The Exception A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Alan Judd Gibson Frazier Simon Schuster Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Exception A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Alan Judd Gibson Frazier Simon Schuster Audio Books
Soon to be a movie titled The Exception starring Christopher Plummer, Lily James, and Jai Courtney, this "crisp, adroit, and subtle tale of great personal power" (The New York Times) follows the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm, the young Nazi officer assigned to guard him, and the Jewish maid who unwittingly comes between them.
It is 1940, and the exiled monarch Kaiser Wilhelm is living in his Dutch chateau, Huis Doorn. The old German king spends his days chopping logs and musing on what might have been.
When the Nazis invade Holland, the Kaiser's staff is replaced by SS guards, led by young and recently commissioned SS officer Martin Krebbs, and an unlikely relationship develops between the king and his keeper. While they agree on the rightfulness of German expansion and on holding the nation's Jewish population accountable for all ills, they disagree on the solutions.
But when Krebbs becomes attracted to Akki, a Jewish maid in the house, he begins to question his belief in Nazism. As the threads of history conspire with the recklessness of the heart, The Kaiser, Untersturmfuhrer Krebbs, and the mysterious Akki find themselves increasingly conflicted and gravely at risk.
The Exception A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Alan Judd Gibson Frazier Simon Schuster Audio Books
In 1918, after the German loss in WW1, Kaiser Wilhelm lost both his crown by abdication and his home in Germany. He took his wife, Dona, and his household staff to Holland, where he moved first into a house in Amerongen, and then to his final house in Doorn. He lived there - in exile - for the last twenty or so years of his life. He died at Huis Doorn, in June, 1941, at the age of 82. He was survived by his second wife.In his short book, "The Kaiser's Last Kiss", British author Alan Judd takes some liberties with facts, but writes a story of the old Kaiser's last days. Judd's story includes a young Nazi Waffen-SS officer, Martin Krebbs, who has been ordered by the German government to take over the running of Huis Doorn after the Germans took over the Netherlands. Among the people Krebbs meets at the house is a maid, called Akki. Akki has become close to the Kaiser since her employment - she has beautiful hands - and becomes close to Krebbs after he's assigned to the house duty. These three are Judd's main characters and Judd pays close attention on how the three interact - either with each other or as a group of three. Other characters come and go - some more important than others - but essentially the plot of "The Kaiser's Last Kiss" is solely in these characters' hands.
I think Alan Judd is trying to make all three act in ways their natures and political positions would find difficult. Krebbs' Waffen-SS is tested early when he makes reference to a real act of German atrocity at La Paradis in Normandy. Was he a part of the massacre or not? Would he turn a suspected spy in...or would he help the spy escape? Is old Kaiser Wilhelm an anti-Semite...or does he think the killing of Jewish children a horror? And of Akki, what is her story? Judd makes her as much of a cypher as he can, and I think she is the main character who is the weakest drawn. She is a ghost next to the two men, the Kaiser and the Waffen-SS man. But she is the connecting figure.
This book has been made into a movie called "The Exception", with Christopher Plummer as Wilhelm. The movie is to be released this year and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Maybe watching it will add another dimension to the book's story.
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The Exception A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Alan Judd Gibson Frazier Simon Schuster Audio Books Reviews
I really, really liked this movie. I knew nothing of Kaiser Wilhelm, so this movie was really interesting to me. There was some really great acting by Christopher Plummer as the Kaiser and Eddie Marsden, in a smallish part, as Himmler, was incredibly chilling. I also really enjoyed the two leads, who I thought had pretty good chemistry. I would strongly recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in WWII. The plot took some liberties with the historical record, and of course the love story was complete fiction, but my research indicates the movie presented a reasonably accurate portrayal of the Kaiser. Great book too!
This short book, written in a clear and linear manner, with not a single word not essential to its plot or narrative, works on so many levels at the same time as to renew appreciation in Mark Twain's statement that he would have written a shorter letter if he had more time.
