Morris Dickstein of The New York Times was more critical of the book , calling it " a misconceived and badly executed novel , a sideshow distraction from the serious business of thinking through the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi era . " He described it as " wearisome " that is " suffocate [ d ] " by too much " fine writing " ( belles @-@ lettres ) . He also complained that the characters are lifeless , and while they each have detailed histories , they are only " verbal figments " that do not separate them from one another . Finally Dickstein noted that because almost all the points of Hitler 's speech are drawn from some of Steiner 's earlier works , he " unwittingly creates sympathy for Hitler by making him old and pathetic yet also lucid and brilliant — at once absurdly harmless and unconvincingly dangerous . "