The Undertaking by Audrey Magee

I have never believed in allowing cultural context to validate acts of oppression or war, however Audrey Magee's novel The Undertaking illustrates to me how insidiously evil creeps up and becomes accepted by ordinary people.  This short, exquisite novel tells of a young couple in Germany during World War 2, he on the front, she at home with her parents.  They come together for wholly selfish but human reasons and fall in a sort of love.   The siege of Stalingrad, where Germany began losing the war at great cost to conscripts, challenges the main character's world view.  In Berlin, favoured families, loyal to the Nazi killing machine, move into homes owned by Jews, never asking or caring what became of their owners.  And yet, the reader feels for these characters with their simple wishes for life, which says a lot for Magee's ability to convey empathy.   The book is written mostly in dialogue that is precise and real in all its banality.  This novel is the reason that I read fiction.