Two Brothers - Ben Elton

“If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.”

Ben Elton placed these words in the mouth of Stephen Fry’s General Melchett inBlackadder Goes Forth were used to mock the archaic generals of the First World War, men whose ignorance of the realities of modern warfare sent millions to die from behind their comfy desks.  Elton has published a number of books in the past from the satirical crime novel Popcorn to the darkly comedic High Society.  His newest offering Two Brothers tackles something far closer to his heart than anything he has hereto written: the Holocaust.  “Total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face…”  Sounds tailor made for the Holocaust.  That quote is no longer so funny.

One thing that has marked out Elton’s works is his gallows humour; his ability to find laughs in any situation, no matter how dark or desperate.  Yet while poking satire at World War I generals was by no means uncontroversial, taking on a book about the Holocaust is quite another task.  Two Brothers follows the lives of a Jewish family in Inter-War Berlin as their lives convulse with movements of history quite beyond their ability to affect.  They live through the chaos of the German Revolution, the hyper-inflation of the Weimar Republic and the terror of the Nazis yet throughout the book focuses on the characters themselves and how these events shaped and affected their lives. 

Elton punctuates his work with false-dawns, little silver linings of hope for the characters in the grips of twentieth century Europe’s worst nightmare. These green shoots are however quickly trampled on, as of course we always knew they would.  The characters are relatable and engaging without being stereotypes which makes their trials all the more heartbreaking.  This is both a story of the horror of the life for Jews in Nazi Germany, but also the more universal story of two brothers who fall for the same girl and the friend who just wants to be noticed.

This book envelops you, it sucks you in and before you know it you look up and its dark outside and you have no idea where all the time went.  It is a truly remarkable achievement and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

Fair warning, it will make you laugh but only through the tears.

8.5/10