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Transit
Anna Seghers’s Transit is an existential, political, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom, the vitality of storytelling, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight.
Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Germany in 1937, and later a camp in Rouen, the nameless twenty-seven-year-old German narrator of Seghers’s multilayered masterpiece ends up in the dusty seaport of Marseille. Along the way he is asked to deliver a letter to a man named Weidel in Paris and discovers Weidel has committed suicide, leaving behind a suitcase containing letters and the manuscript of a novel. As he makes his way to Marseille to find Weidel’s widow, the narrator assumes the identity of a refugee named Seidler, though the authorities think he is really Weidel. There in the giant waiting room of Marseille, the narrator converses with the refugees, listening to their stories over pizza and wine, while also gradually piecing together the story of Weidel, whose manuscript has shattered the narrator’s “deathly boredom,” bringing him to a deeper awareness of the transitory world the refugees inhabit as they wait and wait for that most precious of transit papers.
Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Germany in 1937, and later a camp in Rouen, the nameless twenty-seven-year-old German narrator of Seghers’s multilayered masterpiece ends up in the dusty seaport of Marseille. Along the way he is asked to deliver a letter to a man named Weidel in Paris and discovers Weidel has committed suicide, leaving behind a suitcase containing letters and the manuscript of a novel. As he makes his way to Marseille to find Weidel’s widow, the narrator assumes the identity of a refugee named Seidler, though the authorities think he is really Weidel. There in the giant waiting room of Marseille, the narrator converses with the refugees, listening to their stories over pizza and wine, while also gradually piecing together the story of Weidel, whose manuscript has shattered the narrator’s “deathly boredom,” bringing him to a deeper awareness of the transitory world the refugees inhabit as they wait and wait for that most precious of transit papers.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
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About the author
Anna Seghers
150 books124 followersAnna Seghers (November 19, 1900, Mainz – June 1, 1983, Berlin) was a German writer famous for depicting the moral experience of the Second World War.
Born Netty Reiling in Mainz in 1900 of partly Jewish descent, she married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian Communist in 1925.
In Cologne and Heidelberg she studied history, the history of art and Chinese. She joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, at the height of its struggle against the burgeoning National Socialist German Workers Party. Her 1932 novel, Die Gefährten was a prophetic warning of the dangers of Fascism, which led to her being arrested by the Gestapo.
After German troops invaded the French Third Republic in 1940, she fled to Marseilles and one year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub', named after the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, and founded Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. During this time, she wrote The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. The novel is set in 1936 and describes the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp. It was published in the United States in 1942 and produced as a movie in 1944 by MGM starring Spencer Tracy. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II.
Seghers best-known story The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946), written in Mexico, was an autobiographical reminiscence of a pre-World War I class excursion on the Rhine river in which the actions of the protagonist's classmates are seen in light of their decisions and ultimate fates during both world wars. In describing them, the German countryside, and her soon-to-be destroyed hometown Mainz, Seghers gives the reader a strong sense of lost innocence and the senseless injustices of war, from which there proves to be no escape, whether or not you sympathized with the Nazi party. Other notable Seghers stories include Sagen von Artemis (1938) and The Ship of the Argonauts (1953), both based on myths.
In 1947, Anna Seghers returned to Germany, moved to West Berlin, and became a member of the SED in the zone occupied by the Soviets. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin and became a co-founder of the freedom movement of the GDR. In 1951, she received both the first Nationalpreis der DDR and the Stalin Peace Prize, and in 1959 the "Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität Jena." In 1981, she became "Ehrenbürgerin" of her native town Mainz.
Born Netty Reiling in Mainz in 1900 of partly Jewish descent, she married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian Communist in 1925.
In Cologne and Heidelberg she studied history, the history of art and Chinese. She joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, at the height of its struggle against the burgeoning National Socialist German Workers Party. Her 1932 novel, Die Gefährten was a prophetic warning of the dangers of Fascism, which led to her being arrested by the Gestapo.
After German troops invaded the French Third Republic in 1940, she fled to Marseilles and one year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub', named after the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, and founded Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. During this time, she wrote The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. The novel is set in 1936 and describes the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp. It was published in the United States in 1942 and produced as a movie in 1944 by MGM starring Spencer Tracy. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II.
