Latest / Bookies' Favourite / The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin | Review | International Booker Prize 2026

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The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin | Review | International Booker Prize 2026 · Bookies' Favourite

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Guten Tag Welcome to the club bookies favorite book club.
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We read literary shortlists and award-winning novels.
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We're an independent podcast with no official links to the
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awards we discuss. We are currently reading the
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International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist.
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The award recognizes the vital work of translation in the UK
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and Ireland. In this episode, we're
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discussing The Director by Daniel Kelman, translated from
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the German by Ross Benjamin, originally published in German
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in 2023 and published by Kirkus Publishing in 2025.
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This novel was previously awarded the 2026 Literary
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Fiction and Classics Audi Award for the audiobook narrated by
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Nicholas Bolton. You can follow us on Instagram
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and Goodreads at Bookies favorite Book Club and e-mail
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us.bookiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com. All of our socials and e-mail
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addresses are in the description.
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I'm Colin and I'm currently working with Greta Garbo and her
1:05
newest blockbuster flick. You can find me at C under
1:09
score. F under score writes and
1:10
Instagram. And I actually like this book
1:13
quite a lot. I think it's quite an easy kind
1:17
of fun read in a way. And I think like some of the
1:19
questions it brings up are like really, really interesting and
1:23
like all that sort of moral implications of art and doing
1:25
art for bad people and and different stuff like that.
1:29
But I think, yeah, I like that. I think it was definitely more
1:32
enjoyable than like a lot of the Booker books tend to be, even
1:36
for it's sort of dark material. Hi, I'm Lucy, I'm currently in a
1:40
Kiev and my torch has just gone out.
1:42
My Instagram is at books 2026. That's books with the ZI don't
1:47
know how I felt about this one. I kind of I didn't find it as
1:51
like you were kind of saying it as an easy right.
1:53
I kind of find it not boring, but like I just I don't know.
1:59
I think that me and me and Aaron we're kind of talking.
2:01
Sorry, Aaron and I were talking about this kind of before we
2:06
started reading the shortlist and we were saying, you know,
2:08
it's quite hard to do a World War 2 novel about Nazis and that
2:14
kind of stuff because it's all kind of been done.
2:17
There's a lot of moral quandaries that have kind of are
2:20
so topical to us. And I feel like it's one of
2:24
those examples in history where like so many philosophical, you
2:27
know, scenarios come into because people were forced to do
2:30
such weird and strange things and kind of forced and pushed to
2:33
the limits of what we think of as morality or what, what humans
2:37
will do, you know, for survival. And I kind of just was like, OK,
2:41
this is just an exploration of that.
2:43
But I didn't think it said anything new or, or to me, it
2:46
didn't really bring anything new to the table, which I think when
2:51
when you're doing this kind of novel, just because it is such
2:55
an oversaturated market, you have to do something that's
2:58
like, wow. So for me, and that does sound
3:01
harsh, but I thought the writing was quite good.
3:04
Enjoyed the writing, but yeah, and I didn't also feel like it
3:07
tied well together in some ways. So anyway, I'm excited to talk
3:13
about what you guys thought about the back and Aaron, are
3:16
you going to do the line? I am broadcast journalist Aaron
3:19
Rice at Aaron Rice Media and I am on a ship and war has just
3:25
been declared. I did not finish the book.
3:32
I got 37% of the way through on the audiobook and so I will
3:37
chime in for the conversation about what I have read so far,
3:41
but I have not completed it. So my opinion is not as worthy
3:47
as everyone else's. But I actually, I'm really
3:50
enjoying this and I think it's a really interesting take on Nazis
3:59
and World War 2 in terms of its storytelling and is much less
4:04
about the war and more about how the war had an impact on other
4:09
people. Spoiler warning From this point
4:11
on, let's start with a quote from the director.
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Director was, All in all, a strange profession. 1 was an
4:19
artist, but created nothing, instead directing those who
4:22
created something, arranging the work of others who, viewed in
4:26
the cold light of day, were more capable than oneself.
4:29
That was why so much was required before one could even
4:32
start to work. Writers, artists, composers
4:35
needed only paper at most paint, sculptors need marble and a few
4:39
tools. But a director needed 100 people
4:42
and a studio and machines and a great deal of electricity, and
4:47
again and again one would secretly wonder when all the
4:50
people working on a film together would realize that they
4:54
could do it without a director too, if only they agreed.
4:57
That quote is actually so like interesting because the whole
5:01
concept of a director, I remember when people like when I
5:03
was younger people be talking about like, oh, it's the direct
5:06
by Steven Spielberg. And it's like, OK, well, what
5:08
does he do? You know, And he and it seems
5:10
like they don't do anything. It's like producers, but there's
5:12
so much that is happening that they're doing that you don't
5:15
really know about, you know, about like, you know, like the
5:18
the idea that these people are experts in cinematography or
5:21
experts in costume design and stuff like this.
5:23
But the director has to be pretty much a Jack of all trades
5:26
and and the master of none. Like they can't can't really be
5:30
a master of all of these things. They have to rely on the talent
5:32
of other people. I think there's such a cool
5:35
concept in that about like collaboration and coming
5:38
together and like working together in different projects,
5:40
whereas like, do you know, they need some united force, that
5:44
kind of puzzle altogether. And in a way, maybe I'm getting
5:49
too big. I did here.
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It's kind of the thing of all these different people in Nazi
5:53
Germany are all being, they're different pieces, like the
5:56
director is Adolf Hitler, but all these different people are
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sort of being like, you know, use their, they all are
6:04
necessary parts in this, in this whole scheme.
6:08
Colin, I like where you're going, but can you first give us
6:10
a synopsis? Oh, sorry, yes, this book is set
6:15
during World War 2. Uh, we follow GW Habst, who is,
6:19
uh, an acclaimed film director and he was in Hollywood and he
6:24
did a, a, a movie with Greta Garbo, but things kind of took a
6:27
turn, uh, for his sort of career.
6:31
Uh, and he gets the message that his mother who is in Austria,
6:34
uh, which is now called Asmark during the, the umm, Nazi
6:39
regime, uh, he goes back, his, his mother is unwell.
6:42
So he goes back to try and get her into like, uh, a nursing
6:46
home. And when he goes back with his
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wife and his son, they all get trapped there as war is, as the
6:54
borders being closed on. And from there, with a little
6:58
bit of coercion and maybe not as much coercion as you think it
7:01
would take, he begins to start to film movies for the Nazi
7:06
regime. Not not propaganda, but movies
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that are like funded by funded by the Nazi party.
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And it's a really interesting story that kind of delves into
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the moral implications of this and being part of this regime,
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even though you think you're not influencing it, you're still
7:28
part of the message that they're trying to convey.
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One point that I think you were slightly incorrect on just the
7:35
Garbo film wasn't in Hollywood. Interestingly, too, that this
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this novel, it follows Pab's, but he's working on a movie that
7:45
he thinks is going to be like the movie, like it's his, like
7:48
the kind of big final one that he's making for the Nazi regime.
7:51
Melanda, Melander. Melander.
7:54
Melander, Melander. Melander.
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Things will Lander, so perhaps is working on a movie called
7:58
Melander and it's, umm, funded by the Nazi regime.
