BOOKS
Versions of an Unmastered Past
THE FRAGILITY OF GOODNESS: WHY BULGARIA'S JEWS SURVIVED THE
HOLOCAUST. By Tzvetan Todorov. Translated by Arthur Denner. Prince–
ton University Press. $26.95.
THE ALGERIA HOTEL: FRANCE, MEMORY, AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
By Adam Nossiter. Houghton Mifflin. $26.00.
THE HOUSE OF RETUR ED ECHOES. By Arnost Lustig. Translated by Josef
Lustig. orthwestern University Press.
$I
7.95.
THE BITTER SMELL OF ALMONDS: SELECTED FICTION. By Arnost Lustig.
Translated by Vera Bokovec, Josef Lustig, Jeanne Nemcova, Iris Urwin–
Levit, and Paul Wilson. Northwestern University Press. $25.95.
THE HOUSE OF FICTION, Henry James wrote in the preface to
Portrait of
a Lady,
has "not one window, but a million," and sometimes it seems
as if the same might be said for the house of Holocaust Studies. James,
of course, was interested in the "fictive picture," while Holocaust com–
mentary betrays a much wider and more varied concern. For James, the
interpretation of observed reality depended on the consciousness of the
artist. The authors of the books under review include not only a Czech
novelist, who would qualify for James's pantheon, but also an American
journalist and a French intellectual renowned for his works on literary
theory. Depending on the sill where he is perched, each offers a differ–
ent perspective on the diverse and complex human and historical land–
scape known as Holocaust Studies.
Tzvetan Todorov, who began his search for virtue among victims of
German atrocity in
Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration
Camps
(1996), continues his quest for pulsations of ethical strength
within the black horror of mass murder in
The Fragility of Goodness:
Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust.
The story of the saving of
native Bulgarian Jewry has already been told, and Todorov makes no
claims for the originality of his narrative. Indeed, following an intro–
ductory commentary, the bulk of his text comprises documents that cast
light on the fate of Bulgaria's Jewish population during the years that
saw the ranks of European Jewry expunged by the Nazi "final solution."
