{"id":282296,"date":"2011-02-22T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/02\/22\/a-jew-must-die-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:24:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:24:54","slug":"a-jew-must-die-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/02\/22\/a-jew-must-die-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/","title":{"rendered":"A Jew Must Die [Why This Book Should Win the BTBA]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA<\/span> Fiction Longlist<\/a> over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, some more serious, some very funny, a lot written by people who normally don\u2019t contribute to Three Percent. Overall, the point is to have some fun and give you a bunch of reasons as to why you should read at least a few of the BTBA<\/span> titles.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for all past and future posts.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Jew Must Die<\/em><\/b> by Jacques Chessex, translated by W. Donald Wilson<\/p>\n

Language:<\/b> French
\nCountry:<\/b> Switzerland
\nPublisher:<\/b> Bitter Lemon
\nPages:<\/b> 92<\/p>\n

Why This Book Should Win:<\/b> Second Chessex book to make the longlist in two years; Switzerland deserves some play; maybe the most accessible and gripping of the longlisted titles; people love WWII<\/span>-related novels; title is one of the more disturbing of eligible books this year.<\/p>\n

I wrote today\u2019s post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Orthofer turned me on to Jacques Chessex last year when he recommended The Vampire of Ropraz<\/em> for the BTBA<\/span> longlist. I tend to avoid \u201cthose\u201d sorts of books\u2014the crime-related ones, the ones with vampires in the title, the books that sound like they could be gory. But Michael is a sharp reader, and I have to admit that Ropraz<\/em> took me by surprise and totally won me over.<\/p>\n

When Bitter Lemon sent along a copy of A Jew Must Die<\/em> a few months back, I fell into my same old prejudices: the title is a bit off-putting, the cover a little less than appealing, it\u2019s about World War II (sorry, but \/yawn), there is a murder involving an iron bar, etc., etc.<\/p>\n

But, once again, I totally sucked at evaluating the greatness of this book. Once the BTBA<\/span> committee picked it for the longlist, I decided that I really should read it (I\u2019m working my way through all 25 title, and will hopefully finish all of them before the winner is announced), and once again, I was captivated.<\/p>\n

It only took an hour to read this novella, which is perfect, since this is essentially a written version of a Dateline<\/em> episode set in 1942 . . . Seriously. Just listen to the voice over<\/del> narration of a few key moments:<\/p>\n

Arthur Bloch usually covers the short distance between Monbijoustrasse and the railway station on foot, stepping out to the rhythmic tap of his stick. He gets into the first train to La Broye, which reaches Payerne via Avenches. He likes this ninety-minute trip through the stretches of meadows and valleys still filled with mist in the early-morning light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arrival in Payerne at 6:18. Chestnuts in bloom, silken hills, bright weather, all the more beautiful since threatened from within and without. But Arthur Bloch is unaware of the danger. Arthur Bloch does not sense it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Almost the whole book has this same sort of omniscient distancing that causes this to read like a news report. Which makes this even more compelling, and avoids a lot of the trappings of writing a book about a horrific Nazi crime. Characterization is spotty, so we don\u2019t have to experience the cognitive dissonance of empathizing with a fucking monster. Bloch\u2019s death is told in direct, unadorned facts, which both keep the narrative from becoming too melodramatic and create a very creepy vibe.<\/p>\n

A Jew Must Die<\/em> is a horrifying book about a horrifying crime committed by horrifying people. And for all the books about this sort of thing that have been written, this one manages to distill the horror into something direct that will remain in my memory for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA Fiction Longlist over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[38426,37866,26216,37856,3426,25746,25766,25776,37876],"class_list":["post-282296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-a-jew-must-die","tag-best-translated-book","tag-bitter-lemon","tag-btba-2011","tag-french-literature","tag-jacques-chessex","tag-swiss-literature","tag-w-donald-wilson","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397482,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282296\/revisions\/397482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}