8:01
And he's like, uh, so obsessed with finishing this to his as,
8:07
as the war is happening and as things are getting very, very
8:10
heated. Umm, he continues to like pursue
8:13
the sort of, uh, this, this film.
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And I think what's really interesting is that it kind of
8:19
consumes him and his entire life after this movie asked after it
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gets lost or does it wink, wink, umm, after it gets like lost, he
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uh, pretty much gives up. And it's the also the
8:31
interesting idea of like an artist putting something into
8:34
like, uh, into, into work and then like having nothing left,
8:38
like their life becomes, they can move past, you know,
8:41
whatever they've created. What did you think about the
8:44
fact that it's like the film The Milander Case was based on this
8:50
book by this Nazi author who's like, I don't think Pops likes
8:55
any of the guy's books, does not like the books, even though
8:59
she's forced to read every one of them in her group.
9:02
But I always kind of like, it's so it's so strange the way he
9:06
doesn't think that the the text is good, but he is so enamoured
9:11
with like the process and everything that they've done
9:14
that he's kind of like so obsessed with it by the end.
9:18
Yeah. I was kind of like, at what
9:20
point maybe this is my reading of it, but I was like, because I
9:23
was reading it in bits over quite a long period of time.
9:26
So maybe my flow of the the whole plot isn't quite clear
9:29
enough, but I was kind of like, when did you start loving this
9:32
so much? Like, why is he so, so into it?
9:37
And yeah, it's it is really interesting.
9:40
Like the whole like making a film during a war.
9:44
Like a little war. Just to go back to your first
9:47
point, Lucy, I think he seemingly the Milander like the
9:52
film that least his adaptation is very different from what the
9:56
book is and it seems like he was taking like I think the reason
9:59
he gets obsessed is because he's taking like a different
10:02
direction from what the book was actually going for.
10:05
And because we're never actually told what the book is, you know,
10:09
really about like we're as in like, but we're never told what
10:11
his movie is the adaptation is about.
10:14
But you get the implication because the writer sees watches
10:17
part of it. And I know he only watches very
10:19
short month, but he's like this is disgraceful.
10:21
And like it feels like it's so far, like he puts like a lot of
10:25
like anti-Semitism into his opinion of it for some reason,
10:30
but we don't know because it's never actually told us what is
10:33
different. But I got a vibe that he's
10:34
taking it in a different direction than what the book
10:36
actually intends. I love that he calls it like he
10:39
watches like this guy Crash crash.
10:42
Yes. He's like, it's pornographic.
10:47
He's he's watched like fine, like a reel of it or something.
10:51
Like not. Even that, yeah.
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And he's like, this is. YouTube short He watched the
10:55
YouTube short of it and he's it's.
10:57
Communist pornography. And I was like highly, highly
11:03
doubt. And he's he's quite a funny
11:05
character because he's obviously climbed so high in the sense
11:09
that he's the author. That's that's really big in the
11:12
Nazi party. So he has so much sway and he's
11:16
basically springing UPS going like, I, I'll have the party for
11:20
that. You like, I'll have you.
11:21
Yeah, just you wait. Yeah.
11:24
And I, I quite enjoyed that because it's like, it's so
11:27
pathetic. But you think this that kind of
11:31
regime gives these people who obviously have some kind of
11:34
psychological problem with power.
11:36
So what power that they like? Just become so drunk on it and
11:41
be a funny example. I really enjoyed the horror
11:47
element to it, but him where it took a turn when they had to
11:52
return to Austria to go collect his mother because he had bought
11:57
a castle and he had this whole dream about living in this
12:00
castle. But then in reality he was like,
12:04
no, it doesn't feel like I live here.
12:05
It just feels like I'm visiting any time that I'm here.
12:09
And his mother has been living there and she's been under the
12:12
care of this man and his family. And whenever they arrived to
12:18
take her to a home because she's unwell.
12:22
We then find out that the war has started I think while
12:28
they're in Austria and or at least Austria has been sucked
12:34
into the war and the borders are now shut so they can't leave and
12:42
the caretaker is some Nazi like he's in.
12:51
The party, and I think he's pretty high up in that area.
12:54
So he's like the, the, I don't can't remember the word, but
12:57
he's yeah, he's the official for a group of Nazis.
13:01
Yeah, and he basically usurps control in the castle.
13:06
So him and his family are now living in the like, living
13:09
quarters while the family who actually owns the castle is now
13:13
in the servant quarters. And they are having to feed the
13:20
this Nazi family. And like, they try to escape
13:24
like early in the morning, like, they have this plan.
13:27
Let's escape, Don't tell them that we're leaving.
13:30
And then it gets, I don't know if this is resolved, but it gets
13:34
into a weird territory where this the Nazi caretaker knocks
13:40
him off a ladder, but his wife tells him, no, you fell off the
13:45
ladder. He tried to save you.
13:46
So like, is the wife in on it? Is she being forced to like tell
13:50
him this alternative version? Like do we know why the wife
13:55
like contradicted what what he had said?
13:59
So I took it that he wasn't either either.
14:04
It was much more subtle. What your Tabeck, I think his
14:08
name was and what he was doing or how he made Pops feel.
14:14
I kind of took it as Pops wasn't, not that he wasn't in
14:19
the right mind, but that he maybe, I don't know, I don't
14:22
think I necessarily have the right way of taking this.
14:25
Yeah, I think, I think you're kind of on the right track
14:28
though. I think it's that he is so
14:29
afraid and so paranoid of what's going on in in Austria and like
14:33
he wants to get out that I think he sees this maybe thing he was
14:38
maybe he did do something. But I don't don't think it's
14:40
like malicious, like outwardly malicious as he he presents it.
14:44
And then I think Trudy is like very much like, Oh no, but this
14:47
is like, you know, he didn't do that.
14:49
Because I think it ties in later, like pubs starts to like
14:52
have like hallucinations or starts to like, I don't know if
14:55
he it's like it's hard to because then it kind of just
14:58
disappears. But it seems like he's his mind
14:59
is sort of like splintering and throughout different parts of
15:02
the story. So I kind of took it as like,
15:04
yeah, he's maybe losing time, if you know what I mean?
15:07
Like he's something's outright with with pubs.
15:11
I one element of it that I quite liked and I think you you're
15:15
talking like the bit with the arts of X is probably part my
15:20
favorite kind of bit in it because it does take this kind
15:23
of horror tone and I really was quite enjoying that.
15:25
And I think as well like the the social mobility that all of a
15:29
sudden became available in Nazi Germany for certain people who
15:32
took that opportunity. And then all of a sudden you've
15:34
gone from being this person everyone doesn't like.
15:37
It doesn't take seriously and disrespect to being someone with
15:41
actual power. And it is possibly the same with
15:43
the Kur Kurbach crash crash. Sorry Kurash the author, where
15:51
he's all of a sudden he's probably not that popular, but
15:53
because he's gone along with all the Nazi stuff, he's become in
15:56
this position where everyone's only reading his books.
15:59
And I'm imagining it's the same for Yurtzebach, where it's like
16:02
he had no respect and now all of a sudden this has given him this
16:06
social mobility. And I do find that whole thing,
16:09
like, fascinating, Like all these people who are probably
16:11
very disaffected all of a sudden that just jumped up into the
16:16
top. Just because they're right
16:19
place, right time, you know? And I suppose like it says a lot
16:23
about how disaffected people were prior, like what what the
16:26
governments of these countries were like previously and how
16:30
much people did probably not feel part of a community.
