The Feeling of Iron
Revenge is a common theme in fiction. In The Feeling of Iron author Alonge explores the dark side of revenge as a tool of personal delusion and national self-destruction. Shlomo Libowitz and Anton Epstein survived the Holocaust and the brutal and demeaning experiments of SS scientist Hans Lichtblau. Twenty-seven years later, they reunite on a mission that takes them across the Atlantic to the jungles of Central America where Lichtblau, a CIA asset, has carved out his own small empire through the lucrative drug trade. Libowitz, now an Israeli, leaves behind his wife. Epstein, a Czech physician, is recruited by the Russian secret service and is partnered with a beautiful Soviet agent, Natalya Yakovchenko, to eliminate Lichtblau.
The Feeling of Iron alternates between the events during the Holocaust and the early 1980s hunt for the ex-Nazi. The horrors of the Holocaust are coldly evocative and honest, the rationale for the revenge clearly laid out, and the action of the hunt certainly heart-pounding. But I get the feeling that this is two novels in one – an action novel needs to set a fast pace; a political novel with an important point to make needs to dig in deeper. The latter can slow down and disrupt the former.
There are whole scenes in the novel that could have been edited out without doing harm to the story. One scene recounts the infamous Wannsee Conference that instigated the Final Solution. A moment of historic importance well described but unnecessary to this story. Other scenes and minor characters could be cut with the same result.
Fascism is alive today. Revenge is being used to legitimize it. The author’s point is essential but could have been made more powerful by deleting the non-essential while emphasizing the destructive nature on both the individuals seeking revenge and upon the governments that thrive on it.