Seghers best-known story The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946), written in Mexico, was an autobiographical reminiscence of a pre-World War I class excursion on the Rhine river in which the actions of the protagonist's classmates are seen in light of their decisions and ultimate fates during both world wars. In describing them, the German countryside, and her soon-to-be destroyed hometown Mainz, Seghers gives the reader a strong sense of lost innocence and the senseless injustices of war, from which there proves to be no escape, whether or not you sympathized with the Nazi party. Other notable Seghers stories include Sagen von Artemis (1938) and The Ship of the Argonauts (1953), both based on myths.
In 1947, Anna Seghers returned to Germany, moved to West Berlin, and became a member of the SED in the zone occupied by the Soviets. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin and became a co-founder of the freedom movement of the GDR. In 1951, she received both the first Nationalpreis der DDR and the Stalin Peace Prize, and in 1959 the "Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität Jena." In 1981, she became "Ehrenbürgerin" of her native town Mainz.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 372 reviews
June 4, 2021
Best novel I've read so far this year; despite the fact the last third or so was a repetition of sitting in cafes waiting over pizza and wine, queuing for documents, and floating about the streets with boredom - but I guess that's the whole point. Never as easy as to just jump aboard a ship with a golden ticket (the amount of desparate émigrés chasing passage meant tickets really where golden) when you have an endless cycle of trying to obtain an exit visa; which is of no use without a transit visa; which is of no use without a proof of refugee status; which is of no use without this; no use without that. Plus, even if one would aquire all the necessary paperwork, you'd have to have all the luck in the world for each document or ticket to be valid at the same time. Plus; lets not forget, we're dealing with Nazi occupied France. I love Marseille, so for me the setting was great, and yet; as best as I can remember, it's only the second time I've ever read a novel set in the city. Not sure why Transit is described as a thriller, as it never for one minute felt like one to me. The narrative spans 250 pages, of which I dragged out over nearly three weeks. This just felt right to me. The protagonist had all the time in the world to drag things out, so I read his first person account like I did too. Although Marie - who is constantly searching for her husband for visa purposes, not knowing the protagonist has taken his Identity as he in fact died in Paris - was only really prominent in the second half of the novel, it was she I will remember the strongest. Very little is known of the protagonist; who is travelling as both Seidler and the dead writer Weidel, other than that he fled Germany. Through his eyes we most of the time see him overhearing conversations in cafes, and listening to the stories of others trying to leave. It's as though through his boredom of waiting, he is drawn closer to the lives of complete strangers just to feel alive. Once in a hotel room he hears a lot of noise in the room next door and simply gatecrashes in on a group of drinking legionnaires, sits down on a suitcase and tries to join in. With Siedler applying for Weidel's visas, and Weidel's wife Marie looking all over town for him after hearing stories of him being sighted in the Mexican consulate, the two would eventually meet through a doctor. She wants to leave with the doctor but both need help with the relevant documents to do so - and then problems arise when Siedler starts to fall for her; pity her; dream of leaving with her. This triangle results in a sort of game of wits and manipulations; but more so on behalf of Siedler who beleives he has the upper hand on them; especially her, not knowing the truth about her husband. And on that, I will say no more. Don't want to have to mention 'Kafkaesque', but when thinking of the Marseille depicted by Seghers, the absurdity of the visa system, and the existentially blighted protagonist, it's difficult not to think that way at some point - that nightmare place one seems impossible to escape from. Although, I will say, any similarities are only small ones; before Kafka fans suddenly get too excited. I'd recommend it more to lovers of realistic WW2 fiction. I loved it, anyway. Fellow German writer Heinrich Böll described it as almost flawless, and I'd have to agree.
October 21, 2017
“Transit” is the perfect title for this masterpiece of refugee fiction!
There are so many layers of meaning in that short word, all symbolically integrated in the straightforward, realistic story, mirroring Anna Seghers’ own odyssey during the Second World War.
