Unpleasant lives

Observer review: Bad Faith by Carmen Callil

I'm about a third of the way through this book, which is a very detailed biography of Louis Darquier, an appalling Frenchman who ended up working in the Vichy government as "Commissioner for Jewish Affairs" and was responsible for the deportation of thousands of French Jews to Auschwitz.

There are quite a few things in the book which I did not know about France and Europe between the wars. For example, as a small time wannabe politician and general rabble rouser in Paris in the mid 1930's, Darquier started making anti-Semitic statements, and immediately found himself the beneficiary of Nazi money.

I hadn't realised that the Nazis at that point in time were quite so obsessed with the "Jewish problem" that they were not only setting up for the "solution" in their own country, but were also going out of their way to support anti-Semitism anywhere it popped up in Europe.

Darquier seems to have turned into an anti-Semite in 1935, and it appears to have had the unexpected consequence of ending his financial problems. He and his wife had, for years before that, spent most of their time moving from hotel to hotel to avoid paying their huge bar and food bills, while he tried (unsuccessfully) to become a novelist and journalist. They sponged off his brother for financial support.

Then, put onto the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" by some French nationalist quasi-intellectuals of his acquaintance, his problems were solved. I do not quite understand why the thorough debunking the Protocols had received in the early 1920's in England just didn't catch on in Germany, or much of Europe.

The odd Australian connection to the story is that Darquier's wife was an Australian woman from Tasmania. She also became a hopeless drunk, a financial leech on her husband's family (even though they couldn't stand her) and a mother who completely abandoned her only daughter to a nanny in England, who often went unpaid for her efforts as well.

Oddly, even though it is very well written (save for one exaggeration I reckon she makes about Tasmania), and seems to have received plenty of favourable reviews in England and America, I found it for sale here in a 'remaindered' book shop for $10. Occasionally (very occasionally) you can come up with high quality reading in such shops.

If you enjoy true life stories of extremely unpleasant people, I can recommend this book.