[English] Toby Lichtich/Wen Shi Xi Zhen/Translation
V2, Robert Harris, Knopf, September 2020, 312pp
At the end of Robert Harris's new thriller, V2, there is a scene in which German rocket scientist Rudy Graf secretly sabotages a weapon of mass destruction of his own creation. It was late November 1944, and the Nazis were in a state of flux. In desperate desperate throws, they piled their chips on new V2 ballistic missiles and fired hundreds of missiles at London from their Dutch strongholds.
Graff lifted the missile's mechanical program and then changed its radio receiver. The V2 missile was successfully launched, but, four seconds later, instead of turning in a parabolic orbit in the direction of the British capital, "she flew straight upwards ... Perfect and glorious – flying to heaven".
The rocket program is a clever and slightly shallow metaphor for the corrosion of all the most admirable things in human behavior: the corrosion of scientific achievement by realpolitik; the corrosion of the impulse of destruction on the drive to learn. It used to be for something more sublime. Now, its ideals have collapsed and shattered to the ground.
This metaphor runs through Mr. Harris's novel, especially in the character of Graf as a fictional follower of the real-life Werner von Braun (a German physicist who later led the U.S. space program). Graff was awakened to the war and disgusted with Hitler's regime. For weeks, he had been in charge of the launch of these rockets from mobile bases in the forest.
Graff was not Nazi—though he was not innocent because of serious moral biases. Not only did he manage launches that were intended to kill people, but he was as keen as his colleagues to "build test facilities and missile factories." Driven by the terrible leader of the superior group of the SS, Hans Kamler, the construction project resulted in the deaths of twenty thousand slaves. Graff, as some sort of agent of von Braun, was also a tool for exploring tarnished ideals, but his moral backbone was slightly firmer than that of his mentor.
Harris began his career as a writer with his 1982 nonfiction book, The Higher Form of Killing, a non-fiction book that explores the ethics and techniques of modern warfare. His journey of Third Reich-themed novels began with Fatherland (a fictional alternate history of Hitler winning the war) (a fictional history of Hitler winning the war) and Enigma (depicting Britain's code-cracking efforts at Bletchley Park) in 1995. Since then, his literary efforts have allowed us to travel from ancient Rome to Blair-era Britain, from a modern papal council to the Dreyfus affair. In 2017 he returned to hitler with a novel about the Munich Accords; now, the arc continues to extend towards its origins. V2 features advanced weapons, cunning Nazis, moral compromise, and Allied wit.
Its main plot revolves around British intelligence trying to determine where to launch by drawing the full trajectory of the V2 rocket's parabolic: they had six minutes to calculate the curvature of its trajectory; then the RAF Spitfires had about thirty minutes to rush over the target.
Harris's brave heroine, Kay Caton-Walsh, was seconded to the Belgian town of Mechelen, where the radar system to block the V2 missiles was located, where she worked in the intelligence service on the domestic front. The novel's two-line narrative threads alternate between algebra, sisterhood, and sexual adventures, as well as the inner journey of the depressed Graff as she struggles with her own demons. The entire story (except the epilogue) unfolds in five days. In a way, not much happens. The rockets' firings are described in amiable brushstrokes; they land on the ground or are mistakenly fired. Kay abandons an unfaithful lover in Bright and becomes entangled with her Belgian homeowner. Graf and his team were visited by an SS soldier. The scientist's crisis of conscience comes at the right time, leading him to further sabotage his work, followed by a harsh interrogation and reckoning. He later insisted on the right to self-determination. The last twist has to do with Kay, a curve we can foresee.
There are also many backstory stories in the book. In fact, we'll read that seventy pages are devoted to the abominable Kammler and his rocket factory. Much of Graf's account deals with his recollections of previous SS interrogations and his recollections of his time with von Braun. Kay's story came to an abrupt end. Those familiar with Operation Crossbow know that this parabolic strategy is futile.
Harris's grasp of such thin material is impressive. Both Kay and Graff's images are attractive, albeit with a hint of déjà vu repetition. The novel is well-paced, the writing is brisk, and the dual narrative structure plays a role in advancing in most cases. Battlefield stories are well-scheduled, from the offensive fish-meat sauce sandwich at Mechelen headquarters to Kay's double-elastic "Passion Killer" underwear; from the discomfort of traveling on a Dakota transport plane to the observation that Graff and his colleagues can get bread but not potatoes: their country's potato crops are used to produce rocket fuel.
Morally the book is also very simple. Graf's ill-conscience character is designed to easily arouse our sympathy, and his remorse may come a little too easily ("He thought, my God, what the hell am I?"). ”）。 Even more interesting is von Braun in the peripheral role ("he can always take the tragedies of others into his own pace"). The Nazis were mostly despicable, but the author is careful to remind us that the British were also engaged in sneaky propaganda, and that an AIR RAID by the RAF caused almost ten times as many civilian deaths as V2 missiles.
The question of whether our literary culture needs to produce another such World War II thriller, especially this kind of work that juggles between opposites without a trace. However, assuming that there is a real need for this, then reading Robert Harris's work is certainly not the worst option.
(Originally published in the Wall Street Journal on November 12, 2020, translated and published with the author's permission)
Editor-in-Charge: Ding Xiongfei
Proofreader: Liu Wei