16:33
Nazism gave them that, you know, it gave them something that they
16:38
desperately wanted. Not a good thing, but you know,
16:42
it's, it's so interesting and, you know.
16:44
I think also I think the book, the writer says like, I'm glad
16:48
that you keep coming back to him because I think the whole idea
16:51
of his stuff. So during the book club, all
16:54
these women like are talking about him.
16:55
Like, uh, you know, it seems like they don't really like the
16:59
book. Do you know, act actually, they
17:00
don't like it. They're just saying good things
17:02
because he is so, well, uh, liked by the party that they
17:06
have to send. There's one woman there at the,
17:08
uh, book club who's like, Oh, I love, you know, is that a new
17:11
bowl? Do you know?
17:12
And she's like, she just wants to chat.
17:14
She doesn't talk about the book and like she gets ousted from
17:16
that group. And I'm like, do you know, she
17:17
just kind of gets like immediately, uh, executed from
17:20
the book club. And I think it's so interesting
17:23
because it's what they have deemed art as, which art they
17:26
have deemed as important. And I think it makes you think
17:29
is tabs actually just the bad director?
17:32
And is it because like, like they they give him the
17:35
opportunity to use his art to like, you know, they're like
17:38
he's been kind of shunned from Hollywood and and now he has
17:42
like these people offering the opportunity to make whatever
17:44
movies he kind of would like to make.
17:46
Like he's much more creative freedom and control.
17:49
And it's like, I don't know, is there part of it that like Pabst
17:53
actually is just a bad, are we seeing this person who's just a
17:57
bad director? Like what do you know?
17:58
It's not like like he is himself is going to view himself as
18:01
like, oh, I'm this great inventor of ideas and like this
18:06
shoot this great creative. But like, is there more like in
18:09
common with the with both of the writer and the director as you
18:13
know, more than we think? The fact that the film is lost,
18:17
is that actually good for Pabst in some ways, like so it does
18:22
contribute to the fact that he has some kind of mental split
18:27
and he gives up and all that kind of stuff and he lets his
18:29
wife make a Kiev film, which he obviously wasn't that happy
18:32
about. But had he seen the film, had he
18:35
got the film back and it'd been rubbish, even though we had all
18:39
the money and all the budget and all the concentration camp
18:44
victims that he that he wanted, you know, he he like, it might
18:49
not have turned out to be this amazing film.
18:51
So this is something that I kind of found interesting about the
18:54
book. I realized that they were like
18:56
saying different names of directors that I was like that
18:58
that person's real. I've heard this name and I've
19:00
heard this film, but I didn't know Pops actually existed until
19:04
I was like, oh. What he did, I didn't know he
19:07
existed. Well, all that stuff's real.
19:09
The film's lost. Like it's what?
19:11
Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like I've never heard of
19:13
Pops, but I've heard of him. Oh my God.
19:15
Yeah, he was the person who lost rears, so I had never heard of
19:19
that him and likely you guys hadn't heard of him either, No.
19:23
I I didn't know that any of these people.
19:26
I don't sit and watch movies from the 1940s, so I I didn't
19:32
necessarily know that Greta Garbo was a real person.
19:37
But no like that. Actually, I I that adds an extra
19:40
layer to all of this that I really like.
19:43
Author The Nazi authors real the the there was this.
19:46
So interesting. There's the the female director
19:49
that later he finds she's, I've heard of her because she's quite
19:52
derided by people. But yeah, no, it wasn't until
19:57
the Greta Garbo thing where I was like, why is this guy
20:01
writing about this fake director and he's popped in a Garbo And I
20:05
was like, that seems a bit weird.
20:06
And then that's when I actually looked him up and I was like,
20:08
oh, he's actually real. But then I was like, this is
20:11
this is the whole thing with like the fact that he takes the
20:14
coin and goes and works with the Nazis is that his legacy is
20:18
effectively he's not Greta Garbo, he's not Louise Brooks.
20:21
He he doesn't get. And your mom who made that film?
20:24
What knew the film with the the robots?
20:26
These talks about loads. Yeah, I am.
20:29
Yeah, like he's still quite famous.
20:30
What's his name? His name But I.
20:33
Can't remember either. Yeah, that's so fascinating.
20:37
I think that puts a such a unique spin in it.
20:39
And you know, I'm acting surprised, but actually in Till,
20:42
like Daniel Kelman's other book, he has all, he has the same
20:45
thing where he has like fictionalized things happening
20:48
during like, Oh my God, this is the 100 years War.
20:51
Is that what you call it in until during the 100 years war?
20:56
Yeah, I think it's 100 Years War and yeah, and he and it's like
21:02
the characters are the same, but you read it and you think it's
21:04
fiction, You know, you think that they've been placed in this
21:06
real scenario because obviously Nazi Jeremy existed and like
21:09
Greta Garber exists, but I thought he was just making room
21:11
for, you know, he was taking that and running with it.
21:14
But that's so fascinating that like it's almost like a re
21:16
reimagining of what happened. The Melandre case, you know, or
21:19
the Melandre files or whatever you call the movie.
21:23
Like every book has this and so I'm just going to read this
21:26
where it says this book is a work of fiction that names,
21:28
characters, businesses, organizations, places, and
21:31
events are either the product of the author's imagination or used
21:35
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
21:38
person's living or dead events or locales is entirely
21:42
coincidental. You know, obviously that's a
21:45
really big stretch. I feel like they're stretching
21:48
that, yeah. Yes.
21:49
I I did actually think some of the weakest parts were his
21:53
conversations with Greta Garbo and his conversation with
21:55
Louise. I I could have believed he was
21:58
in love with Louise. Brooks would happen to have
22:00
conversations, But we do think that there was maybe a point in
22:03
her, especially at the end, when she kind of is like, oh, he was
22:06
a craft director. He was only good in silent
22:08
films. I was like.
22:09
Yeah, I like. The fact she said that, but I
22:11
kind of maybe it is because Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo
22:15
are to me so much more famous that I am like, yeah, what?
22:19
I have an idea in my head who she.
22:21
I have no idea in my head who Pops was at all.
22:23
And this. Is actually as well maybe the
22:26
international community, maybe he's he probably is a much
22:29
better name in Germany. I keep, like, just through
22:33
osmosis, like, because Shermans would have enjoyed his films
22:36
back in the whatever and, you know, but like, yeah, I had no
22:40
idea who he was. At all you mentioned the Louise,
22:43
the Louise Brooks stuff. There was a line that I really I
22:47
was like sent reeling after after it came up in the book and
22:52
that he's talking about like imagining how he had like kissed
22:55
her, you know, a long, long time ago.
22:57
And he says like he says that he he's like envious.
23:03
He's super envious for the person he he wants, you know,
23:06
that that had happened to him at some point.
23:08
Like he envies himself, which I thought was such an interesting
23:10
idea because like, I never really thought about envying
23:13
yourself, but it means it does make sense.
23:14
If you lose something, you're going to look at things and be
23:17
like, you know, something so meaningful and powerful.
23:19
You're going to be like, that is, you know, I do envy what I
23:22
once had. Well, it is interesting when
23:24
she's talking to him and she's like, she's like, what does she
23:27
say? She says something about like,
23:29
if you sleep with a man once, it's like he'll just be thing or
23:33
something, something along those.
