The Zone of Interest: Martin Amis
To establish one important matter at the start; I have not yet seen the film (although it’s obviously very high on my to-see list) and I had assumed that it was an original screenplay. I did not know of the existence of this novel although I understand that really the film cannot be properly be said to be an adaptation of the book – or can it…? But that whole (fascinating) question is not for here – or at least not now when talking only of the book.
There are three narrators in the novel, and each of them deals/does not deal/ignores with the horrors unfolding around them. There is Doll, the Camp Commandant who, effectively, goes mad but because of events in his personal life, not the camp which he regards simply as his job to run as effectively and efficiently as possible. By the end he has become an almost satirical grotesque of a figure. Angelus Thomsen is a young guard/administrator who is focused almost solely on his own emotions and feelings for Doll’s wife and for whom the camp is largely an incidental backdrop. And finally there is Szmul, a Jewish ‘trusty’ who has a slightly better life than his compatriots (he lives…sort of) but who is fully aware of the agonies of his position, of what is happening around him along with the knowledge that his life is limited and could end at any time. Interestingly, and probably appropriately, his narrations are by far the shortest – perhaps because he is directly involved and experiences what is happening and words cannot really convey these experiences. The lengthier and more fluent narrations of the other two are individuals are, perhaps deliberately, not allowing themselves to be fully aware of what is happening around them and so can take reference in glibness and fluency.
The presence of the camp is interestingly dealt with; in the film, it seems it is all-powerful and constantly looming, presumably visually, over the scene. In the book occasional elements are mentioned – smoke rising in the sky, occasionally references to smell (which of course cannot be conveyed in film but which is powerfully referenced on P.298) and a large number of discussions about the practical problems involving boilers/smoke dispersal etc. etc. It is only after a few of these that one suddenly realizes exactly what is being discussed – or not discussed. As far as Doll is concerned (and perhaps Angelus too), the daily issues that they deal with are invariably couched in terms of problems to be solved. The visuals of the camp are hardly mentioned at all – again, I suspect a major difference with the film where the actual buildings would always be very much visually and inescapably ‘there’. Daily horrors are not really mentioned very much – most explicitly (and yet not very explicitly too) this is done by Szmul. Angelus, with his characteristic cold and flat tone (when not obsessing with Doll’s wife) glancingly references various events but almost in passing.
Having read the book, the smartness and subtlety of the title becomes apparent; I had always only taken it to refer to the area around the boundaries of the camp, where the Nazi lives existed adjacent to the camp – something of a halfway house/no-man’s land between the camp itself and the wholly civilian German world. However, after reading the novel, I realize that it also references (as on P.285) what people are really like, viz THAT is the ‘zone of interest’.
The ending is intriguing. It is very quick and sudden but powerfully dramatic, not least as we hear other narrative voices.
There are some wonderful details in the writing particularly the snow imagery used in the titles for sections 3 (Grey Snow) and 4 (Brown Snow). It is only at the very end (P.295) that it is made explicit as to exactly what and how the snow is defiled and discolored.
