The Education of Arnold Hitler
by Marc Estrin
Unbridled Books, 451 pp., $14.95 (paper)
“Wouldn’t it be funny if your name was Arnold Hitler?” Marc Estrin writes in the follow-up to the acclaimed Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, and immediately the warning sirens start to wail. “Wouldn’t it be funny if … ” – perhaps the five most irritating words in our language, preamble to a whole world of mediocre art motivated by theories rather than life, by hypotheses instead of humanity. The dangers of writing an “idea” novel are many, and the ways around them few: Every scene and every conversation will orbit inevitably around that idea, and no matter how good or clever or funny that idea is, it will never add up to a novel of any consequence. So it is for The Education of Arnold Hitler.Estrin’s right though, I suppose. It probably would be funny to share a last name with the most famous genocidal maniac in history. Maybe not laugh-out-loud funny, but surely embarrassing, and probably frustrating. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be interesting. And it definitely doesn’t mean that it needs to be written about, or read. Just ask Henry James, who knew a thing or two: Novels are born out of characters, not speculations. They are, in the end, about human beings. And the kind of author who would express more interest in the idea behind a life than the life itself clearly doesn’t care about the humanity of his creation. As if lives had ideas behind them anyway.
No wonder most of the characters in this book speak the same way, seem to have been educated in the same place, seem to be from the same place, regardless of where we’re told they’re from. The dialogue, even at the story’s most crucial moments, isn’t designed to get inside the minds and emotions of the people speaking; it’s meant to get a point across. And that’s the problem. You can be told a thousand times that a man is lonely or depressed or full of anger or love, but it doesn’t mean anything if you as the reader don’t feel it. Anyone with a vocabulary can tell you something is true. Not everyone can make you believe. Or care.
This article appears in April 15 • 2005.