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Loading... Good People (2010)by Nir Baram
  
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  atticusfinch1048 | Apr 17, 2017 |   Thatâs because, in the course of teasing out the reasons why authors should be writing fiction about the Holocaust, Baram shared a shaming statistic. He said that some people are interested in asking themselves the question, what would I have done in that situation. But the answer is already known: 89% of people collaborated. Fiction is a useful way of exploring the motivations of characters who represent that overwhelming majority, if we wish to understand why. The title of the novel is not entirely ironic. The novel follows the hopes and ambitions of two ordinary people confronting the apparatus of totalitarian regimes, and the author makes the reader confront the reality of âgoodnessâ when itâs tested. Thomas Heiselberg is in Nazi Berlin and Sasha Weissberg is in Stalinâs Leningrad. The story begins in 1938 when the world is on the cusp of war and the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact is yet to be signed. Both characters start out in naĂŻvetĂŠ, thinking that they can outwit the State, neither understanding that they are out of their depth. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/05/23/good-people-by-nir-baram-translated-by-jeffr... (  ) anzlitlovers | Jul 17, 2016 | Thomas HeiselÂberg is a marÂket researcher workÂing in Berlin, 1938. When the âJewÂishâ retail store he has been workÂing for gets destroyed Thomas puts his talÂents at the hands of the Nazis helpÂing them build âmodÂelsâ of the conÂquered areas to help with disÂplaceÂment (and murÂder) the population. Sasha WeissÂberg, a ComÂmuÂnist Jew in Leningrad, heard her parÂents and their intelÂlecÂtual friends talk agiÂnast Stalinâs govÂernÂment. When the group gets arrested, Sasha decides that the best chance she has to save her parÂents and find her brothÂers is to work with the secret police, comÂmitÂting atrocÂiÂties and helpÂing write confessions. Good PeoÂple by Nir Baram is a very ambiÂtious and well researched novel which tries to underÂstand how good peoÂple simÂply roll over and help comÂmit atrocÂiÂties. How good peoÂple âunderÂstandâ that the greater good is worth more than the individualâs life, soul and ethics. The novel comes off, at times, high-browed and litÂerÂary at other times immensely interÂestÂing, and at times simÂply drainÂing. This is one of those books that you need to read, think about, and digest not simÂply flip through the pages. Mr. Baram asks a lot of quesÂtions (is murÂderÂing peoÂple outÂright more noble than a bureauÂcrat sendÂing them to their deaths? Are the GerÂmans that assisted the Nazis the same as the RusÂsians assistÂing Stalinâs purges?), but does not give many, if any, answers. What I found a bit conÂfusÂing was that the two main charÂacÂters have the advanÂtage of hindÂsight. The two see the world as someÂone would from todayâs world rather than someÂone fightÂing for their lives, daily, in those dark times. I found it hard to love this book, one the reaÂsons is that non of the charÂacÂters are symÂpaÂthetic or relatÂable, I got the feelÂing that even the author didnât like them. Mr. Baram wrote a sophisÂtiÂcated book, but added nothÂing new the disÂcusÂsion of âwhy good peoÂple do bad thingsâ and the herd menÂtalÂity which, frightÂenÂingly, seems to regenÂerÂate every cenÂtury or so. For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.manOfLaBook.com (  ) ZoharLaor | Jun 15, 2016 | The focus of the book is on two people, the German Thomas and the Russian Jew Sasha, who try to survive while two totalitarian systems overwhelm their country, their families and their lives. They both try to survive in their own way and the choices they make help them, but harm the people who are dear to them. They are blinded by ambition and the desire to save their family. And not only that: they are ultimately part of the system that wants to destroy them, and they thus contribute to the death of many more others. Thomas, because the results of his work is used by the Nazis to murder large groups in the German and Polish society and Sasha because she serves the purges of Stalin. The book shows in a dramatic way how powerless Thomas and Sasha are to oppose the events around them. Each step they take brings damage in their surroundings, while they are desperately trying to rationalize the events and escape from the disaster. But the world around them collapses. The atrocities follow one another. Baram does not explicitly describe the horrors of these years, but shows flashes. The very absence of explicit descriptions is powerful. The panic among the Jews in Poland after the German occupation, displayed in an image of Jewish women in faded clothes and bare boots, trying to get visa. A spotlight that shines briefly on naked prisoners. And Thomas who sees but denies everything, and continues to justify his deeds, wallowing in his own suffering. Even so Sasha, who is willing to send hundreds to Siberian camps while trying to save her brother - something that is obviously impossible. The book is very well written and compelling. Alternately there is a chapter which focuses on Sasha and Thomas. Eventually they meet in a final impossible plan to survive. And when you finish it, the characters stay with you for some time. Highly recommended! (  )1  sneuper | Jan 24, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesOtavan kirjasto (247)
Fiction.
Literature.
Historical Fiction.
