Caging Skies

Johannes Betzler might be like most Viennese boys of the late 1930s. He joins the Hitler Youth, in which he takes great pride, and swallows the Nazi message whole, much to his parents’ dismay.

When the war comes, it’s his turn to be dismayed, for he figures out that they’re hiding a young Jewish woman, Elsa, behind a false wall upstairs. Outraged at first, he barely contains himself until, after being disfigured by a bomb during an enemy air raid, he becomes interested in Elsa and, later, consumed by her.

When his parents disappear, and his grandmother, who lives in the house, becomes demented, he must care for Elsa’s needs by himself. And Johannes’s obsession grows so great that as the war’s end nears — he expects a Nazi show more victory — he wonders how to keep her, or what their relationship will be like.

From this simple, bizarre premise comes a bold novel of great fierceness, insight, and emotional savagery. I admire Leunens’s refusal to spare anyone or anything, even as, while reading, I sometimes had to put the book down and pace around the room.

But if you stick with Caging Skies, this is what you’ll get. With a sweep reminiscent of A Gentleman in Moscow (and therefore Tolstoy), but decidedly without the humor, kindness, or generosity — this is the Holocaust — Leunens creates a microcosm of Hitlerian thought inside Johannes’s head. The truism about scratching a bully and finding beneath an ineffectual, strutting egotist secretly scared of his inadequacy emerges front and center.

Where other novelists (or historians) tell you that the Nazi creed attracted certain personalities, Leunens shows you why and how. It’s absolutely remarkable how she exposes Johannes as a pitiful, self-satisfying beast, casting the world in his own image, twisting all he sees to fit his vision of himself as victim. This is pure narcissism, but it’s more than that — it’s the far-right mindset, us-versus-them culture, and ultranationalism; that the portrayal seems so vivid and relevant is frightening in itself.

A central theme of Caging Skies has to do with truth, lies, and being able to tell the difference. Johannes loses his way in that maze right off, though he thinks he doesn’t, and he’s never sure how much anyone knows about him, his thoughts, or secrets that may or may not belong to him alone. Gradually, he comes to sense that the ground may give way any moment, which is how his feelings about Elsa change from revulsion to desire, and more.

But that’s where the novel falters, I think. Their relationship raises several questions, and if Leunens has answered them the way I infer she has, I have my doubts. Is she trying to say that the Jews’ murderers actually love them? Or is it the lust of possession, in which complete power over someone, enough to allow you to dispose of them, makes you feel in love with yourself? I’d sooner believe the second, but in Johannes’s case, he appears to go further — to the extent that he can love anyone.

In reverse, the relationship makes even less sense. To an extent, I understand identifying with the aggressor, but some of what happens tests credulity. And if Leunens is trying to have Elsa stand in for all Jews, that representation feels grotesque and unearned.

But there’s no denying that the author has ranged widely within a contained physical space to tell a penetrating story. show less

This is a mostly engaging, interesting read, with a kick-butt premise, but a denoument that disappoints.

The dramatic possibilities are endless: a young boy gets caught up in the "exciting" brownshirt culture of 1930s Austria as the rise of Hitler promises the citizens greatness, military success, and ethnic purity for their superior race. The young man's parents, by contrast, are not at all sympathetic to the Nazi agenda, and this causes severe tensions in the house. Then Johannes discovers his parents are harboring, of all people, a Jewess and hiding her in the walls of his home! A scenario fraught with tension.

As a bildungsroman, this has nearly everything one could desire: a young man, on the verge of adulthood, receiving a moral show more education through hardship, hopefully growing and maturing morally. This theme in the forefront of this novel carries the reader forth with tension and anxiety for the outcome of Johannes' experience.

The problem is the ending, which, without giving anything away, is anticlimactic and did not quite live up to the premise in its resolution, either as concerns Johannes' maturity, or the relationship between Johannes and Sarah. The novels issues and tensions are not so much solved or resolved as much as petered out, with no climax at all, really. Other than that, a good solid read. show less

I waited impatiently for another dawn, tossing and turning.

Well, no.

This book is not for me.

And maybe it's not for you, either, unless you crave sentences that are about as tasty as burned oatmeal.

That said, if you happen to be one of those pesky readers who is sensitive to misplaced modifiers, then reading this novel will be less like eating burned oatmeal, and more eating old eggshells.

I loved this book! I love books based in WWII, but this one was different. This one gave a good picture of what life was like after the war, which a lot of books about this subject usually don't. It is also a story based around a character that was in the Hitler youth, which again is not typical about books in this era.

I don't want to say too many spoilers, because this is a review, not a synopsis. Just know this isn't your typical WWII book (I know I keep saying that) but that is the reason why I loved it. It was really well written and the story kept me engaged. The main characters... At times you felt sorry for them, and at others you wanted to throttle them. I kept thinking to myself how much more can they endure, which in this book show more is a lot! Give this book a chance, you won't be disappointed!

I received this book in a giveaway thru Goodreads, and I promised to give my honest review. show less

Hitler's Youth please burn this book

The marketing here is incredibly good and a great example of how much do publishers lie.

I first have to admit that I came to this book because of the trailers for JoJo Rabbit which seems like a fun movie, a satire of the Nazi movement prior and during WWII. With the promise of a historical fiction involving kids, high stakes, full of "satire and dark humor" I was sure to love this book. I was lied to worse than a German during Hitler's regime.

Let's begin by the main character: Johannes Betzler... During the first few chapters he's a gullible Austrian kid whose hero and god is none other than the charismatic Adolf Hitler. We experience the Nazi propaganda through his eyes and this is one of the few show more good points of the whole story. Then he grew and the story took a darker tone.

The story goes on to have the usual coming of age tension between father and son, Johannes is now a member of Hitler's Youth and soon enough looses his only friend, a hand, and a cheekbone. Scared and handicapped he can no longer be part of the war effort. During his time home he discovered Elsa Sarah Kor, a Jewish friend of his long deceased sister living hidden in his home.

At this point we could had gotten the story of a brave young man who goes through a lot to save the life of the girl...

Instead we get a story of a delirious, obsessed mad man infatuated with a poor young woman whom he torments "out of love", and the stockholm's syndrome she developed.

No satire. No dark humor. No truly likeable characters. No real character progression. The plot falls flat midway. The last third of the book is unnecessary. The conclusion is not satisfying other than Elsa finally attaining her freedom... But way before the emd she's not too likeable either.

I'd like to see what Taika Watiti did with this premise for the movie JoJo Rabbit, but if this book did anything was lower my expectations of a good fun family movie. show less

This book is an interesting read and the inspiration for Taika Waititi's movie, Jojo Rabbit. However, the movie does only adapts the first half where the story is much more uplifting. As the story went on, it felt more as an old fashioned fairy tale, where the main character is the antagonist, who does not receive a satisfying ending.

This title looked to me to be a promising WWII historical fiction story with a interesting and hopefully uplifting twist. I then also realized that it was the novel upon which the screenplay for the movie, JoJo Rabbit, was loosely based.
But after about 55% in, I couldn't fathom sitting through where I believed the story was going to take me.
So I skipped to the last two chapters and found that I correctly guessed what had transpired in the chapters I sailed over. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator's reading seemed so level and unaffected, possibly to mimic the mental state of Johannes, that I didn't really feel for the character and was not rooting for him at all.