, Thriller, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Love Story, and more. The work is certainly all of these, however I believe much more important is the study of twelve years of human behavior, presented within the context of events primarily following the close of The European phase of World War Two. I don't know that any other conflict has generated more literature than the one symbolized by the swastika, the word Holocaust, and the unprecedented Crimes Against Humanity Trials at Nuremberg. Superficially, the evil of the war is routinely placed with great ease. Even at this level it is hard to take issue with placing the blame on a man, the party he created, and the nation that joined that party, served in the SS, and made the crimes that took place possible. What happened when the fighting stopped, when the shooting war with The Axis ended, and the Cold War with The Soviet Union began? The latter had really begun prior to the first one ending.

The shades of gray that dominated the conduct of The Allies immediately following the end of hostilities, and the repercussions that would follow for decades, is brilliantly set side by side with conduct during the war. Mr. Kanon never minimizes any of the horror that took place; he questions none of the atrocities that were committed. He does bring post-war reality to his tale that cannot be said to match the actions of The Third Reich; he does however absolutely portray conduct on all sides, which traditional history would rather marginalize. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and while there were episodes of good versus evil, and events that were black and white, inconvenient shades of gray were everywhere.

Without exception all of the players in this book are guilty of some form of aberrant behavior, which outside of the circumstance of war would never be questioned as wrong. However when placed within the context of World War Two, which was unique for the range and intensity of the evil it spread, do the judgments and answers remain so clear?

A person is put on trial at war's end for collaborating with The Nazi SS; let us say the person facilitated the capture of Jews for transportation to death camps. The jury would probably not spend a great deal of time deliberating this example. Same example with a bit more detail, the person is a Jew who was given the option of pointing out other Jews in exchange for their life and the lives of their family. This offer comes after the ritual sadism of a SS interrogation. How many family members would choose death for themselves and their family? What would the readers of this book choose given the alternatives?

It is true that Nuremberg placed on trial and executed or imprisoned what could be referred to as the, "Marquis Players", of The Third Reich. Nice and neat, black and white. At war's end there were brilliant scientists that lead the world in rocketry, aircraft design, and a host of other sciences. If they had been placed on trial persons like Werner Van Braun would not have been working for NASA, he very likely would have been dead, or would have been in Spandau Prison. The Scenario that was viewed with more trepidation was these truly gifted minds would spend years on Soviet soil advancing Soviet capabilities, and that was not viewed as a risk worth taking. The result was each country that could, rounded up as many of these scientists as possible, together with their papers and families, we gathered ours and brought them to the US. Viewed as a strictly pragmatic choice, the decision to utilize these people with disregard for their wartime activities can be defended with ease. The defense also requires that ethics, morality, humanity, call it what you will, must be tossed over the side like so much ballast on a sinking ship. The selective enforcement of justice and the contortions of logic that these decisions demand, are the core of this work. The presentation is little short of brilliant.

Replace the word German in the title with person, and you are much closer to the core of this book. Right and wrong is defined on a case-by-case basis, and is infinitely fluid. What Mr. Kanon has done is brought this conduct to bear on every level. Twisted decisions are as much a part of personal relationships as they are at the conference table at Potsdam. Deception is as routine between family members as it is with Stalin and whomever he speaks with. Every decision is reduced to only having to be justified for the moment it is contemplated. Once made, the past is shunted aside, and the future is clean. This expediency is as flawed long-term as it is without justification when made. The love story aspect is riddled with deception, crime, and repugnance. Yet you will likely be hoping for a happy ending for two of the participants. Take the same event out of the context of post World War Two Berlin, and the sympathy dissolves.

Joseph Kanon has written a remarkable book that deals with one of the darkest periods of human behavior. He does this without rancor, without preaching, without offering only two colors to place each decision in. To write such a work not only pays tribute to the mind of the author, but also the adroitness with which he presents very real moral labyrinths. I found myself at once wishing this was a pure scholarly history book, and at the same moments being pleased with the novel form the author chose. His format allows for more dispassionate reasoned contemplation because it is a novel, and not a heavily footnoted documentary. Either method would likely bring the reader to the same end, however Mr. Kanon's is much more user-friendly.

This resonant tale of love among the ruins is the best yet from Kanon, who takes what is often a tired form -- the historical thriller -- and charges it with new moral intensity. The plot keeps the pages turning with all the speed you'd want from a thriller. But at heart the book is a darkly glittering meditation on civic and personal responsibility.

Kanon's ear for period dialogue seems faultless, and his feel for postwar Berlin with its moonscape of collapsed buildings is an imaginative triumph. Jake Geismar, the book's journalist protagonist, is a period piece himself - tough, principled and yet tender (think Bogart). His lover Lena, who has experienced the full cruelty of life in bombed and occupied Berlin, is the complex European to this brash American. The plot is fleshed out with vivid supporting characters -- a business-minded American congressman with dubious priorities, an attractive Jewish Berliner who survives the war by turning in fellow Jews, an American lawyer who buries himself in reams of Nazi record-keeping in what appears to be a lonely mission to bring Nazis to justice, a black marketeer ex-policeman.

The reverberations of September 11th give added richness to this story of life trying to knit itself back together after catastrophe. It's a continuously engaging book, but into its many bright colors are woven the dark threads of evil which more than ever seem part of the fabric of human life.