23:34
Lines. It has to be twice, at least
23:36
twice. Yeah, it's like if it if it
23:38
nobody does it know if it happens twice then he'll not
23:41
love you anymore or something like like wait.
23:43
No, wasn't that the other way that she's like, you know,
23:46
you've got your, you know, you've got your, your nails in
23:49
him. Like that's what she was pretty
23:51
much implying. You know you've got your nails
23:52
in him if it happens twice. But oh right, OK, I thought it
23:56
was the other way on because I. Think.
23:57
I think so. I remember I'd read this like a
24:01
month ago. I'm I'm sorry.
24:03
You know, when he's like trying to get the Americans to like do
24:07
this new film of his and he has this idea of like a boat, it
24:11
gets everybody on the boat gets told that there's a war and
24:15
everybody's from like different countries.
24:16
And then they have this like mini war on the boat.
24:18
And I was like, I'd love to watch that.
24:19
I'd love to read that. That's a lot better than the
24:23
violin thing in the Malander 1. Yes there there is a movie that
24:27
came out in the past year that is this exact concept but it
24:31
doesn't take place on a ship. Was it called ISS or something
24:36
like the International Space Station, which was about war
24:41
breaking out while astronauts are on the International Space
24:44
Station and then all of a sudden they are up in like, like, can
24:50
they trust each other or are they working against each other
24:53
now? So what did you guys think of
24:55
the writing? Hey, I really enjoyed the
24:58
writing now by audio book. I still find it tough to follow
25:03
what was happening because it kept jumping perspectives.
25:08
Yeah. And it kept jumping time, like
25:12
in different time and locations. And I was still trying to get to
25:17
grips with all the characters and like, who was who.
25:20
So I, I find it really tough to kind of follow.
25:23
But I, I loved the like classic old Hollywood stuff at the start
25:31
that really endeared me. And it, it felt like I was
25:38
watching an old Hollywood movie. Like that's how this felt to me,
25:42
the way it's presented. And even seeing the like I could
25:46
see the, the castle, but I could see it as though it were like in
25:51
a classic old Hollywood movie. And all of this was in like
25:55
black and white, like in my mind, the the entire thing.
25:58
And it it read to me like it was an actual old Hollywood movie.
26:05
Did you guys have that same experience or what did you think
26:08
of the writing? Definitely.
26:10
And I think actually the further you go through into it, the more
26:13
it even gets very like that because there's when he's he's
26:17
filming that film the Milan Milander case or Milander, Did I
26:22
say it wrong there? Sorry.
26:24
Milando. Milander case like when he's So
26:28
what happens sorry for spoilers aren't but what happens is
26:33
they're filming it in Prague and Prague all of a sudden, and this
26:36
is probably this is another one of like the bets right on my
26:38
class is really great. So all of a sudden the people in
26:41
Prague are like well, we don't want to be governed by the Nazis
26:44
and we know that the allies are kind of coming soon.
26:46
So they, they start there starts to be like a bit of AI think
26:51
it's the battle for, for Prague. And they, the two men, Pops and
27:00
Phil check, Phil check. They both escape and they're
27:04
also editing at the same time. And as they're escaping, it's
27:08
like, I feel like pops is going through traumatic experience
27:12
with all this, but he kind of is narrating it to himself in the
27:16
style of a director. So he's like, oh, this is a
27:18
crowd scene because everywhere it's crowded.
27:21
And he's kind of like, I would need, like, a forklift, not a
27:25
forklift. That's the exact wrong thing,
27:27
like a cherry picker so that I could, like, see everybody and
27:29
we could film it from here. And then he's like, we need to
27:31
turn right at a certain area. And your man's like, put the
27:34
train stations the other way. And he's like, no, in this film,
27:36
we need to turn right. It's so bizarre.
27:39
Yeah. It's so, it's so creative
27:41
because it's almost like he, he is so obsessed with the story
27:45
that it begins to just like leak into his, his, his reality.
27:48
And I think it's so fascinating because he he no longer has seen
27:51
the war. I think it's like a
27:52
disassociation thing. I think he's like, there's
27:54
safety in the film, you know, and I think that's why he's been
27:57
so obsessed with filming the Malander case because he's like,
27:59
there's safety in this. Like I am not in the war.
28:02
I am not, you know, involved in any of this.
28:05
I am in the film. Yeah, art is an escape.
28:08
Like it's like. Literally, art is an escape and.
28:11
It totally break. He's totally breaks on.
28:14
He totally. Yeah.
28:15
And they've got the film like containers for the for the film.
28:21
And like they're, they're obviously really, really heavy
28:24
and all and they can't, they can't, they're trying to carry
28:26
them through this like war-torn. Everybody's panicking.
28:30
And the signs, the local Czech people have removed the German
28:34
signs from the town. So it's complete like
28:37
everywhere's a maze. And there's a bit as well where
28:40
he's like, all of a sudden this like he's like there's, they
28:46
speak to like a Czech, I think it's a Czech person or German.
28:49
And they're like, where do we go to the station?
28:51
And then they're like, why don't you follow like this exit here?
28:54
And they're like, he's like, that wasn't there before.
28:55
This is a continuity error. It's like what, Like what is
28:59
going on in his head right now? And I thought that was, I don't
29:02
know if I like when I first kind of started reading it, I was
29:04
like, this is a bit weird. But then I, I was kind of like,
29:07
I like this as a representation of a man who is clearly going
29:11
through trauma and cannot deal with his trauma and has to.
29:14
Yeah. Currently filming anything.
29:16
So but, but I even, but I think like to build on that idea.
29:20
Like I even in my own writing, like I sometimes when I think
29:25
when something crazy is kind of happening or something that is
29:27
like emotional or whatever is going on, I'm literally like, Oh
29:29
my God, this is like, you know, the writer of this story is
29:32
fantastic. And then the character
29:34
development and like, I think there is like a comfort in a way
29:36
of like viewing your reality as art and it's a whole like art
29:40
imitates life that imitates art, whatever you want to say.
29:43
I think there is such a like a crisscross and that and like I,
29:47
I love that part of the book. I think it was so clever and so
29:50
well written and intriguing how we got to like, yeah, almost
29:55
see, like, oh, you see the bars coming in almost as you're
29:58
reading, like from the top of the on the bottom of the screen,
30:01
you know, like you begin to read it as a movie or watch it read
30:04
it as a movie, I guess, and which I thought was very, very
30:06
cool. For like the aspect ratio or.
30:09
Yes, the aspect ratio you like, the bars come in and it's like,
30:12
I don't know, 16 by 9 or whatever they call it.
30:16
Yeah, no, I think that's it was a really.
30:19
And it works so well as a reader just because you, yeah, just as
30:24
you're realizing this is happening and it kind of keeps
30:27
you from the IT keeps you from the horror as well as, as pubs.
30:32
But then as every so often, the horror just kind of peeps out,
30:37
you know? And yeah, it's, it's very good.
30:39
I like that. That bit was very good.
30:41
Something interesting happens at that point.
30:43
The swapping. I wasn't that fussed on that.
30:48
I kind of thought, OK. Well, I think it's a good
30:52
explanation for why things got, why it got lost.
30:56
I think that was quite cool because it was like it was just
30:58
sort of bad luck, you know? And they put all the effort in.
