It's a well played gambit: weaving the author's own worries and writerly processes into his actual attempt to produce as historically accurate - in the sense of factualness - an account as possible of Reinhard Heydrich's (Himmler's right hand man and the so-called 'protector' of the occupied Czech territory that was incorporated into the Reich during the second world war, as well as a chief architect of the 'Final Solution') assassination by two parachutists from the partitioned Czech and Slovak territories (Operation Anthropoid) in novelistic form.
The sincerity of the enterprise comes through, especially Binet's desire to pay tribute to Jozef Gabcik, Jan Kubis, and the many others who helped them or who suffered under Heydrich's and Hitler's power, including through giving as faithful an account as possible given the many inevitable limitations of time, place, experience and understanding, as well as those inherent in the exercise of (historical) fiction. And it's well written and quite exciting to follow its events.
Actually more modernist (if that) than postmodernist, despite the foregrounding of the author within the text and concerns about the truthfulness of the story, in that it adheres very clearly to an idea that an objective truth is possible in principle, if not within an after-the-fact historical novel - which may detract a bit from the literary sophistication of HHhH but strengthens its moral clarity about the subjects and historical events it recounts.
The sincerity of the enterprise comes through, especially Binet's desire to pay tribute to Jozef Gabcik, Jan Kubis, and the many others who helped them or who suffered under Heydrich's and Hitler's power, including through giving as faithful an account as possible given the many inevitable limitations of time, place, experience and understanding, as well as those inherent in the exercise of (historical) fiction. And it's well written and quite exciting to follow its events.
Actually more modernist (if that) than postmodernist, despite the foregrounding of the author within the text and concerns about the truthfulness of the story, in that it adheres very clearly to an idea that an objective truth is possible in principle, if not within an after-the-fact historical novel - which may detract a bit from the literary sophistication of HHhH but strengthens its moral clarity about the subjects and historical events it recounts.
