Remote Sympathy (2022) by Catherine Chidgey

 Book Review

Remote Sympathy (2022)

by Catherine Chidgey

     The Guardian called this is an example of the newish genre of "Holocaust Literature."  I am a fan of the genre- unabashed, in the only the way a solo reader could be- hard to imagine plugging into a community of similar interested readers.  By my making, the foundational text of this genre- which are works of fiction written from the perspective of Nazi's, rather than works of fiction written about the Nazi's where the characters are either victims or onlookers- is The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littrell, published in French in 2006 and reviewed in its English translation by the New York Times in 2009.   The next major work in the genre is HHhH by French prankster Laurent Binet- that book got an English translation in 2010.  Since then there have been more- as witness the 2022 Guardian review of this book, which references it as a genre. 

    Remote Sympathy is itself an impressive achievement in the genre.  Chidgey takes a polyphonic approach- rotating perspectives- the Camp Commandant, who is being interviewed from prison in the 1950's, his cancer-stricken wife, whose voice is conveyed by her "imaginary diary" and Leonard Weber, an eighth-Jewish doctor with unconventional ideas about treating cancer with electricity (which is the source of the title).  Hahn, the camp commandant at Buchenwald, which was the concentration camp the Nazi's put in Weimar, reads about Weber's abandoned research, and has him transferred from the Eastern front to Buchenwald in order that he may treat Hahn's wife. 

   Chidgey stops well short of Littrell's relentless lack of humanity and is no where near as funny/clever as Binet (who is?) but I did find Remote Sympathy a compelling entry on the Holocaust Literature shelf.  Be warned- it clocks in at over 500 pages so it is not a light read.