31:01
They were like cutting this thing and then some guy takes
31:03
the wrong bag with the film and they get left with his stuff.
31:08
It's I don't mind that. Sorry, I meant the fact that
31:11
your mom has it the whole time. Oh, yeah.
31:15
It feels a little like schlocky, you know, it feels almost like,
31:18
yeah, like, like them dying. Do you know, in The Cave at the
31:21
dynamite, It feels a bit like that, You know, that feels like
31:23
they, they kind of feels exactly the same.
31:27
And I'm like, is that, does that make it more clever because he's
31:30
like, playing on that? Or is that a mistake?
31:31
Is that just like accidental? I didn't think it would.
31:34
I like that, but I like that. No, Yeah, yeah.
31:38
I think what's interesting is that is that like they'll check
31:41
is uncomfortable with the whole thing of having like
31:45
concentration camp victims be part of Dino being the cast, you
31:50
know, or like at least being extras.
31:52
And I think he keeps it because he's like, this is wrong, Like
31:55
this movie should not see the light of death.
31:58
And and I think interestingly, pabs because it's quite it's
32:01
quite grey, like morally grey. I think at this point, because
32:04
Pabs is like, he needs, he needs extras.
32:07
And they're like, we don't have extras.
32:09
Everyone's involved in the war effort and he's like, well, we
32:11
need extras. So he's like, we're going to
32:13
cross the line to get them. And like he they don't even tell
32:16
what it is. But as soon as the guy mentions,
32:18
he's like, oh, we're doing that. You're like, oh, they're doing
32:22
that. And you know that they're going
32:23
to get a bunch of concentration camp victims and get them in
32:26
costume and put them in this like grand setting.
32:30
It's in this dance party in this like a grand ballroom or
32:34
whatever. And they're all dressed up and
32:37
they're emaciated and they're all like sad and they're being
32:40
like controlled by the, like the guards.
32:42
There's a lot of military presence to keep them in in
32:44
check and stuff. And I think it's so fascinating
32:46
because pubs keeps being like so close up and this person and
32:52
like, you know, all yadda, yadda, yadda, all these things.
32:55
But he keeps being like, we need to do this.
32:57
Like we need to do this. And in my in my head, I'm like,
32:59
is he doing this? Because he is like, I need to
33:02
show the world. I need this movie to be out
33:04
there so the world can see that these victims that this is what
33:07
it came to, you know, these are the victims who are being put on
33:10
stage. Like, like film transcends
33:12
things. You know, people see like, for
33:14
example, like Captain America, people recognize that across the
33:18
world, like that American exceptionalism and Captain
33:22
America, you know, like films and stuff carry those sorts of
33:24
meaning and like to the rest of the world, like they're they're
33:27
shown all over. And in a way, I was like his
33:29
Pab's doing this to morally cleanse himself to be like
33:33
secretly getting out that this these are the victims of what
33:36
the Nazis are doing. But he does it in a way that is
33:39
like still, so only he knows. You know, it's like he these
33:43
people are all still costume and he's like, Oh, you never know
33:45
that they were like concentration camp victims or
33:48
whatever. And and so I just I was kind of
33:51
confused, but I think it's lab meant to be maybe morally great
33:54
that we read into it. Yeah, I found that part.
33:58
It's it's obviously like kind of almost, I wouldn't say the crux
34:02
of the book, but. It's, but it is the big.
34:04
It's like the pinnacle, yeah. And it's the pinnacle of his
34:07
involvement in the Nazis, because he's not really, he's
34:10
outside of it. He's he's surviving.
34:13
He's not doing anything particularly bad, but then all
34:16
of a sudden his want to make this film be good transcends his
34:21
want to not be involved. And and I think, yeah, I didn't
34:26
actually think of that point of like the fact he's doing all
34:28
these close-ups of, of these people.
34:30
I didn't think of that as like something that he was would
34:33
maybe use in the future as that I wasn't a bad guy.
34:37
Look, I'm showing you how, you know, may say that these people
34:40
are or I didn't take it like that.
34:42
I I suppose I took it as he like just just was like, I need to
34:48
get this done and I need these people and I'm just going to
34:51
ship them all in. And because they'll check
34:54
recognized one of the people, he almost couldn't not see them as
35:00
people, you know, because I suppose it's that thing of like,
35:03
if you just don't want to believe something, you you will
35:06
lie enough and you will make everything better in your own
35:08
head. I think that's a fundamental
35:09
thing to humanity and I think they'll check would have done
35:11
that had he not seen someone he. Actually seen him.
35:15
He would have felt uncomfortable, but he would have
35:18
reiterated it in his own head. And I think that the inability
35:21
that you can't do that when you actually see someone you know
35:24
and you can't. Yeah, yeah.
35:27
Yeah. You can't turn the other way at
35:29
that point like it's gone too far.
35:31
But but in saying that, I do think see, because because I was
35:34
reading it as like, yeah, he just is so focused on this.
35:36
But then I'm like, I think the reason, at least in my head, but
35:39
I don't know why he didn't say this to anyone.
35:40
The reason he gets so upset that it has been lost is because in
35:43
my head he was looking for a way to show the world like after the
35:48
war. Like at some point it would be
35:49
odd. I got the vibe that he wanted to
35:51
be proved to them that, like, I wasn't, do you know, I wasn't on
35:56
board with this? Because he isn't on board with
35:58
it because he's all constantly talking about how wrong it is.
36:00
And he doesn't like doing the salute and he doesn't like, you
36:03
know, being involved and he does just feel coerced and stuff.
36:07
And that to me felt like his, like, I don't know, it's, I
36:11
think he gets so upset because he loses the chance to redeem
36:15
himself on the public stage, you know?
36:18
Yeah, I like that. And I, I genuinely didn't think
36:21
about that at all. That's, that is another
36:23
dimension part of me when I was reading it, kind of thought, and
36:27
this is probably not necessarily true, but I almost felt like
36:30
pubs had this idea that he could go to Germany and he could use
36:35
their money to make a really genuinely good film.
36:38
And there's a lot throughout the the book where it's kind of like
36:40
he's saying like everybody else's film isn't that great,
36:44
but mine will be great, you know, like I have the potential
36:47
to do something amazing. And everybody else kind of falls
36:50
short of that. And I almost feel like he looks
36:54
down at the Nazis because he sees them as garish and he sees
36:57
them as not artists, but especially like that that
37:00
writer, because that writer is not an artist.
37:02
You know, he's, he's just a propaganda machine.
37:04
And other film makers are just propaganda machines.
37:08
I don't think he's able to go, you know, that's probably what
37:12
they think of me. But like, I don't think he's
37:14
able to step outside himself and be like everybody thinks they're
37:17
like a, I'm going to use this word, an inverted commas
37:20
tortured artist. Everyone thinks this, like
37:22
everyone thinks that there are, they have the potential and it's
37:26
they have the potential to make this great art and there's some
37:28
reason or other that stops them from making it.
37:30
But I, I almost got the feeling like he didn't like the Nazis.
37:34
Not necessarily as like I'm really morally against them,
37:36
though I think he is. I don't think he's a bad person,
37:39
but I almost think he thinks of them as a bit like Yorks the
37:42
back when he meets him, it's like it's a bit lower, not lower
37:45
class, like, yeah, maybe lower class and not actually art and
37:49
not actually all these. They're not trying to get to the
37:50
human condition. They're just propaganda and
37:53
they're just a bit naff as well. Like he's, I think he wants to
38:00
be political as an art form because he knows, I think he
38:05
wants, he wants greatness as well.
