A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

Day 7: The Most Underrated Book I'm going with Hans Keilson 's The Death of the Adversary ( see my earlier review here ). Set in the time of World War II - the beginning of, actually - it tries to answer the questions ripe in everyone's heads. Why did so many people succumb to the tyranny that Hitler brought upon the world? To Germany and the Jews? We know of the fear and the hatred people held for him, but what about individuals who were just content living their lives? This book is very anonymous, in that the 'adversary' is never named, but we all know his identity because we know history. It is designed to try and explain to you the simplicity of it all. The path of a human life in a time when it was questioned.

I doubt there is much to say about this book other than READ IT! Written by Hans Keilson and set in Germany in the time of World War II - it's onset and during, to be precise - this book is strange, anonymous and engaging. It's a slow read, mind you, as you have to sift through the pages with care lest you may get lost in the timeline. The first person narrative shifts between memories - events and people, that are promised to play larger roles later in the story - and current events. What had me getting through this novel was the almost ironic manner in which no one is named, a few maybe but not significantly enough given the time period it is set it. But the enemy, the nameless ominous adversary that the narrator battles throughout the novel, rises to such a powerful level to induce literary fear mainly because he's called -. Keilson describes, very beautifully, mundane activities that no one would really see any beauty in; the main one being how the protagonist sees his...