I had just finished reading Jakov Lind's "Landscape in Concrete," a 1963 novella about a Nazi soldier and accidental criminal, when I came across a review for Christian Jungersen's "The Exception." A 2004 European bestseller, "The Exception" has been translated from Danish by Anna Paterson and, like Lind's book, deals with questions regarding human behavior during wartime. Unfortunately, not only were the characters insufferable, the novel as a whole is ultimately pointless - kind of like a misanthrope's big rant on Why People Suck - but I did enjoy (morbidly) the embedded articles on genocide and psychology. But everything else . . . meh.

"The Exception" centers on four women - Iben, Malene, Ann-Lise, and Camilla - who work for the Danish Center for Information on Genocide, a small non-profit in Copenhagen, headed by a man named Paul, that disseminates information on genocide for governments and researchers. Malene is suffering from early-onset rheumatoid arthritis and Iben is her longtime best friend (they are in their late twenties). Camilla is a middle-aged woman who works closely with Iben and Malene, while Ann-Lise (Camilla's age) is relegated to the back room, where she feels left out and ignored by her three coworkers. Things are going smoothly, despite some tension with Ann-Lise, until one day, out of the blue, Iben and Malene receive threatening emails from an anonymizer server that makes tracking the sender impossible. Now, as professionals who write about and raise awareness of war crimes for a living, you would think that these two would be no strangers to anonymous death threats. But no, Iben has a big freak-out and the whole thing catalyzes a period of bullying and intimidation among the four women of the DCIG.

Basically, it's supposed to be microcosm of the group dynamics that lead perfectly ordinary people to commit horrendous atrocities, such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Stanford Prison Experiment catastrophe. So, in other words, the characters are not meant to be particularly likeable. But did they really have to be so incredibly *annoying*? The four DCIG employees start out as these liberal progressive tolerant self-righteous Social Democrat types who then descend into childish playground tormentors. They even resort to breaking into someone's house at night to access her computer. One gets mad at another just for looking at her and not sitting with her at lunch. Practical "jokes" are played. Ergo: "Mean Girls" = "Apocalypse Now."

You know, sometimes when you read a book, you find yourself just wanting to leap into the story and start slapping some sense into everyone. Anything to get these infuriating basket cases to starting acting like responsible adult human beings again! Of course, presiding distantly and benevolently over the four hysterical females is Paul, the level-headed man, which gives "The Exception" some sadly sexist overtones. I mean, other than that one war criminal and his goons, all the male characters in this book come across as pretty normal when compared to the DCIG drama queens. Probably the best part is when Iben starts researching split personality disorder and goes to Paul to inform him that Ann-Lise *doubtlessly* has this highly rare condition. Wow, srsly? Does Jungersen honestly expect us to believe that we are all potentially this neurotic, petty, immature, and self-destructive? But lo! there is hope. You can still be the Exception, that lone individual who rises up above the collective juggernaut and acts selflessly in defense of your fellow man, whatever the personal risk. Maybe, that is. Possibly. Uh, actually we're not quite sure. You know what? Humanity might just be doomed after all.

And yeah, that's pretty much the moral of the story. Again I ask, what's the point? ( )

This book surprised me....I anticipated a conventional psychological thriller, and it did deliver on that expectation. What I did not expect was the thought provoking examination of the nature of evil. I thorougly enjoyed it, and found that it stayed with me for days after closing the book. ( )

Spændende som en krimi. Giver et godt og nuanceret protræt af de forskellige kvindetyper på en arbejdsplads. Handlingen kunne godt være sand!! ( )

4/5 af bogen er kedelig og 1/5 er totalt overdrevet - fatter ikke den har fået en pris ( )

A very interesting book about the nature of evil (sort of like the fiction equivalent of The Lucifer Effect), explored in a strange combination of the banal (office politics) and the horrific (various accounts of genocide). It kept my interest throughout; the characters were very well developed, but the combination was jarring and the violence at the end was somewhat short of believable. ( )