The most obvious meaning, which is the main topic of the novel, refers to a document required of people stuck in Marseille and trying to leave France for America. In addition to the pain of acquiring a visa, a costly ticket (for an actually leaving ship), and a visa de sortie, people need to apply for a “transit visa” to all countries they will be passing through on the journey. As a character puts it cynically: it is to testify and guarantee that they won’t stay where they are not well received! It also alludes to the status that the traumatised, fleeing people have in Marseille. They are only allowed to be there as long as they can prove that they are planning to leave the country. In an endless chain of almost dreamlike and bizarre bureaucracy, the owners of transit visa are lucky and more advanced in their state of transition than those who still fight for visa. There is a hierarchy in Transitland.
Transit also becomes a way to measure time in the strange world of waiting people, dwelling in cafés and discussing their chances to move on. Their perception of time slowly adjusts to the validity of their various documents needed for the journey, and they live from deadline to deadline.
On a more philosophical level, transit symbolises the change of people’s minds as a direct effect of their uprooted existence during the war. The lives they lived before the war are forever lost, and the stranded people are still waiting for their new lives to start - maybe, somewhere, somehow. In the meantime, they are in transit, completing the metamorphosis from pre-war to post-war persons.
That is why the main character experiences transit as the fleeting moment connecting past and future, without explaining either. The here and now is just as incomprehensible as what happened before, and as strange and undefined as what will come next.
“Transit” tells the story of war from the perspective of people who try to get away from it, but are stuck between two worlds in a passive-aggressive no-man’s land. It tells the story of those who live their lives on the border between war and peace, life and death, past and future, and who change in the process, within themselves, towards others, in their relationships.
The torture of waiting, of suffering passivity, of longing for unreachable safety while having to play a tedious game of respectable bureaucracy - it is as true a tale of war as the one more often told of battles and strategies! Highly recommended as a complement to other fiction describing the brutality of war.
Sic transit gloria mundi!
There are so many layers of meaning in that short word, all symbolically integrated in the straightforward, realistic story, mirroring Anna Seghers’ own odyssey during the Second World War.
The most obvious meaning, which is the main topic of the novel, refers to a document required of people stuck in Marseille and trying to leave France for America. In addition to the pain of acquiring a visa, a costly ticket (for an actually leaving ship), and a visa de sortie, people need to apply for a “transit visa” to all countries they will be passing through on the journey. As a character puts it cynically: it is to testify and guarantee that they won’t stay where they are not well received! It also alludes to the status that the traumatised, fleeing people have in Marseille. They are only allowed to be there as long as they can prove that they are planning to leave the country. In an endless chain of almost dreamlike and bizarre bureaucracy, the owners of transit visa are lucky and more advanced in their state of transition than those who still fight for visa. There is a hierarchy in Transitland.
Transit also becomes a way to measure time in the strange world of waiting people, dwelling in cafés and discussing their chances to move on. Their perception of time slowly adjusts to the validity of their various documents needed for the journey, and they live from deadline to deadline.
On a more philosophical level, transit symbolises the change of people’s minds as a direct effect of their uprooted existence during the war. The lives they lived before the war are forever lost, and the stranded people are still waiting for their new lives to start - maybe, somewhere, somehow. In the meantime, they are in transit, completing the metamorphosis from pre-war to post-war persons.
That is why the main character experiences transit as the fleeting moment connecting past and future, without explaining either. The here and now is just as incomprehensible as what happened before, and as strange and undefined as what will come next.
“Transit” tells the story of war from the perspective of people who try to get away from it, but are stuck between two worlds in a passive-aggressive no-man’s land. It tells the story of those who live their lives on the border between war and peace, life and death, past and future, and who change in the process, within themselves, towards others, in their relationships.
The torture of waiting, of suffering passivity, of longing for unreachable safety while having to play a tedious game of respectable bureaucracy - it is as true a tale of war as the one more often told of battles and strategies! Highly recommended as a complement to other fiction describing the brutality of war.
Sic transit gloria mundi!
