The Collaborator: The Trial & Execution of Robert Brasillach

Brasillach was a political (anti-semitic, racist) commentator and novelist in France before and during WWII.As we can read in his memoirs, he was intellectually seduced by the racist and nationalistic work of Charles Maurras (L'Action Française). He had probably homosexual tendencies.After the war, he was condemned (3 against 1) for high treason and executed. For me, the author proves convincingly that the trial was excessive and unfair - the Liberation courts were essential Vichy courts! Brasillach was guilty for his writing, but should not have been shot. There was no strict cause-effect relationship between Brasillach's words and the murders and deportations that did take place in France.But I agree also with the author that with this trial there was much more at stake: free speech, the capacity of language to do real evil, the accountability of writers and intellectuals. It was a warning by the political power elite at that moment.Good portraits of Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir.A model study. Nearly every sentence in this book is supported by a reference.It is a signing on the wall that this book was written by an American. The ghosts and demons of WWII are still not dead in Europe.

France has certainly been taking stock of its own behavior lately--both good and bad--during WWII. The Vichy Regime was complex--denounced as collaborating with the German Socialists by some, accepted as a pragmatic answer to the survival of French culture by others. Many were caught in the middle, and this is a superb book about one such person. Kaplan's analysis is sensitive, brilliant, clear-eyed. She can tell a good story, too. Highly recommended.

Alice Kaplan's new book "The Collaborator" is a major work of literary and cultural criticism. In her investigation of the writings and the trial for treason of French fascist intellectual Robert Brasillach, Kaplan combines erudition with a sensitivity to the importance of writing and literature in modern France. The purge of 1944-1947 was a unique moment in French history: for the first time since the Revolution a group of writers was tried for having jeopardized the interests of the nation. The Brasillach case was exemplary. At the heart of Kaplan's book is not so much the story of the life and times of Robert Brasillach as the question of what it means when a nation decides to condemn one of its writers for treason. The great merit of "The Collaborator" is that Kaplan answers this question by looking in detail at the documents from the period. In her research she reads and analyzes Brasillach's articles in the collaborationist press, in particular those that appeared in the notorious and antisemitic weekly, "Je Suis Partout." She deftly guides the reader through the transcript of Brasillach's trial. In one of the most original parts of the book she identifies the four jurors at Brasillach's trial, describing in detail their personal history, their politics and their role in the Liberation of France. She is one of the few scholars to have looked at the Brasillach pardon file, submitted to de Gaulle in February 1945, and her conclusions about de Gaulle's reactions to the file are startling. Throughout, Kaplan is unfailingly honest about her discoveries and the parts of the trial that remain a mystery. Brasillach was a complex character who seems to have made up in racist diatribe what he lacked in literary skill. Kaplan's point is not to give us a psychobiography of the writer. Rather "The Collaborator" is a sober and compelling reflection on literature and the memory of World War II today.

At a time when the issues of hate speech and political crimes are so pivotal, and where the treatment of "war criminals" in Bosnia, South Africa and elsewhere are so compelling, this is an excellent book for anyone who is concerned about how governments deal with advocates of hate in the political realm. The narrative is riveting, the issues are well laid out, and the story is dramatic and powerful. Kaplan tells an important story and she tells it beautifully and carefully. Whether or not you are interested in French modern history, this story will grab you and make you think.

I was eager to read this book because there are hints about the Brasillach case in Kaplan's memoir, *French Lessons*. *The Collaborator* doesn't disappoint. It combines historical research with the drive of a legal thriller. And it raises interesting moral questions about the accountability of writers to society. I highly recommend it.