38:07
I think that's that's maybe another problem with his
38:09
character is that I think he wants to be really respected
38:15
among not necessarily as a popular director, but like as a
38:18
great director, as someone who did something amazing.
38:20
He wants other directors, his peers to be like, wow, he's he's
38:24
great, which I think he struggles with throughout the
38:27
book. The really, really good points.
38:30
Yeah. I don't, I don't think he's a
38:31
bad like, I think, yeah, it's hard to know where the line is
38:35
and what he kind of, is he like more?
38:38
Is he more complicit because he's like, oh, someone's giving
38:41
me the chance to create stuff that Hollywood has said no to.
38:45
But we never actually get like, his perspective on that.
38:47
You know, we never know what's going on in his head.
38:50
And I actually found there's a lot of things in the book where
38:53
people like, talk like kind of almost like montages through
38:56
things. And it's like, he talked to this
38:58
person and you think that's going to come.
39:00
And like, clearly there's something secretive or something
39:02
conspiratorially going on, but then it just never really like
39:07
it doesn't come up. It'll come.
39:09
You never find out what it was. And it's like, what's the the
39:12
implication here is like, some of this like is doesn't matter,
39:15
but then other parts clearly build towards something that
39:18
we're not seeing. And I think like, you know,
39:20
it's, it's kind of fascinating. And maybe also, I don't know, to
39:23
get a bit metaphorical again, but is that like with the
39:25
director, the director does so much behind the scenes.
39:28
We're only seeing the finished product, which is technically
39:30
this book, you know, and we're not seeing all the different
39:33
things that were going on in the background because the doesn't
39:36
want us to see it. You know, that's not the
39:37
director's intent to show us that.
39:40
Now I'm trying now I'm like seeing the entire book in like a
39:44
like we are being manipulated. Like how like it seems it's I
39:47
don't know. I think it's a very cleverly
39:48
written story and I think it leaves a lot of room for you to
39:52
read into different characters, morality and like even like when
39:57
we're talking about the latter incident, like we're not, we're
40:00
unsure, you know? And I think, but there's at
40:02
least it's kind of like audition.
40:05
By Kitty Kitamura and that I think you can form your own view
40:10
on it. Whereas when we were talking
40:11
about strangers crossing the field towards the group, it was
40:16
a little too loose, you know, Whereas this is like the perfect
40:20
demand where it's like, oh, OK, it could.
40:23
I can see either direction, you know, And I think that's really,
40:25
really interesting, really well rated.
40:28
It's the kind of, and we haven't discussed it yet, but perhaps
40:31
has a son that he to be honest, doesn't really care about how
40:34
much. He's nowhere near as important
40:36
as the the films that he's making.
40:38
But his son Jakob, there's a part where I don't.
40:43
Jakob is back in the castle. So I think that as adults,
40:47
probably going back to Nazi Germany, knowing a lot more
40:50
about politics and how things work, it's probably a lot easier
40:54
for pubs and his wife to retain, to retain their actual like
40:59
political views. And even in midst of extreme
41:03
propaganda, they can still be like, we believe this, but we're
41:06
just surviving. Whereas I think that when Jakob
41:10
goes over to Nazi Germany, he swallows everything kind of
41:13
cool. And he's like, he really gets
41:15
into the whole Nazism stuff. But I really like there's a part
41:18
where given a gun and told to shoot the deer and he has to
41:22
like picture somebody else. So he has to imagine he's
41:25
someone else so that he can shoot this deer.
41:29
And I really like I had to kill a tick recently.
41:35
Well, very. I can see, I can see the
41:37
similarities there, Lucy. But I was like, I just read that
41:40
bit and I was like, I don't, I don't really like.
41:43
Did you? Who did you picture you were
41:45
while you were killing this tick?
41:46
I. Was just like it has to be done.
41:48
I'm someone else. You know what I mean?
41:52
Yeah, but I think I think that's not like a really interesting
41:56
point you raised because it is the the moral thing of like we,
42:01
it's like this. It's like detaching yourself
42:05
from from this act. And I think that's what a lot of
42:07
these people in the Nazi Party were doing.
42:09
You know, they were disconnecting just to like climb
42:11
the ranks and to like have their families survive in this sort of
42:15
like dystopian authoritarian sort of government.
42:18
You know, like, like they had to disconnect.
42:20
I'm sure there are people who were like truly believed it.
42:22
But then there's a lot of people who were like, I have no, I had
42:24
no choice, you know, I. Think that's something that the
42:27
book does very, very well. I really like this quote.
42:29
I think it's when they're trying to escape Prague and this this
42:33
Czech man says. I think this is like one of the
42:35
most hopeful things and I think it's quite hopeful for for today
42:39
as well as like during the time. But this man says in check to
42:45
the to pops, he's like the utmost filth, the lowest of the
42:50
low, the worst. Wickedness and business should
42:53
not exist after all, Maybe for a while, but they're no longer.
42:57
A lot is possible, but not everything.
43:00
And it's like this Czech man who's obviously been subjected
43:03
to German rule for the last however many years is like this.
43:07
This evil can't, it can't subsist, it can't exist forever.
43:10
And this this was eventually going to tumble.
43:12
And I suppose that's like your hope, even like in times like no
43:17
where it's like you, you hope that these ideas and these
43:20
things can't be sustainable. Like they can't, they can't
43:24
survive for that long. Even if you know, Germany is
43:27
probably one of the worst examples in history of just like
43:30
a complete totalitarian government, but not even that
43:33
that it it kind of reaches out and tries to take over everyone
43:36
else. You see, I think the scary
43:39
thing, I think the scary thing with that is that like there is
43:43
a, a not too distant historical timeline where Germany could
43:48
have won, you know, and we could, all of we could our, our
43:51
world would be completely different.
43:52
Like, yes, maybe eventually it would have fallen because
43:55
they're stretched so thin, you know, and it's hard to convince
43:58
the entire world that they are, you know, to be involved in this
44:02
system. Like This is why when people
44:03
talk about uniting all the countries and like having, you
44:06
know, World Peace through like a global sort of like connections,
44:10
like that's, that's, that's too tight, too many different views
44:13
and stuff like, and too many cultures to like kind of wrap
44:16
all into one. And I think like we the it's it
44:21
would have, I don't know, I in my head, I'm always thinking
44:24
like there's a lot of alternative history books like
44:27
Man in the High Castle and even video games and movies and stuff
44:29
where they use this idea of like if Germany, if the Nazis had
44:33
won, this is what they would have.
44:36
You know, this is what the world could have been like you.
44:38
Know what that made me think of? If you guys have ever done this?
44:41
This is probably the saddest thing in the world, but I
44:44
absolutely and I wouldn't use the word love because that
44:47
sounds bad, but I'm fascinated by the end of World War 2 when
44:52
all those massive cities were really taken and fought for.
44:57
I think that those kind of I'm not that fast on transfer
45:01
warfare, but I like again, I don't mean that obviously all of
45:06
this is bad and but I'm not as interested in trench warfare.
