{"id":30840,"date":"2020-01-28T21:58:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T20:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=30840"},"modified":"2022-09-25T16:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-25T14:17:50","slug":"schmock-fog-tells-us-about-dhitlers-flatulence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/schmock-fog-tells-us-about-dhitlers-flatulence\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abThe Schmock: FOG talks about Hitler's flatulence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday books - Loris S. Musumeci<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it weren't for the book jacket with its little kneeling Hitler doll, if it weren't for the name of the author, Franz-Olivier Giesbert - FOG to his friends -, The Schmock<\/em> wouldn't appeal at first glance. Another novel about the Second World War period, in Nazi Germany no less. But if you like FOG, you'll go for it anyway. All the more so as he announces on the back cover that he's been brooding over this story for a long time. The author has something important to tell us. A story of friendship, family and politics; Visit<\/em> Schmock<\/em> is sharing. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Heil Hitler, I want a banana<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A sharing that gets off to a very bad start. We know that the writer handles derision and, above all, self-mockery with talent. We know he's sympathetic, offbeat, but rigorous. He doesn't write just to write. Following a mysterious, sensual prologue featuring the unlikely union between a Nazi officer and a Jewish fugitive, the novel jumps to 2018. Between Munich and New York, we meet two old men, one of whom holds the record for being the world's oldest man. Two zany, extroverted old men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funny, but you don't know where the plot is going. When an old parrot shouts \u00abCuckoo, senorita, Nichte salutes you well, come closer so I can kiss you, heil Hitler, I want a banana, God is not with the SS, amen\u00bb, we inevitably laugh, recognizing FOG's lightness. But after a few pages of the same kind, it's all too much. A heap of nonsense that leaves only one expression on the reader's face after a short-lived laugh: disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well-written, fluid, but catastrophic in terms of content. The massacre lasts sixty-four long pages. And as if the author had premeditated the limits of his reader's patience, he then gets down to business. At the cost of losing some readers along the way, FOG has in fact accomplished a major act in literature, that of pleasing himself. Perhaps he even wrote the first part under the influence of drink, the tastes and virtues of which he is known to appreciate - and rightly so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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