Nazi historian William Kohler wallows in a pit of disappointment, nearing the winter of a wasted life. Embittered by failure, he embraces the fascism of the heart, the base wantonness at the core of the soul, the pursuit of self-interest at the expense of others, at the expense of one's own self... hatred as a mask to entomb shame and fear. Kohler vindicates himself of his misogyny, his bigotry, his hatred is spoken out as courageous truth, he hides behind history, for which he gave up poetry in his youth. Hatred exists within us all, morality fails just around every bend in the corridor of history, the Third Reich could not exist without those willing to carry out orders. And Kohler points out we are fools to believe that there may have been any sort of moral growth to ever occur in humanity.

The prose is beautiful and disgusting, a thin-film interference rainbow on a pile of vomit, every page has equal share of sentences that provide literary euphoria and sentences that make ya wanna take a shower. Misanthropy is the main refrain, the Tunnel is a hellish slog that leaves you feeling dirty for having read it. The 600 odd pages took me nearly 4 months, there is only so much grime a person can wade through in one sitting. However, I probably copied down more sentences from this book into my notes app than any other book.I did like Kohler's reconciliation with poetry. History is poetry. History is not remembered by dates and events, history is experienced through feeling, through the pants we wore that day or the trinket we bought at the store. Poetry allows us to actually experience history.. otherwise it is just a story that happened to someone else.