45:09
I'm really like, I just find it really fascinating when like
45:12
there's those battles over big cities and I have, I don't know
45:17
if you guys have ever done this, but they're here like videos on
45:20
YouTube where they like have a map of a city and they just like
45:23
go through like day by day, like what places were taken?
45:26
What were. There's one that's like an hour
45:28
long on YouTube on Stalingrad and it is fascinating.
45:31
But like Prague, there's one some Prague and like Berlin and
45:34
all those places that like, it's such a, it's just like a mad
45:38
thing is happening over the course of such a short time.
45:40
And it's like, everybody is in this city and everybody is like,
45:44
all of a sudden, you know, I just, I find that side of World
45:48
War 2 history, like, absolutely fascinating.
45:50
I think a lot of this overall conversation comes to the world
45:57
that we live in and the specific how you see yourself.
46:02
So we can look on the characters within the director and say,
46:07
well, he was making movies for the Nazis.
46:10
That is a horrible thing. How can anyone support that?
46:14
But he was in an environment where he wasn't.
46:17
He didn't, from what I hear from you guys, he didn't think of
46:21
himself as a supporter of the Nazis.
46:22
He was just making art. Now, if we widen that to films
46:28
in general in the West, they take place in like a capitalist
46:35
culture, where in the future, like let's say in 100 years, if
46:42
the world moves away from capitalism, they might look back
46:45
and be like these films were all in support of capitalism because
46:51
that's the environment in which they were made.
46:52
And why did they go along with that?
46:54
Why didn't they rally against that?
46:56
But that's you're just everyone sees themselves and can justify
47:02
their actions within the culture that they're in and can always
47:07
excuse what they're doing. And I'm not saying trying to say
47:10
whether capitalist culture is a good thing or a bad thing, but
47:13
I'm just using that as a context for how it might be looked back
47:18
upon, just how we now look back upon these people who made art
47:24
and film within Nazi Germany. So this is, I'm maybe going off
47:28
topic here a wee bit, but I have a thing where I'm like, and this
47:33
is kind of linked to the director in some way, But I
47:36
think it's like we find it like because Pops doesn't, he's apart
47:41
from maybe having a slight communist thing where they all
47:44
think he's communist at the start.
47:46
He's he fits in well with Nazi Germany because he's, you know,
47:49
isn't he doesn't take any of their boxes to be set away.
47:52
So he's kind of like, he's OK, I have this thing where I'm like,
47:58
I'm, I, I would consider myself to be politically, you know, not
48:01
racist, not sexist, not classist, not like I'd want to
48:06
believe myself to, to be aside from all of those things.
48:09
But something that I really, and I think reading has kind of
48:13
maybe like reading a lot has kind of maybe changed my view on
48:17
a lot of stuff because I think I've always thought of myself
48:20
as, as being that way. But I think that when you read
48:24
things like your outrage is maybe slightly different
48:28
depending on like what's happened and how you feel.
48:31
So like giving an example of this.
48:34
So I read Gone with the Wind, right?
48:37
And I was, I was reading it and it's a very long book and it's
48:40
really deplorable in its depictions of, of slaves and of
48:46
African Americans. Like really like actually did is
48:48
really, really awful. Like, but I think I was able to
48:52
be like, as someone who's not African American, I was very
48:56
quickly able to be like, oh, OK, this person's racist.
49:00
She's she's a racist woman in the 30s.
49:02
OK. Like, I've, I've contextualized
49:05
this and I'm just going to keep on reading.
49:06
It's not going to bother me in any way.
49:09
You know, actually, it's not going to doesn't actually affect
49:13
my reading of it because I've never experienced what it's like
49:15
to be on the other side of this. But then later on there's this
49:19
bit and it's not massively sexist, but it is pretty sexist.
49:23
And it's like a really horrible like rape scene.
49:25
Well, not it's, it's complicated and I was really outraged by it
49:30
and it wasn't that bad. Well, again, it was pretty bad,
49:33
but it wasn't. But it was like, as a woman, I'm
49:36
able to go, oh, that's how I feel when someone is really
49:40
dismissive of women or like, and and the writer is a woman.
49:43
But like, I was like, this is a really outdated view of like,
49:47
and it's really creepy and it's really horrible.
49:48
And I was actually like, this has stopped me from enjoying
49:52
this. I can't like, I can't relate to
49:54
it. And then I was like this book,
49:56
like not like 200 pages ago was literally like saying some of
50:02
the most disgusting things about African Americans I've ever
50:05
heard or read. And I was like, how am I?
50:08
Like, I think that we have this ability because we don't.
50:12
And maybe this is just a me thing and it's something that I
50:14
have to address, but it was like, it really hit home to me
50:16
how if it's happening to someone or if it's happening to someone
50:20
else, I can have this this view where logically I'm against
50:23
racism, but I've never experienced racism.
50:25
So I have no idea. So I can, I can kind of go, oh,
50:29
that's racist, that's bad. But I have no, and I mean other
50:34
people might you guys might feel differently about that, but it's
50:36
just something that really like I kind of imagine pops, you
50:41
know, he can get he can be OK there because he's like this is
50:45
this is wrong and I I'm against it, but he doesn't feel it.
50:49
Like he doesn't actually feel it, like genuinely have those
50:51
feelings that you can only really well could be wrong
50:55
there, but you can only experience when you actually
51:00
have gone through those and you've you've, you know, like, I
51:02
imagine it would be really horrible for like a anybody
51:07
who's African American to read, to read Gone with the Wind.
51:10
It'd be a horrible experience. It wouldn't be a yeah, I was
51:14
just kind of thinking about that.
51:15
Like how it's easy, not easy, but it's easy to be like, oh,
51:19
well, I am right in my head and it's OK for me living in this
51:23
community and taking this money though, because I'm against it.
51:26
But but you don't feel you don't feel that real tangible, you
51:31
know, horror of what's actually happening, you know.
51:35
So I think it's I kind of almost I'm like, would I find it easy
51:38
enough? Maybe if you're not who the
51:41
target people who are being persecuted are, you can be like
51:47
in your head that I'm morally right.
51:50
It reminds me of separating the art from the artist.
51:52
Like, like, can we enjoy someone, a product that somebody
52:00
has made, even if we don't agree with that person's politics or
52:06
the context in which it was made or the resources that were used
52:11
to make it or whatever it is? And like, at what point?
52:16
And I think that that falls. That's different for everyone.
52:19
Everyone must decide on each individual topic.
52:23
At what point are they fine with separating the art from the
52:26
artist? There's people who will still
52:28
pay tickets to go see Chris Brown in concert.
52:31
Well, to other people, they would never consider listening
52:35
to Chris Brown because, yeah, the things that he did to
52:38
Rihanna, like years ago. So it's like, at what point?
52:41
Well. This is the thing, I think
52:43
everyone, it's a very personal thing and that everyone has a
52:45
different view. But I think what is important is
52:47
context as well. And I think every situation is
52:50
going to be different. And if we, for example, Lucy,
52:52
you're mentioning all of this stuff you had then have the
52:55
context of being a woman and seeing violence against women
52:59
and like, you know, that then feels like that feels like fuel
53:04
to you. You know that is it is a very
53:06
personal. Thing to connecting,
53:08
disconnecting these things from the artists and like what
53:10
they're trying to convey these different things that are
53:12
happening and I think you'll never get one answer.
53:14
Like people are like, you have to disconnect from the artists.
