AUTHOR ESSAY

The best teacher I ever had was a philosopher-historian named Hans Meyerhoff. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at noon, he held forth on "Existentialism in Literature" in the largest hall on the UCLA campus. People would pack the room, sit on the stairs, eat lunch standing at the back, to hear this man. Each week he would begin a new book. He would stride across the stage to the lectern, slowly reach down and pull the book from his briefcase, open the book decisively in front of him, and say, in a thick German accent,

"Vhat does ziss book show?" 

With this question, he taught me how to read. “Vhat does ziss book show?” is one of only three things in all my schooling (other than typing class in Junior High School) that I have found valuable as an adult.

Language

My first thought was to write a novel about the pathologies of contemporary language, awash in “free-floating signifiers” where “security” means permanent war, “clear skies” means pollution, and “tax relief,” impoverishing the public.  Poor Arnold would find himself suffering from the implacable irrationality called up by his name. His “But I’m not Adolf — I’m Arnold! He’s dead. I’m someone else. Get real,” just doesn’t seem to cut it. 

I ask you: Why not? Is the world hopelessly insane, or is there good reason for such stubborn reaction?  The obvious implication is that there are other instances, more general than Arnold’s, in which similar confusions and subsequent complications occur. It might be profitable to ask “Vhat does ziss book show?” about corrupt and distortive uses of language.

Bildungs- and Unbildungsroman

But while I’m certain there may be folks out there who would love to read a novel about semiotics, I’m also certain that they are few. Besides, when one sits down to write fiction, the characters take over, with all their problems and relationships. And so the book soon became not “about semiotics,” but the story of Arnold, a really nice guy with a really awful name, someone afflicted with semiotics — as are we all, but he more personally.

There is in German literature, the tradition of the Bildungsroman, the novel of education: After confusions and false starts in childhood, a character learns the way of the world, and develops into a mature and understanding human being. 

Learning to cope often means learning to deal with ill-luck and evil.

The Education of Arnold Hitler did not always have a (possibly) happy ending. Its first version began with Arnold’s burnt body in his bunker, and flashed back to the story that had brought him to that lamentable condition. My notion was not only of a Bildungsroman, but also of an Unbildungsroman — the formation and the destruction of a promising human life in an unequal match with evil.  

My editor and I both sensed that the awfulness was somewhat excessive, alienatingly so, and I began to play with the idea of a happy ending. I found it more interesting, and no more improbable. Instead of Arnold careening in black monotone off a cliff, fully victimized by his name, I got to explore more colors, more character interactions.

I ask you: What would have been the effect of that earlier ending on the issues of the book as a whole? Would it have been more realistic?  More revealing?  If you email me, I’ll be happy to send you a file of where the first ending branches off from the current one — and you can let me know what you think. That might be a really interesting discussion. Here’s what I think: Even with the current ending, things may not continue so rosily after the book is over, but at least now everybody — including the cat — gets something to eat.

“The Problem of Evil”

Unless one is Hawthorne or Melville, or Mel Brooks, it’s quite presumptuous to take on Evil as a major theme, but a Bildungsroman can hardly avoid it. Melville’s short story “Billy Budd” is a short, blazing account of  the  confrontation of  good with evil. While a reader of Arnold Hitler doesn’t have to have read Melville story, it is a controlling metaphor of the book. In Melville, Billy the Good, the “handsome sailor,” is brought to his doom by the inexplicable hatred of his shipmate, Claggart. Similarly, each phase of Arnold’s life attracts a potentially lethal opponent. As yang brings on yin, so must Arnold bring on  his Claggarts.

I ask you: Doesn’t the longstanding literary trope of placing Evil into separate characters imply the innocence of the individual? Is it still possible in this morally complex (and often dishonest) world to posit the possibility of innocence? Is it even desirable?

Judaism

Here’s a good example of how the characters, not the author, direct the book.  In my original “semiotic” novel, I had no intention of having Arnold flirt with Judaism.  It was the sardonic Rick Mather who thought it would be amusing to have a Jew named Hitler — and who then begins his odd, effective Temptation. Once it became clear that Arnold (having become a pariah) might consider embracing the “religion of pariahs,” Edmund Jabès’s Book of Questions became a leitmotif, and Arnold’s undergraduate work and thesis were determined. Judaism turned pregnant, and transformed Arnold into (oi!) another Jewish novel.

I ask you: I would be quite interested to hear from readers, especially Jewish readers, how they respond to Rick’s, Arnold’s, Jacobo’s and Evelyn’s take on these issues. Now that I mention it, what are their takes? I do think the novel would be a good choice for synagogue reading groups. I mean, Vhat does ziss book show about Judaism? 

Art and (Political) Understanding

Evelyn’s art was unforseen: I just didn’t expect it. In Arnold’s “ironic” days, I had thought of her as just an unusually interesting neo-Nazi girl who had always wanted to go out with a guy named Hitler. I knew she’d grow, as all characters do, but hardly in the way she did.  The transformation came when I thought, “Well, maybe she’s only playing at being a Nazi.”  All the questions followed: Why?  To develop her art.  What kind of art? Well…

I’ve never painted or sculpted. I don’t take photos. And I certainly don’t dance in strip joints. All Evelyn’s artworks flowed from her sauciness and the implied values of her political associations. 

As she explored neo-Nazism, so she taught me about it — not so much by my doing research as through her playing around with such fierce, destructive imagery. But beyond that, the process demonstrated for me the possibility of using imagined art to understand politics. Bringing new works into the world as thought-experiments allows their births to instruct us about their subjects.