There is, of course, the immediate attraction of a plot based on the collision of the Second and Third Reich in the personages of the Kaiser Wilhelm and Heinrich Himmler, the former in forced abdication with memories of a world with rules that he ignored at his peril, the latter creating a world with out rules to everyone's peril.
There is Krebs of the SS who is long on war, short on hate, and 23 when the two converge. There is Akki of beautiful hands and exquisite courage. There is the love between them and an old man who loves his country, loves them each, and is saddened by it all because he knows he will fail in the promises he has believed he must honor all his life.
This is a short and powerful book. It is well worth the time to read it and the price to pay for it.
One of the most interesting (and most forgotten) side angles to the Wehrmacht's conquering of Western Europe in 1940 was the invasion of Holland, and with it, the long deposed Kaiser Wilhelm's awkward reconnection with Germany. The author takes liberties with facts and chronology, which he acknowledges at the end. For instance, Kaiser Wilhelm II died in 1941, just before the start of the ill-fated Operation Barbarossa. But the story (including the Kaiser's death), takes place in 1940. It would have been less distracting if the author had discussed the discrepancy at the beginning, rather than the end of the book.
The imagined clash of the German monarchy with the Nazis makes for interesting material. Kaiser Wilhelm was as anti-Semitic as the most ardent of Hitler's supporters, but he was horrified to learn that the Nazis were beginning to convert mainstay conservative prejudices into the Holocaust. In the waning days of his life, he holds forth a small glimmer of hope that his beloved Germany will reject Hitlerism and bring back the Hohenzollern dynasty. His emotions swing from disgust with the crudeness of the SS and Himmler to admiration of the military feats accomplished by the Third Reich. And always, he chops wood. I did not think there were enough trees in The Netherlands to accommodate all the trees that Wilhelm chopped down.
The narrator is an SS Lieutenant who has been placed in charge of guarding Wilhelm - the Germans were worried that the British might try to extricate the Kaiser and use him as for propaganda against Hitler. The lieutenant's love affair with a Dutch Jewish woman, who was also a British agent, serves as the narrative backdrop of this book. But the tug of war with his moral compass is much less interesting than his observations on Wilhelm II, a decidedly quirky and enigmatic historical figure.
In 1918, after the German loss in WW1, Kaiser Wilhelm lost both his crown by abdication and his home in Germany. He took his wife, Dona, and his household staff to Holland, where he moved first into a house in Amerongen, and then to his final house in Doorn. He lived there - in exile - for the last twenty or so years of his life. He died at Huis Doorn, in June, 1941, at the age of 82. He was survived by his second wife.
In his short book, "The Kaiser's Last Kiss", British author Alan Judd takes some liberties with facts, but writes a story of the old Kaiser's last days. Judd's story includes a young Nazi Waffen-SS officer, Martin Krebbs, who has been ordered by the German government to take over the running of Huis Doorn after the Germans took over the Netherlands. Among the people Krebbs meets at the house is a maid, called Akki. Akki has become close to the Kaiser since her employment - she has beautiful hands - and becomes close to Krebbs after he's assigned to the house duty. These three are Judd's main characters and Judd pays close attention on how the three interact - either with each other or as a group of three. Other characters come and go - some more important than others - but essentially the plot of "The Kaiser's Last Kiss" is solely in these characters' hands.
I think Alan Judd is trying to make all three act in ways their natures and political positions would find difficult. Krebbs' Waffen-SS is tested early when he makes reference to a real act of German atrocity at La Paradis in Normandy. Was he a part of the massacre or not? Would he turn a suspected spy in...or would he help the spy escape? Is old Kaiser Wilhelm an anti-Semite...or does he think the killing of Jewish children a horror? And of Akki, what is her story? Judd makes her as much of a cypher as he can, and I think she is the main character who is the weakest drawn. She is a ghost next to the two men, the Kaiser and the Waffen-SS man. But she is the connecting figure.
This book has been made into a movie called "The Exception", with Christopher Plummer as Wilhelm. The movie is to be released this year and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Maybe watching it will add another dimension to the book's story.
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