Years ago, or more accurately a year ago, I was encouraged by a friend to write a book review of Lolita. It was an attempt to encourage me to write more entries for my blog. The time for reviewing Lolita has come and gone, but books are still being read so here I go with my first attempt. I have recently fallen into reading Osamu Tezuka, my road to which has been long and winding so I won't go into it here. I had been reading almost anything of his I could get my hands on and when the only thing I could get my hands on was Message to Adolf, I gave in to my obsessive nature and checked it out from the library.
The "tagline" for Message to Adolf is that it is the story of three Adolfs. I would argue that it is actually the story of two Adolfs and a Toge; Adolf Kamil, Adolf Kaufmann, and Sohei Toge. The third Adolf would, of course, be Adolf Hitler. Considering the story begins and ends with Toge, we'll put aside this three Adolfs idea and just admit that Toge is the main character. He is a former athlete turned reporter, passionate, charming, genial, and must be quite a catch as all the women in the book seem to go mad for him. He is in Germany to follow the Olympics when he finds his brother murdered and that's where our story begins. The two Adolfs are introduced as children later on. Kamil is a Jewish-German lad living in Japan while Kaufmann is the child of a German consulate and a Japanese mother. Kamil protects Kaufmann from school bullies and the two become best friends. So much for the Wikipedia-esque introduction of the characters!
[Be forewarned, spoilers sighted ahead! But knowing how a story ends, shouldn't keep you from reading a good book. Also keep in mind to read the inserted images from right to left.]
With Toge comes my biggest issue with the book (or books, as you will). He is set up to be the guy I, the reader, am supposed to root for. I say "supposed to" because of what occurs in the first two chapters. Determined to find who killed his brother, Toge teams up with his brother's former sweetheart, Rosa, the daughter of a prominent member of the gestapo. In due time, he discovers that Rosa, knowing that Isao Toge was a communist and fearing for his life, told the authorities that he was a red naively believing that they would deport him. Upon hearing this, Toge locks Rosa in her hotel room, beats her, threatens to kill her, rapes her, makes a snide comment about her still being a virgin, and then leaves her. After all this, she throws herself from the hotel balcony successfully committing suicide. Her death appears not to have effected him one iota. He mentions her in passing once, telling another female character that he knew a girl in Germany, but she's dead. Even when confronted by her father, who claims Toge murdered his daughter, he ignores the accusation entirely, as if it wasn't even worth refuting. Needless to say, I could give zero shits about this character after those first two chapters. It may have been possible if, like the other characters, Toge was presented as a deeply flawed individual with warring sides of his personality. But when I compare the rape scene of Rosa to the rape scene of Elisa later in the story, I can't help but think that Tezuka did not see what happened to Rosa as a violation. While the rape of Elisa is portrayed by images of her naked body being chewed up by a thousand toothed serpent, Rosa's passes by with no violent imagery whatsoever. And I have a hard time believing that a woman who has just been placed in a choke hold and subsequently beaten would be happy to give herself to this man. I don't know why Toge's character is so poorly developed. I could guess that there was something of a national pride that wouldn't allow Tezuka to write a Japanese protagonist who was something much more than just weak at times, but I feel like that would be simplifying a great author. Whatever the reason, Toge remains the weakest point of an otherwise great collection of character stories.
Kamil, much like Toge, is supposed to be "good". He is so good, in fact, that nothing much happens in his story throughout the first volume. Quite a bit does happen to him, mostly surrounding some documents about Hitler's lineage, but nothing out of the normal good-Jewish-boy-living-through-WWII troupe. He helps his parents, his father goes to Germany and disappears, he helps his mother, he meets a Jewish girl, he falls in love with her, his mother dies in an air raid, he marries the girl, etc. Living in an Axis Powers nation was apparently much easier for Jews during the war than I would have thought. Towards the end of his story however, we glimpse another side of Kamil when he tells his mother that he can't marry his fiancee after she has been raped by another man, or as he damns Americans to burn in hell for bombing Japan following the death of his mother. Long after the war, Kamil has joined the Israelites in their never ending battle against the Palestinians. We are told that he leads troops in the massacre of Arabs, killing women and children, perpetuating the violence done to his people. With Kamil, we get a glimpse of the power that Adolf holds. Kamil is a deeply flawed individual as I believe, or perhaps more accurately hope, that Tezuka intended for him to be. If only he had been as careful in Toge's character development.
Kaufmann is where the true, tragic brilliance of Adolf lies. His story is that of a drowning man and it is oh, so hard to watch. At the beginning, he is filled with that innocence and courage that only children possess. He is determined that the friendship he shares with Kamil will be steadfast. He refuses to sing the Hitler Youth anthem at school, he rails against his father's wishes that he be sent to Germany to join the Youth, he runs away from home when it looks like even his mother will be unable to save him from the inevitable. This is what makes his story so difficult, to watch him slide down into the abyss of Nazism after fighting so desperately against it. We watch as he becomes indoctrinated with propaganda, we witness the first time he kills and many of the times after. Every now and again, Tezuka offers Kaufmann a chance at redemption only to snatch it away and cause him to spiral even further down the path of moral degradation, culminating in him raping the Jewess that he had claimed to love, the fiancée of Kamil. Even at his basest, we see Kaufmann floundering to understand his conflicted existence. Tezuka never makes excuses for Kaufmann's actions and if there is a character to labeled an antagonist in this work, it would be he. At times, I'm not entirely sure that the author intended this character to be as sympathetic as he is, if at all. But if he did intend it, as I assume he did, he has more brilliantly shown me the tragedy of the "other" side then any author I have read has ever been able to do. And as I read and hoped, more then I had ever hoped through all the myriad of WWII films and books, that Kaufmann would turn back to the courageous child he was at the beginning, I found myself for the first and perhaps only time in my life, desiring redemption for a Nazi. And that, above all else, should cement Tezuka among the great authors of the 20th century.
