Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan – A Missed Opportunity

It has certainly been a good summer for Canadian author, Esi Edugyan. At the beginning of July, her latest novel, Half Blood Blues, was dramatised and serialised for BBC Radio 4’s popular late-night programme, Book At Bedtime. This was followed, two weeks later, by the announcement that the book had been longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize. With so much positive buzz abounding, this novel surely wouldn’t disappoint … or would it?

Set in Berlin and Paris in the late 1930s and early 1940s, while occasionally fast-forwarding to the present day, Half Blood Blues tells the story of a group of jazz musicians who, on the brink of stardom, fall foul of the Nazi Party’s laws banning so-called ‘degenerate’ music.

The group, known as Hot Time Blues, is made up of a motley crew of musicians – the novel’s African American narrator, Sid Griffiths and his best friend, Chip Jones, are from Baltimore, while the other band members hail from Germany. The star of the show is undoubtedly 19-year-old Hieronymous Falk, an awesomely talented trumpeter, who has recently come to the attention of jazz legend, Louis Armstrong.

Unfortunately for Hiero, the fact that he was born to an African father and a German mother meant he has been deemed a crossbreed, or Mischling, by the Nazi Party. When Mischlings were rendered ‘stateless’ or non-German in accordance with the Third Reich’s Legal Provisions, Hiero becomes a prime candidate for transportation to the dreaded camps. The book follows Hiero and this group of misfits as they flee Berlin to the relative safety of Paris, where they are due to cut a record with Armstrong. However, France’s capitulation to Germany in 1940 means the Nazis finally catch up with the unlucky Hiero …

Given what we all know about Hitler’s Aryan ideals, it comes as surprise to realise that, despite the vast swathes of material written about this bleak period of history, we know relatively little about the fate of black or mixed race people in the Nazi Fatherland. This novel had the potential to plug this gap in our knowledge … but, unfortunately, it falls short.

Esi Edugyan

Instead of making the black experience in Nazi Germany the focal point of the novel, Edugyan merely skims the surface of this under-examined subject. What should be the novel’s main storyline is relegated to a mere sideshow, as the author instead explores more superficial avenues. Preferring to dwell on themes of unrequited love, jealousy and betrayal, Edugyan squanders a unique opportunity – that is, the opportunity to write an ‘important’ novel on the Afro-German experience during the Third Reich.

'Half Blood Blues' by Esi Edugyan is published by Serpent's Tail

Coco Chanel – Nazi Sympathizer?

Coming just a few months after John Galliano’s spectacular fall from grace as a result of his ill-judged anti-Semitic remarks in a Parisian restaurant, the fashion world has once again been left reeling by a similar controversy, this time involving la grande dame of haute couture, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel.

In his new book, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, author Hal Vaughan puts forward the argument that, not only was the fashion designer ‘fiercely anti-Semitic’, but she was also engaged in some high-level wartime espionage.

Claiming to have used ‘new archive evidence’ in his research, Vaughan insists that Chanel was recruited by the Nazis in 1940, at the age of 57. Identified only by her agent number (F-7124) and her codename (‘Westminster’, after her ex-lover, the Duke of Westminster), the book claims that Chanel travelled to Madrid and Berlin on secret missions with her new lover, the German spy, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage.

 The notion of Chanel being a Nazi sympathizer is not new. Post war, rumours of collusion with the enemy dogged Chanel until her death in 1971. Numerous biographies, including last year’s offering from Justine Picardie, have alluded to these suspicions, but Vaughan’s book is the first to present these rumours as fact.

A spokesperson from Chanel was today quick to dismiss the book, claiming her close friendships with scions of the Jewish community, including the Rothschild family and the photographer Irving Penn, refuted the assertions that Coco Chanel was an anti-Semite.

The life of Coco Chanel has always been shrouded in mystery. Often economical with the truth, Chanel concocted numerous different versions of her life story. A notoriously slippery interviewee, she seemed to revel in the confusion she created for reporters and biographers. So, has Hal Vaughan at last succeeded in unravelling the mystery of Coco Chanel’s life? Well, that remains to be seen. But if his claims prove to be true, it will make life very difficult indeed for the fashion house’s current owners, the Jewish Wertheimer family, and it’s Jewish head designer, Karl Lagerfeld …

'Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War' by Hal Vaughan is published by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Random House. Out now.

A Musical Reconciliation ... of sorts

The Bayreuth Festival, the celebration of all things Wagnerian which takes place every year in the composer’s hometown, marks its 100th anniversary this year. And yesterday, it kicked off in style, with a controversial interpretation of the composer’s opera, Tannhäuser.

This, however, will not be the festival’s main attraction, nor its most contentious. That honour falls to the Israeli Chamber Orchestra who will perform the Siegfried Idyll in the composer’s home town tonight.

The recital will mark the first time Israeli musicians have played a Wagner piece in Germany. Indeed, Israeli opposition to the German composer runs so deep that the orchestra did not even rehearse the piece in their homeland, preferring to wait until the arrived in Germany to begin preparations.