53:16
Like, uh, do I have to mention the classic one like JK Rowling,
53:20
Like JK Rowling's books are, are were so much of our childhood,
53:23
you know, and we loved reading them.
53:25
And there's the constant debate about like to separating the,
53:28
the artists from the work. And, and in all honesty, I don't
53:31
have an answer. And I still don't know where I
53:33
stand following this stuff because I'm like, like, it
53:36
depends on the levels. Like also another big example,
53:39
Dune by Frank Herbert. Frank Herbert was like horrific
53:43
man. Like he, he was very, very
53:45
homophobic towards the sun and like disowned his sun.
53:47
And I think that to me feels very personal and like the
53:50
context of that. But I love doing as a book and I
53:53
think. Can I just say, can you
53:56
pronounce it correctly, Colin, and not do?
53:59
Why do you guys say everything American?
54:02
No, I said, dude, I said Dune because when I said June, it
54:04
doesn't sound like what the book.
54:06
It doesn't sound like what the book is.
54:09
Title is like I've always said to people, I was like, oh, have
54:12
you read June? And people think I'm saying Jay
54:14
like like the book June and I'm like, no, you know, all the
54:18
time. So, so I that's the one I
54:20
autocorrect my head because I'm like people, I the way I say it,
54:23
people, it's never, never taken up the right way that I even
54:27
though I did say Dune by by Frank Herbert.
54:29
I guess that would be yeah, I don't know.
54:31
It's all personal. And I think like his, he does
54:34
have like a like a pretty nasty representation of like a gay
54:39
character in Dune. And that is, I mean, you know,
54:43
an awful representation, but there's still so much in the
54:47
story. And like, he was also an
54:48
ecologist and like he talks so much about the environment and
54:51
things like that, that there's like there's good to that.
54:53
Like, I don't know, but it's so complex And I think it's
54:55
personal and I do, there is no answer.
54:57
And I think we're, we can debate this for hours, but we're never
54:59
going to get an answer. You know, And I think the
55:01
Internet has a problem with going like this when, for
55:04
example, Nazi party extremely awful.
55:07
But there are many people in the Nazi party who were not
55:10
necessarily bad people and didn't even believe in what they
55:12
were doing. They still contributed and
55:14
helped in the Nazi Party's efforts to like, you know, to
55:18
discriminate against the Jews and a whole other bunch of
55:21
different types of people. But I think like it's never as
55:25
clear. Cut as as that do.
55:27
You mean like, should we go in the Autobahn when we're visiting
55:29
Germany? You know, because I think Hitler
55:31
built that and I've been on it. So effectively I am promoting
55:35
Nazism. So apologies everyone.
55:38
But it is one of those things where it's like, yeah, at what
55:41
point are you going to like call it quits?
55:44
Like, where are you going to draw your line in the sand?
55:47
And just another music reference.
55:49
And Tina Turner obviously had was the victim of domestic abuse
55:56
from Ike. But her biggest songs, the songs
55:59
that we all know from Tina Turner are all credited to Tina
56:03
Turner and Ike. So it's like, can you enjoy Tina
56:07
Turner songs whenever he had such a strong involvement?
56:10
Like, like, where do you draw the line?
56:12
Like that's what Like, you know, her music is what she was known
56:16
for, but you're also supporting him by listening to that music
56:21
to a certain extent. And I'm not trying to stay.
56:23
I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't listen.
56:25
I'm just saying it's one of those things where are people
56:27
going to draw the line in the sand?
56:30
But I think that this book, surprisingly is still really
56:33
topical. And like, even though it is
56:39
based in in Nazi Germany, it's still can be applied to
56:45
everything that that we consume in our lives.
56:48
Let's rate this book and give our bookies odds on whether or
56:50
not this book will win. I'll start it off.
56:56
What do I think? I'm kind of between a three and
57:00
a 3.5. I actually enjoyed the
57:01
conversation a lot and I don't know that I massively enjoyed
57:05
the reading of it. I don't know if that's my fault
57:07
for the way I read it because I read it over a long period of
57:09
time, like little bits and pieces, but I kind of yeah, I
57:12
like, I enjoyed it, but I could have taken it and left at
57:15
different parts. Like, if I'd never finished it,
57:18
I wouldn't have been like, I need to find out what happens or
57:21
even like. And then again, with all the
57:24
kind of World War 2 stuff, I don't know that it added much to
57:27
the conversation or it added really much to my thoughts on
57:32
all those kind of things. And so, yeah, I'll give it a
57:37
three-point. No, a three.
57:41
I'll go to three. But I did certainly like it.
57:43
And I think the writing is really good.
57:44
The writing stood out to me as the best part of this book.
57:48
I, I do agree with you, Lucy, on a bunch of these like different
57:50
things you've said. I think like, did it really
57:53
bring that much more to the World War 2 sort of genre of
57:56
books? And like we've seen a lot of
57:57
these stories and I do think it was beautifully written, but I
58:00
think I really enjoyed this. And I think this is a personal
58:02
thing and that I like talking about art.
58:04
I love books that consider art. And then maybe that's coming
58:07
from the writer side of me that I love seeing the creative
58:10
process and stuff behind things. And I think it did do a really
58:13
like it was so open in it's like interpretation of morality and
58:18
and how we can like, you know, navigate sort of the morass of
58:22
all these different political views and stuff.
58:26
I agree it's maybe not the best, like it's not the deepest sort
58:30
of thing, but I think I really enjoy.
58:31
So I'm going to give it a four out of five.
58:34
I really like till as well by him.
58:37
So I highly recommend that And I think it's a good read and I
58:40
don't it's very similar. And that's like, it's not really
58:43
doing all that much, but it is a good story and it's a good I
58:46
went to fun read. This isn't exactly a fun read
58:48
too, but it is fun and enjoyable in a way that's like, I'm, I'm,
58:53
I'm enjoying it, you know, I'm not like.
58:56
It's not a slog. To get through and at least for
58:58
me personally, so yeah, 4 out of five for me and I, I don't know
59:02
if I can see it winning. So because I haven't completed
59:06
this book, I am not going to read it, but I could definitely
59:09
see this book winning. No, I have already stated before
59:14
that I believe that based off last year's When they're Heart
59:17
Lamp, they will go for a book that is specifically about an
59:21
insight into a culture that could only be initially written
59:26
in the native language and because of its very unique
59:33
insight into that culture. So I don't think this book
59:38
necessarily follows that criteria, but this book really
59:43
reminds me of Flesh, which just won the Booker Prize in 2025, in
59:49
terms of the way that it was written.
59:50
So join the book club and read along with us.
59:52
We're going to have one more episode on who we think is going
59:55
to actually win the Booker Prize, so stay tuned for that.
59:58
If you liked our discussion on this book, you might like our
1:00:01
episode on Glorious Exploit. Colin had mentioned that.
1:00:06
He's seen a lot of similarities between these two books in terms
1:00:10
of the fact that they're based around directing a performance.
1:00:16
Our socials and e-mail are in the description.
1:00:18
Share your thoughts on the shortlist, subscribe wherever
1:00:20
you get your podcasts, and rate US five stars.
1:00:23
Let's end on a quote from the director.
1:00:26
Times are always strange. Art is always out of place,
1:00:30
always unnecessary when it's made and later when you look
1:00:33
back, it's the only thing that mattered.