Volume 47, Number 16 · October 19, 2000
Death on the Installment Plan
By John Weightman
The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach
by Alice Kaplan
University of Chicago Press, 308 pp., $25.00
The Collaborator is a well-researched and vivid account of a controversial trial which took place in 1945, at the end of the German occupation of Paris. I have, however, an initial quibble about the title. The definite article in The Collaborator gives Robert Brasillach too general an importance, as if he were an archetypal case, like the Norwegian, Quisling, whose name became a common noun meaning 'traitor.' Brasillach was an odd individual. Before 1939, he was a writer, mainly known as a literary critic and a minor novelist. Since his political sympathies were with the Action Française, he also wrote articles in the right-wing press, using the violently pugnacious style which was fashionable at that time with both reactionary polemicists and their most vociferous opponents, the left-wing anarchists. But he was neither a practical political activist nor a serious political thinker.
Review, 1827 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |