My ignorance threw me with this book. Until over half-way through I believed I was reading a fictionalised account of a true story (using some original documents) about one of the men who attempted to assassinate Hitler and about his friendship with a Jewish refugee and academic back in England. But Axel von Gottberg and E.A. Mendel are totally fictional characters (although based on Adam von Trott and Isaiah Berlin) and their correspondence equally fictional.
When I finally twigged what was going on I felt for some reason a bit cheated and dissatisfied. Cartwright could have kept it historical or he could have gone for broke on fiction. As it is the book falls down a hole in the middle.
No comments:
Post a Comment