It is hardly surprising that the subject of Richard Wagner is such a highly-charged and emotional issue for the people of Israel. A favourite of Hitler and the Nazi party, the composer’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) was played every year on the opening night of the Nuremberg Rallies. Indeed, Wagner’s music provided the soundtrack to the rise of Third Reich. Used almost exclusively to advance the personality cult of Adolf Hitler, and to mythologize the notion of a heroic German master-race, Richard Wagner, for good or ill, has become indelibly associated with Nazism.

So, while neither the composer nor the people of Israel will ever be wholly free from the spectre of Hitler and Nazism, perhaps tonight’s performance will go some way towards finally laying a painful past to rest.

The Bayreuth Festival continues until August 28th.

Strange ... But True

A single sheet of blank writing paper, with a rather unique provenance, is about to go under the hammer in the United States, with a rather hefty price tag.

The headed paper originates from the Nazi Party headquarters in Berlin and once belonged to none other than Adolf Hitler himself.

The sale is being organized by an auctioneer who specializes in historic military memorabilia and autographs. Described simply as ‘Lot 231’, the Adolf Hitler stationery is said to be in good condition, despite a slight discolouration and two horizontal folds.

This interesting, if somewhat unusual, relic of the villianous Nazi regime is expected to sell for around $150.

http://tinyurl.com/65qjzfg

On This Day ... The Nazis Light the Fires of Hate

Today’s Notable Anniversary continues on the theme of Nazi Germany (see below).

On this day (May 10th) in 1933, the Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Association committed an unforgivable crime against culture and literary heritage. In university towns and cities across Germany, the student arm of the Nazi party carried out book burning ceremonies, reducing 25,000 books deemed to be ‘un-German’ or ‘against the German spirit’ to ash. This purge of literary works was often accompanied by many rousing speeches from Nazi party officials, like this one from the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda himself, Joseph Goebbels.

"You are doing the right thing at this midnight hour—to consign to the flames the unclean spirit of the past…. Out of these ashes the phoenix of a new age will arise…. Oh Century! Oh Science! It is a joy to be alive!"

Joseph Goebbels delivering his speech

The list of works which were deemed ‘un-German’ is lengthy. Books by Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, HG Wells, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Charles Darwin and Marcel Proust, among many others, met a fiery end. Incidentally, German writers were not spared – works by Albert Einstein, Ludwig Renn and the 19th century Jewish-German poet Heinrich Hein, who wrote the prophetic line "Where they burn books, they will also burn people" were also committed to the flames.

Interestingly, in a much less publicized but equally significant way , the Allies were also guilty of large-scale book burning. In 1946, during the de-Nazification of Germany, millions of books and artworks by proponents of the Nazi regime were destroyed. That's not something we hear about very often, is it?

Lest We Forget

“All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing”.

The sentiment expressed in this oft-used phrase forms the basis for Hans Fallada’s extraordinarily moving novel, Alone in Berlin. Published in Germany in 1947 under the title, Every Man Dies Alone (Jeder stirbt für sich allein), it is based on true events.

The novel tells the story of an unassuming, working-class couple, Otto and Anna Quangel who, distraught by the death of the son in the Second World War, begin a campaign of resistance against Hitler and the Nazi party. Their acts of rebellion are small, some would even say insignificant – they write one postcard a week, inciting civil disobedience by denouncing Hitler, the Nazis and the war that killed their son. The postcards, dropped randomly all over Berlin, were intended to be a rallying call, imploring recipients not to blindly succumb to the tyranny of the Nazis. Despite the small-scale nature of Otto and Anna’s revolt, a Gestapo inspector becomes obsessed with tracking them down. He eventually succeeds, and the Quangels pay the ultimate price for their deeds – they are imprisoned, tortured, subjected to a show-trial and eventually executed.

It quickly becomes apparent to the reader, however, that the actual subject of the novel is not Otto and Anna Quangel – the real focus of the book is in fact the Nazi regime, and more precisely, its brutality and effectiveness at suppressing all opposition, however small. The author paints a vivid picture of what life was like for everyday Germans living under Nazi control … and therein lies the novel’s greatest achievement. Fallada masterfully evokes an ominous atmosphere of pervasive anxiety, apprehension and distrust, where ordinary citizens live in abject fear of the Gestapo, and as such are prepared to turn a blind eye to their atrocities. One tends to forget that, quite aside from his crimes against Jews and other elements of society he deemed undesirable, Hitler’s despotism and cruelty was directed at all German citizens – the Führer proved himself to be equally adept at killing his own people as he was at killing Jews.

Alone in Berlin is a story of man’s inhumanity to man. There is no uplifting or redemptive ending, just as there was no uplifting or redemptive ending to the Second World War. The novel is bleak and utterly depressing, and for this very reason it is an absolute must-read … because if we are to learn lessons from history, we must never forget it.

Otto and Elise Hampel, the couple who inspired Alone in Berlin