Anybody read "Shadow of Montreux"?

[Max Sinister]

I only know the parts which were posted at the Other Place. And while I don't actually love it, it's certainly unique the way it is.

The decisive point - Nazi Germany making war with Italy and Austria in 1936 and actually losing - is hard to swallow. But if you want fascism to survive and be kinda accepted, then you'll need something like this. And later, the Wehrmacht will be too strong.

Another thing that made me go "Huh?": Michel Foucault as a French kinda-fascist? That Foucault from OTL? This might be even harder to swallow.

The Sanmarinese Fascist party was a funny tidbit. I expect that they'll be able to meet in a hotel room, or a basement.

All in all: The author decided to tell his TL in a certain way, you have to accept that. OTOH, you just want to learn more about what really happened. How did the economy develop? Were there bigger wars not mentioned? Has scientific and technological development changed?

 

[Charles EP M.]

Read it a while back and liked it - "fascism remains normalised as normal electoral politics" is a good eerie hook, and Montreaux really made use of its pseudo-history-book format to do banality of evil

 

[Hendryk]

One of the more original TLs about 20th century politics, I greatly enjoyed it at the time.

 

[Japhy]

I mean, yes I read it. I thought it was a fascinating way to discuss the topic. Not all AH needs to be broad based information and the limited glimpses of the perspective were interesting.

 

[Japhy]

I also thought that taking the Situationist movement in France and turning it into a Fascist movement was brilliant considering the large levels of overlap and the absurdist nature of Fascism.

 

[Max Sinister]

Fascism often was absurd indeed, albeit not deliberately.

Situationism at least should've had a grasp of what absurdity means.

 

[Hendryk]

Fascism often was absurd indeed, albeit not deliberately.

Situationism at least should've had a grasp of what absurdity means.

Fascists who are self-aware about absurdity is one possible reading of Pasolini's Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, not that I want to make sure by watching it again.

 

[Max Sinister]

Fascists who are self-aware about absurdity is one possible reading of Pasolini's Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, not that I want to make sure by watching it again.

I can understand that (the last bit). But that's just fascists in the fantasy of an anti-fascist, so we still need proof that actual fascists who understood how absurd they were did actually exist. Not that the Republic of Salo itself wasn't absurd enough.

 

[Japhy]

I can understand that (the last bit). But that's just fascists in the fantasy of an anti-fascist, so we still need proof that actual fascists who understood how absurd they were did actually exist. Not that the Republic of Salo itself wasn't absurd enough.

Fascism is built on willful contradictions. Idk what else to say, you don't have to like the book but this isn't the problem you're making it out to be with decades of divergence by that point.

 

[Max Sinister]

As said above, I don't lvoe it unconditionally, but it was original and had some good stuff. I just found some other things odd, that's all.