HTML: It's late 1938. Thomas Heiselberg has built a career in Berlin as a market researcher for an American advertising company. In Leningrad, twenty-two-year-old Sasha Weissberg has grown up eavesdropping on the intellectual conversations in her parents' literary salon. They each have grand plans for their lives. Neither of them thinks about politics too much, but after catastrophe strikes they will have no choice. Thomas puts his research skills to work elaborating Nazi propaganda. Sasha persuades herself that working as a literary editor of confessions for Stalin's secret police is the only way to save her family. When destiny brings them together, they will have to face the consequences of the decisions they have made. Nir Baram's Good People has been showered with praise in many countries. With its acute awareness of the individual amid towering historical landscapes, it is a tour de force: sparkling, erudite, a glimpse into the abyss. Nir Baram was born into a political family in Jerusalem in 1976. His grandfather and father were both ministers in Israeli Labor Party governments. He has worked as a journalist and an editor, and as an advocate for equal rights for Palestinians. He began publishing fiction when he was twenty-two, and is the author of five novels, including The Remaker of Dreams, Good People and World Shadow. His novels have been translated into more than ten languages and received critical acclaim around the world. He has been shortlisted several times for the Sapir Prize and in 2010 received the Prime Minister's Award for Hebrew Literature. Text will publish a work of reportage by Nir Baram in 2017. 'Written with great talent, momentum and ingenuity...it expands the borders of literature to reveal new landscapes.' Amos Oz 'One of the most intriguing writers in Israeli literature today.' Haaretz 'Good People rewards the reader's patience while mining a tragic sense of irony that extends all the way to its title.' Big Issue 'Baram uses intense geographical plotting and is chillingly eloquent...[Good People] is tremendous. I read it in two sittings and I learned a lot. How does a man in his early 30s know how to write like this?' Australian 'Good People is a richly textured panorama of German and Russian life...This ample novel lives most memorably through Baram's vignettes of people, dwellings, cities, landscapes and the like that seem to lie, at times, at the periphery of its central concerns.' Age/Sydney Morning Herald 'A groundbreaker...Riveting reading.' Qantas Magazine 'Good People is the tale of ordinary, middle-class lives sucked into a moral maelstrom. It is compulsive and profoundly disturbing.' Sunday Star Times 'Astonishingly powerful...[A] compelling, important story.' New Zealand Listener 'Chillingly captures the terrors and tensions of life under Stalin and Hitler. The chapters set in Russia are particularly effective, carrying the suspense of a spy thriller. Nir Baram explores the frightening speed and ease with which ordinary people become functionaries in totalitarian societies.' TLS 'Good People is a subtle, original, and fascinating take on the wartime story. We forget that the brutality was as much a bureaucratic effort as a military one. We forget that even the most massive, most evil forces are comprised of moving human parts. If Good People has a moral, it is this: the totalitarian state will attempt to possess the individual by co-opting his (relatively innocent) instinctsâ??ambition,... No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)892.437Literature Literature of other languages Middle Eastern languages Jewish, Israeli, and Hebrew Hebrew fiction 2000âLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.31)
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Wikipedia in English
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Good People is an interesting book from the Israeli writer Nir Baram, who has tackled in this novel of complexity, and its timing could not be more relevant now. Baram in one review has been compared to Dostoevsky, while I would not go that far, he certainly not afraid to tackle controversial subjects and make the reader think.
As someone from Polish stock whose family were affected by arrest in one part of the NKVD in eastern Poland, and subsequent âexileâ, to other members who were involved in the defence of Poland, captured and then escaped to fight again, this period has always been of interest. It also raises the question, of what would I do, and by using both the Soviet and Nazi backdrop, you get that either on the extreme left and right are all similar in ways, and always subjugate the population.
The novel opens in 1938, on the eve of war, Sasha, in Leningrad, who works for the NKVD writing the confessions of those arrested, and has grown up eavesdropping on her parentâs literary salon, which will eventually send them to the gulag. Fearing for her own safety she marries, Maxim Podolsky who also is a member of the NKVD and in turn protect her from arrest.
Thomas has built a career in Berlin working for an American advertising company and watches as the Nazi takeover of Germany takes place and watches as the Jews are rounded up and disappear. Thomas eventually uses his skills to assist the Nazi regime, especially in the east with the approaching non-aggression pact which would make for the carve up of Poland.
Both Sasha and Thomas have grand plans for their lives and neither has ever concerned themselves about politics. Eventually both of forced to take not of politics by events outside of their control and this will bring them together, and they will have face the consequences of their decisions.
There is a chilling irony in this book which has on one hand the labyrinth of dictatorâs politics in that nobody ever escapes and all are doomed eventually if they stay. As the tension in this novel builds and the expected pending doom for when the two characters meet, it does not detract from this fascinating novel.
It may not be the easiest of books to read, but it is one of the most fascinating. (