Amelie Nothomb's Latest

Acide Sulfurique is a book we heard about in Frankfurt, and coincidentally, it’s covered in Cafe Babel.

About a TV-reality show called “Concentration”—as in concentration camps—the book sounds dark and disturbing. Critical reaction was mixed:

‘And the moment finally came when the pain of another was no longer enough: they wanted the spectacle’. So reads the first line of this most unpleasant of novels. The fictional programme ‘Concentration’ basically functions like a concentration camp, except for the fact that every step and emotion of the prisoners is transmitted straight into the living rooms of the gawping general public: barbarism in moving pictures. That which was initially thought of as good by Nothomb – the denunciation of a lecherous perversity of such a spectacle and public depiction of the private – becomes a farce in Sulphuric Acid. The mix of extermination camp and I’m A Celebrity – Get Me Out Of Here! is all too brazen. Sulphuric Acid attempts a comparison which is inevitably doomed to failure, over and above the banality with which it concerns itself.

The book did hit the best-seller lists though, which points to a scary/interesting trend:

Over the past few years, the European book market seems to have one salient recipe for media success: Nazism. Les Bienveillantes (‘The Kindly Ones’, 2006), was a bestseller for American-born Jonathan Littels and swept up many awards in the process. German author Günter Grass’ fall from grace after his secret involvement in the SS was brought to light preceded the publishing of his most recent novel last year, Peeling the Onion (‘Beim Hauten des Zwiebel’, 2006). Nazism sells, indeed.

Not sure quite what to make of that, but it bodes well for the forthcoming Omega Minor.