posted on 29 Nov 2015

The Boy at the top of the Mountain by John Boyne

This writer is not afraid to write about difficult and highly controversial subjects . His moving exploration of the relationship between two young boys on either side of a concentration camp fence in 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' deserved the numerous positive reviews. More recently his novel for adults 'A History of Loneliness' told the painful story of a man faced with his past as a boy who had been sexually abused by a priest. Both these books are grounded in real historical events and so give the reader the uncanny feeling of witnessing horrors that we may have only previously known via journalistic accounts. His latest book for children does exactly the same thing for me  and is unfolded with his customary skill and compassion.

This time we are introduced to Pierrot Fischer, a seven year old who has grown up in Paris after WW1. His mother is French and his father is German and theirs is not a happy marriage. It soon becomes apparent that his father has been traumatised and brutalised by his war experiences and takes refuge in alcohol and violence against his wife. Eventually he leaves and throws himself under a train in a final act of despair. Until this point he has had some influence on his son in terms of talking passionately about his soldiering and deep love of his homeland. 

Once he has gone, four year old Pierrot lives happily for a short time with his mother along with many other children whose mothers have been widowed due to the war, but she dies of tuberculosis and leaves him in the care of his Jewish neighbours, including his deaf best friend Anshel. The two boys become very close and communicate using their own language to play and make up stories with Pierrot telling his ideas to Anshel who translates them into written form as he wants to become a writer. However, the political climate is changing rapidly across Europe and there are examples of snide remarks about the Jews already filtering through. The family decide that it would be more appropriate for a Gentile child to go to live in an orphanage so he reluctantly leaves his familiar life, friends and dog  behind. In the orphanage he begins to learn more about himself and to live alongside the other children to some extent. His life is again disrupted when his long estranged aunt in Austria claims him and so he again leaves his new friends and France to begin his long trip eastwards.

He has a daunting long train journey across Europe involving three changes and some scarey experiences along the way that further hint of a changing brutal society as he travels. When he eventually arrives, he has already started to change his world view but much worse is to follow.

His aunt turns out to be the housekeeper at the Berghof, a house on top of a mountain near Salzberg where Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun spend much of their time relaxing and entertaining house guests that later in the book include Himmler, Goebbels and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Pierrot is told that he needs to forget his French identity and become a German boy which includes changing his name to Pieter ( although the author refers to him by his original name throughout indicating that he retains some of his goodness). He is also strongly advised to have no further communication with his Jewish friend and to not annoy the master. Over the next few years he becomes completely integrated into the household and noticed by the Fuhrer who seems to like him. They spend some time in each other's company whereby Pierrot slowly becomes his protégée and is moulded into an arrogant, selfish and cruel young man who learns to love his uniform and his status above everything else. When he is twelve he is directly responsible for two truly terrible executions which represent the loss of his childhood. He continues to grow into a monstrous young man who is only saved from rising to power in the Nazi party by the end of the war. The last part of the book shows him left alone in the house, then captured by the Allied forces who discover him hiding there. After his eventual release he tries to live out the rest of his life despite his grief and is haunted by his growing self awareness of the war crimes in which he had participated.

This is a very frightening book, but brilliant because of this. How brave of Boyne to try to show Hitler as a three dimensional, dog-loving character who had himself been partly shaped by the horrors of war and the enduring injustice of its aftermath - not unlike Pierrot's own father. It is a story about indoctrination, secrets, ignorance and cruelty that is too often allowed to go unchallenged. As such it is about about the danger of blaming 'the other' and the justification for slaughter on a massive scale that is being relived even now. The overriding message seems to be that individuals must acknowledge their part in condoning such inhumane behaviour and take responsibility for not allowing it to be repeated.

 

Karen Argent

27th November 2015