Historical
Some books need more care than others, and this is one of them.
What stays with me is how seriously it treats the fantastic as a critical lens, not a bit of decorative sparkle bolted onto grim subject matter because someone fancied being clever. That would have been unbearable. Instead, it asks proper questions about what fantasy and the Holocaust can do on the page and on film, and where the limits are.
Not easy reading, obviously. It isn’t meant to be. But it’s the kind of criticism that earns its subject.
What stays with me is how seriously it treats the fantastic as a critical lens, not a bit of decorative sparkle bolted onto grim subject matter because someone fancied being clever. That would have been unbearable. Instead, it asks proper questions about what fantasy and the Holocaust can do on the page and on film, and where the limits are.
Not easy reading, obviously. It isn’t meant to be. But it’s the kind of criticism that earns its subject.
It’s one of those books that reminds you criticism can be bracing rather than tidy. The subject demands a certain seriousness, but the essays don’t feel like they’re trying to sand down the difficulty into something more comfortable.
What I remember most is the refusal to treat “the fantastic” as a gimmick. That matters. With material like this, gimmickry would feel not just lazy but vulgar.
What I remember most is the refusal to treat “the fantastic” as a gimmick. That matters. With material like this, gimmickry would feel not just lazy but vulgar.
That kind of subject matter makes me wary of any criticism that sounds too tidy. The interesting bit here is probably the friction: when the fantastic clarifies something, and when it starts to blur or protect. Not every use of fantasy in Holocaust writing will be defensible just because it’s serious. Seriousness is a low bar, annoyingly.