The Memory Monster
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINGATE PRIZE 2022
A HISTORY TODAY BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
'A brilliant short novel that serves as a brave, sharp-toothed brief against letting the past devour the present' The New York Times
'Excels in its readiness to court controversy without surrendering nuance, and in place of moralising it offers questioning that's as necessary as it is unsettling.' Observer
Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, the unnamed narrator of The Memory Monster recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination, guiding tours through the death camps. The job becomes a mission, and then a dangerous obsession.
With great perspicuity and the bitterest black humour, The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honour the suffering of our forebears without becoming consumed by it?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this scathing, ruminative tale of a historian turned guide to concentration camps, Sharid (The Third) considers the way Israel deals with the Holocaust. The unnamed narrator leaves his family behind for months at a time to lead tours for Israeli high school students, soldiers, and dignitaries at concentration camps in Poland. Poland is shabby and depressing, but Auschwitz, he says, always impresses: "The branding does its job." The narrator's story is framed as a letter to his boss about an incident he was involved in during a tour, when he punched a guest, and the letter becomes a record of a breakdown, an impassioned consideration of memory and its risks, and a critique of Israel's use of the Holocaust to shape national identity. Why, he wonders, do he and the students find themselves admiring the Nazis? Why is it so easy to scapegoat the Polish no heroes, certainly, but not the masterminds either? And why do the students wrap themselves in Israeli flags and sing the national anthem at Auschwitz? The narrator turns over these questions as family responsibilities pull him back to Israel. Sharid's unrelenting examination of how narratives of the Holocaust are shaped makes for much more than the average confessional tale.