Redemption never comes for Kaufmann. And it's heartbreaking.
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this book. And maybe that's the point. All I know is that there is nothing black and white about this story. That is the frustratingly wonderful thing about it. It is entirely too much like the world. There are no good wars and even good people get caught up in terrible things. Perhaps there is no such thing as a good person and the idea of a protagonist is inherently flawed. We are all the bad guy, it just depends on who is telling the story.
The "tagline" for Message to Adolf is that it is the story of three Adolfs. I would argue that it is actually the story of two Adolfs and a Toge; Adolf Kamil, Adolf Kaufmann, and Sohei Toge. The third Adolf would, of course, be Adolf Hitler. Considering the story begins and ends with Toge, we'll put aside this three Adolfs idea and just admit that Toge is the main character. He is a former athlete turned reporter, passionate, charming, genial, and must be quite a catch as all the women in the book seem to go mad for him. He is in Germany to follow the Olympics when he finds his brother murdered and that's where our story begins. The two Adolfs are introduced as children later on. Kamil is a Jewish-German lad living in Japan while Kaufmann is the child of a German consulate and a Japanese mother. Kamil protects Kaufmann from school bullies and the two become best friends. So much for the Wikipedia-esque introduction of the characters!
[Be forewarned, spoilers sighted ahead! But knowing how a story ends, shouldn't keep you from reading a good book. Also keep in mind to read the inserted images from right to left.]
With Toge comes my biggest issue with the book (or books, as you will). He is set up to be the guy I, the reader, am supposed to root for. I say "supposed to" because of what occurs in the first two chapters. Determined to find who killed his brother, Toge teams up with his brother's former sweetheart, Rosa, the daughter of a prominent member of the gestapo. In due time, he discovers that Rosa, knowing that Isao Toge was a communist and fearing for his life, told the authorities that he was a red naively believing that they would deport him. Upon hearing this, Toge locks Rosa in her hotel room, beats her, threatens to kill her, rapes her, makes a snide comment about her still being a virgin, and then leaves her. After all this, she throws herself from the hotel balcony successfully committing suicide. Her death appears not to have effected him one iota. He mentions her in passing once, telling another female character that he knew a girl in Germany, but she's dead. Even when confronted by her father, who claims Toge murdered his daughter, he ignores the accusation entirely, as if it wasn't even worth refuting. Needless to say, I could give zero shits about this character after those first two chapters. It may have been possible if, like the other characters, Toge was presented as a deeply flawed individual with warring sides of his personality. But when I compare the rape scene of Rosa to the rape scene of Elisa later in the story, I can't help but think that Tezuka did not see what happened to Rosa as a violation. While the rape of Elisa is portrayed by images of her naked body being chewed up by a thousand toothed serpent, Rosa's passes by with no violent imagery whatsoever. And I have a hard time believing that a woman who has just been placed in a choke hold and subsequently beaten would be happy to give herself to this man. I don't know why Toge's character is so poorly developed. I could guess that there was something of a national pride that wouldn't allow Tezuka to write a Japanese protagonist who was something much more than just weak at times, but I feel like that would be simplifying a great author. Whatever the reason, Toge remains the weakest point of an otherwise great collection of character stories.
Kaufmann is where the true, tragic brilliance of Adolf lies. His story is that of a drowning man and it is oh, so hard to watch. At the beginning, he is filled with that innocence and courage that only children possess. He is determined that the friendship he shares with Kamil will be steadfast. He refuses to sing the Hitler Youth anthem at school, he rails against his father's wishes that he be sent to Germany to join the Youth, he runs away from home when it looks like even his mother will be unable to save him from the inevitable. This is what makes his story so difficult, to watch him slide down into the abyss of Nazism after fighting so desperately against it. We watch as he becomes indoctrinated with propaganda, we witness the first time he kills and many of the times after. Every now and again, Tezuka offers Kaufmann a chance at redemption only to snatch it away and cause him to spiral even further down the path of moral degradation, culminating in him raping the Jewess that he had claimed to love, the fiancée of Kamil. Even at his basest, we see Kaufmann floundering to understand his conflicted existence. Tezuka never makes excuses for Kaufmann's actions and if there is a character to labeled an antagonist in this work, it would be he. At times, I'm not entirely sure that the author intended this character to be as sympathetic as he is, if at all. But if he did intend it, as I assume he did, he has more brilliantly shown me the tragedy of the "other" side then any author I have read has ever been able to do. And as I read and hoped, more then I had ever hoped through all the myriad of WWII films and books, that Kaufmann would turn back to the courageous child he was at the beginning, I found myself for the first and perhaps only time in my life, desiring redemption for a Nazi. And that, above all else, should cement Tezuka among the great authors of the 20th century. Redemption never comes for Kaufmann. And it's heartbreaking.
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this book. And maybe that's the point. All I know is that there is nothing black and white about this story. That is the frustratingly wonderful thing about it. It is entirely too much like the world. There are no good wars and even good people get caught up in terrible things. Perhaps there is no such thing as a good person and the idea of a protagonist is inherently flawed. We are all the bad guy, it just depends on who is telling the story.
