Katherine Budekin wrote her frightening vision of a Nazi future in 1937, at the height of Hitler's power in Germany, as a scathing attack on the powerKatherine Budekin wrote her frightening vision of a Nazi future in 1937, at the height of Hitler's power in Germany, as a scathing attack on the powerful patriarchies engaged in fascism.
Her argument , however, goes far beyond the confines of Nazism and her imaginary Nazi future. She is concerned with the history of all of Western Civilization: a history driven by gender politics, wherein women's voices have been erased from the collective memory almost as completely as her Nazis wiped out the history of previous Empires.
Budekin (who tellingly wrote under the name Murray Constantine) achieves much in her story: her argument is compelling, occasionally prophetic and often disturbing. Sadly, despite the profundity of Budekin's message, Swastika Night doesn't hold up aesthetically.
It is a book packed full of explication. Budekin rarely shows us what is happening; she tells us through an interminable series of discussions between her major characters. Because of this, Swastika Night lacks immediacy. And immediacy would have catapulted Swastika Night into the status of other dystopian classics, like Orwell's 1984.
As it stands, however, Swastika Night is an excellent, though artistically flawed, vision of our male driven world. It is absolutely worth a read, but don't expect to be entertained by the experience....more
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