The Passenger: A Novel
By: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, André Aciman / Narrated By: Philip Boehm, Neil Hellegers
Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
Horrifyingly prescient… but verrrry problematic as well…
The Passenger’s premise was so very captivating that I HAD to include it for the week I reviewed Timothy Snyder’s Expanded Edition of On Tyranny. Written in a frenzy right after the events of Kristallnacht, this came way before Hitler’s horrors fully descended upon Germany and the rest of the world, and it clearly conveys how an enTIRe society of fairly decent people could embrace Fascism and hatred, or at the very least, look benignly away.
While I did indeed like it, there were enough elements in it that made me verrrry uncomfortable.
It should be noted that the father of the author, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, was Jewish, but he died in WWI the same year Ulrich was born. That he was raised completely Protestant is, I believe, significant. I wonder if Ulrich harbored some anti-Semitism due to lack of teachings, a resentment that he was being tarred with the same brush as the entirety of the Jewish community. He was, after all, completely and foremost German, not Jewish; why should he suffer the same fate.
I say this because, tho’ I do NOT dismiss The Passenger as an I Want My Hours Back, I’m sore-well tempted to do so.
How can this be?
-Because- tho’ I’m totally onboard when an author chooses to make his main character not entirely likable, I do NOT like it when said character perpetuates loathsome stereotypes.
The story: Otto Silbermann is Jewish but he could pass for Aryan. He fought for Germany in the Great War, and he believes himself to be exempt from the ostracism of and the aggressive acts towards the Jews around him. Said belief is somewhat shaken when Stormtroopers/angry anti-Semites pound on his door to beat and arrest him. He scoots out the back way and thus begins his odyssey throughout a new and blood-chilling reality in Germany. He rides trains throughout Germany as they are the last remaining place of maaaaaybe safety seeing as his country as he has known it has ceased to exist.
The novel’s brilliance comes from its careful depiction of such a VAST variety of the German people. There are waiters who USED to serve Silbermann who are now fearful and a trifle mournful that they now cannot, to go alongside waiters who dearly wish that all Jews wore yellow armbands or something, as it’s far too easy to miss a Jew and accidentally serve one. There are the Good Germans who eavesdrop on fellow passengers and turn in those likely to be Jews, to go alongside those who think what’s being done to their fellow Germans, however Jewish they may be, is a crying shame. There are those who would willingly offer sanctuary for a night, to go alongside those who think that FINALLY Jews will have nowhere to run.
Okay, that’s all well and good, and I even don’t have a problem with Otto being a particularly odious human being (The way he treats his son is despicable, likewise his wife). -BUT- he is every Nazi’s wet dream come to life. Otto is sooo fixated on money that it’s quite troubling, as tho’ author Boschwitz was channeling his Inner Anti-Semite. What could be MORE derogatory than a Money-Grubbing Jew? Alas, that is exACTly what Otto is. And Gentile women being raped by Jewish men? Check. Boschwitz has the very married Otto propositioning a woman on the train, going so far as to wheedle her address out of her estranged husband on the phone and track her down from there. Taking advantage of Aryan looks? Check. In disgust, Otto screeches at a friend who would like to travel with Otto: NO! Your looks disgust me and could hinder me!
And I reeeally canNOT get past the Money-Grubbing Jew thing, so I’m going to also offer that he dickers and quibbles his way to get more money outta sales to the point that he furthers the jeopardy he’s putting his family in. There’s a bit of a sad comeuppance for him that reminded me of a documentary I once watched where a Jewish man was turned in all because he swindled someone out of a four-dollar goose. Sad, but true, and gosh I sooo did NOT want to listen to it here.
As far as narration goes? Well, Neil Hellegers is quite simply awesome. Generally, I whinge and moan when a European audiobook does NOT have a European narrator, but from the get-go Hellegers delivers each character and each event with such emotionally evocative passion that I totally forgot he was absoLUTEly American. Maybe he’s even too good as my discomfort with Otto grew with each passing minute, with each deplorable belief he espoused, with each contemptible act he made. Seriously, could Otto kvetch any MORE about how much money he was losing? Turns out? He COULD and he DID. Hellegers carries Otto reprehensible thought to reprehensible thought. Made m’ danged skin crawl.
This was a 5-star Listen for how brilliantly it captured what would happen in the Future, for not being a post-War effort that looked back but was instead appallingly prescient. That said, it was a 1-star Listen for the whole My Skin Crawled Thing.
All in all, 3-stars. Worthy Listen, but do expect to wonder what-all was going on in Boschwitz’s head…
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