I read part one of the comics serie, but although I liked it, it didn't convince me to buy the rest, though I always grab it out of the shelves when I see it. So it has a certain attraction, yes, but who knows what.

Elie Wiesel's Night

Arnon, let me first use your own words, "Important is that something is being said that feels or can be accepted as truth. "

Although some people still like to deny ( denial at the most extreme form) the holocaust ever took place, well informed people know it did. The holocaust is generally accepted as truth, simply because it was. Therefore horror-experiences as descibed by Wiesel, Levi & Kertesz aren't fiction, but faction.

In the beginning nobody could believe the atrocious acts they desrcibed: humans just couldn't do that to other humans. Writing fiction about all horrible human behaviour causes a somewhat similar problem: readers tend to disbelieve the author. Otherwise he must be guilty: someone with that kind of scope, imagination (what about sensetivety !) must be a raving maniac himself.

What if Wiesel, Levy & Kertesz wouldn't have been able to prove all those atrocities really occured? (=what if those nazis would have won?) Well, outside the German Empire they would have been labeled nutcases and put away in asylums.

C-A, C-A, incest, sex tourism, fucking babies to get cured from AIDS: all these things do happen, to people just as downtrodden as the Jews during WOII. I can see but one major difference: all victims of C-A etc all are children. Hence they can't defend themselves, they can't hide, flee, kill...

@Victor, would you mind if I ask you a personal question?
Were you abused as a child? I find your passion and determination admirable, even though I think there may be better ways to bring your message across. Perhaps you could consult a psychic or so and ask which path it is you need to take in order for your message to strike home, because the way you're pushing forward now, I'm afraid people will start ignoring you and this could lead to an implosion of some or (or explosion).

@Victor
I have dwelled for quite a time on this site and I can assure you nobody here will deny the facts you mention, although you are free to write about that subject again and again and again.
Now that we are aware of child abuse, what battle plan do you propose to help those poor victims? (I assume you want to help the children and the adults they became in the mean time - for example Alice Miller wrote a lot about those horrors and their consequences and offered a lot of help).
What do you propose and what do you need ?

@Noa @Jan @Arnon

Dearest ArnonGrunberg-bloggers,

Thanks for thinking allong. But all I really need is a reading audience for my literary masterpiece. It is not only a grim(m) book, it is well written, funny, cynical, actual, global, giving the broader perspective of this Third Millennium World we live in.

What was I thinking: Arnon could help me opening some doors....

A few coincedences : Gustave Courtbet's most famous painting is mentioned hanging in the antagonist mansion Keyser, out of the blue a Dutch museum presents an overview of his work. I quote Richard Dawkins older book The Selfish Gene; suddenly he turns up with his newest The God Delusion. One of the personages is nicknamed the Nose; Holleeder, former kidnapper of Mr. Heineken, gets arrested once more and happens to bare the same nickname. I write about a bended piece in the Herengracht ( one of the major canals) , The Economist comes with an article naming this strech of canal with all "the brass plated banks", (for this is where we wash our dirty money ...;)

I could go on for a while, but yes, indeed, I almost felt like a prophet, ha ha ha!

( Thx for the warning/threat. No, I haven't been abused .No, I don't need a psychic)

Bye! Farewell! See you soon!

Hereby rises the question, when do we talk about "abuse". There's some distant and isolated island where children are sent to a nearby island when they reached the age of 6 to go and mate with each other and others. When they come back they're celebrated.
Maybe the conciousness about abuse is not selfinflictable, but due to an external cause (such as patronizing parents, media, or logic after the notion that the individual experienced behaviour isn't represented by those you copy.

Your latest comment made me think of the wise words of a character in the best movie I saw "PI" by Aronofsky. Therein Sol, a professor, says to Max:

"If you want the number 216, you can find it everywhere, 216 steps from your street corner to your front door, 216 seconds you spend in the elevator, when your mind becomes obsessed you filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere, 320, 450, 22, whatever. You’ve chosen 216 and you’ll find it everywhere in nature. But, Max, as soon as you discard scientific rigor, you are no longer a mathematician, you’re a numerologist."

@Victor, please note there is a huge diffference between a shrink and a psychic. A psychic is a 'helderziende'. I did not say you needed a shrink. Just to set things straight.

@Noa

First of all: your name truly sounds loveable: in all its simplicity it does ring more then a few bells. Some perfume (remember Süskind) is named likewise, but you allready new that.

I know psychics & shrinks aren't exactly the same. Still: I feel perfectly sane and I am not on the lookout for some culprit/perpatrator/poor little dead kid.

One little kiss, on your cheek of course

@Victor, good for you, I hardly ever feel sane. Therefore, kissing my cheek is a life-endangering act. Be warned.

persepolis

I hoped to see the film too, but at the time I had the intention to go
it was to late. He was programmed in only one cinema in Antwerp
and only for a very few weeks. It's a shame.