Cached July 26, 2007, from
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Boekverslag Scholieren.com
The boys from Brazil door Ira Levin
Menno Mertens
Title
The Boys from Brazil
Summary
B. The main subject is the future of The Third Reich, but the
book is mainly about the cloning of Hitler and the tracking down of
(former) Nazi's. The writer tries to show the reader what could have
happened if some events had or hadn't occurred. He takes a historical
example and continues this with fiction.
The main events are the gathering of 7 men among who are six
former SS officers and Dr. Mengele, an infamous doctor who operated in
the concentration camp Auschwitz, who experimented with all sorts of
weapons and chemicals on Jews. The other event is the phone call from
Koehler, an amateur Nazi hunter, to Liebermann just before he is
killed. The call is about the killing of ninety-four 65 year old men
spread over the entire world.
An example of a representative fragment is the moment where
Mengele explains his "masterplan" of creating 94 Hitlers –clones and
that the killing of the ninety-four 65-year old men was just a minor
step to create the identical environment that Hitler experienced.
The action partly takes place in Europe, Latin America and in the
end, America.
The environment is rich , for example in the beginning Mengele
and his party spend a lot of money in a Japanese restaurant in Brazil,
educated, for Mengele is a doctor and Liebermann teaches at a
university and religious because Liebermann and companion Rabbi Gorin
are Jewish. The story has a historical background, that is of course
the second World War and both Mengele and Liebermann are based on true
characters and some of the facts have actually happened.
The genre is called faction, because it has the best of both,
faction and fiction.
Yakov Liebermann (62) is a true harmless, fanatical pacifist,
based on Simon Wiesenthal, who was a Jewish war victim, who dedicated
his life tracking down ex-Nazi's who had escaped their sentences and
tries to keep the memory alive to prevent it from happening again.
Josef Mengele is a notorious German doctor, who truly existed, who
experimented on Jews in camp Auschwitz and escaped to Brazil after the
War. He looks very important and rich but in his heart he is always
afraid of getting caught and does not fear violence. They are opponents
in the fight for sentencing War criminals.
One of the most important minor characters is Rabbi Gorin, based
upon Rabbi Meir Kahane, who in opposite of Liebermann does support
violence to chase Nazi's. He helps Liebermann in finding and
prosecuting Mengele.
Liebermann has a big argument with Rabbi Gorin about the future
of the Hitlers to-be. Liebermann gets shot by Mengele when he tries to
escape but recovers and Mengele is killed by the dogs of one of his own
creations.
The book has an open ending, with one of the young Hitlers
drawing a picture of a great crowd cheering at him, the Fuhrer.
The title resembles the boys (Hitler clones) from Brazil, where
they were created.
Genre
The book is a Novel, one continuous whole. The author takes the
place of the omniscient narrator, he heightens the tension by using
striking dialogues, to decrease the tension he uses some light forms of
comedy, like the commands for the Dobermans of the little boy;
"Ketchup" for retreating , "Pickles" for attacking and "Mustard" for
killing. The more disgusting the taste the more lethal the command. The
descriptions of the events and their relations are the dominating
factor in the book, they are very realistic and sometimes able to
create the illusion that it really happened.
About the author
Ira Levin is an American novelist and playwright born on the 27th
of August, 1929. He was the son of an importer of toys. He wrote
successful books, such as A Kiss before Dying, Rosemary's Baby and The
Stepford Wives and the famous Death Trap. Which were all great
successes. He won awards such as the Edgar Allan Poe award. The author
appears to support the believes of Liebermann (Wiesenthal) but it is
not an irritating factor in the book and it is more likely that he is
trying to teach the reader what could have happened.