January 3, 2025
Strange how authors can remain in the blind spot for decades, and then suddenly appear in view with a bang. This (East) German writer, Anna Seghers (1900-1983), is one of them. Transit is an allegory ‘pur sang’, a story that is not what it seems to be and that refers to the bigger picture of human condition. The protagonist, the anti-Nazi German Seidler, may wander through the French harbor city Marseille as much as he wants, together with many other refugees in the summer of 1940, Seidler and his ilk represent the average person in general, the man or woman who is permanently in transit, who gets tangled up in the opacity of life, gets stuck in illogical and unjust structures, but nevertheless always keeps hoping for a way out, for a ticket to paradise, against better judgment. In that sense, this novel is an existential allegory through and through, coincidentally (or not) set in the labyrinth of Marseille, and coincidentally (or not) also in wartime, when the need to escape is greatest.
It is wonderful how Seghers continually plays with the multi-layered nature of her story: the Kafkaesque battle with visa regulations and other formal obligations, the ingenious exchange of identities (at regular intervals this novel is a true comedy of errors), the concrete topography of Marseille (almost like Paris in the novels of Patrick Modiano), and the subtle references to the tragic fate of Stefan Zweig and Walter Benjamin. And on top of that, the existential layer: aren’t we all in transit, on our way to the only, inevitable certainty: death? This novel (and this author) is a true discovery. A few drawbacks: every now and then the story becomes a bit monotonous, with yet another carousel of visa applications, or with yet another refugee story. And it still requires some 'suspense of disbelief' to accept that an anti-Nazi German could move so freely and unconstrained through France in 1940, after the Blitzkrieg. Rating 3.5 stars.
It is wonderful how Seghers continually plays with the multi-layered nature of her story: the Kafkaesque battle with visa regulations and other formal obligations, the ingenious exchange of identities (at regular intervals this novel is a true comedy of errors), the concrete topography of Marseille (almost like Paris in the novels of Patrick Modiano), and the subtle references to the tragic fate of Stefan Zweig and Walter Benjamin. And on top of that, the existential layer: aren’t we all in transit, on our way to the only, inevitable certainty: death? This novel (and this author) is a true discovery. A few drawbacks: every now and then the story becomes a bit monotonous, with yet another carousel of visa applications, or with yet another refugee story. And it still requires some 'suspense of disbelief' to accept that an anti-Nazi German could move so freely and unconstrained through France in 1940, after the Blitzkrieg. Rating 3.5 stars.
October 28, 2015
"An existential thriller" it says on the back cover and I think that's so, although maybe more existential than thriller. Which I mean as a compliment.
Our unnamed first-person protagonist has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and is now in Marseille. There is a plot involving a letter he is to take to a man named Weidel, only to find that Weidel has committed suicide. He cloaks himself, instead, in Weidel's identity. He does what, it seems, everyone does in France, going from one café to the next. (Doesn't anyone actually work in France?) He sees a woman entering each café, searching desperately for someone. He is, of course, smitten.
Every day, and on every page, people are trying to get the Hell out. But there's a maze. Exit visas and transit visas, refugee permits and residence permits. And you have to have a departure ticket and proof that some country will take you. Functionaries, friends with connections, and every smiling waiter explain the conundrum: you cannot stay unless you intend to leave. Kafkaesque.
This is superb.
Our unnamed first-person protagonist has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and is now in Marseille. There is a plot involving a letter he is to take to a man named Weidel, only to find that Weidel has committed suicide. He cloaks himself, instead, in Weidel's identity. He does what, it seems, everyone does in France, going from one café to the next. (Doesn't anyone actually work in France?) He sees a woman entering each café, searching desperately for someone. He is, of course, smitten.
Every day, and on every page, people are trying to get the Hell out. But there's a maze. Exit visas and transit visas, refugee permits and residence permits. And you have to have a departure ticket and proof that some country will take you. Functionaries, friends with connections, and every smiling waiter explain the conundrum: you cannot stay unless you intend to leave. Kafkaesque.
This is superb.
December 17, 2015
3.5/5
In this novel, we have the inheritor of Kafka and his brilliantly horrific vision of the vicious contortions human beings would willingly place themselves into. A rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea, the descendants of his compatriots and the wide open refuge and its incorporated corporations of name, line, and visa. World War II, a timeline running roughshod over its hordes of antling men, women, children, accomplishing the phenomenal feat of rendering every tale of terror into one of penultimate banality. Here we see the mad dash overlayed with countless stamps, seals, panderings officiated and otherwise, drawing out the tension laden chaos of millions scrambling for their lives into a thousand year machinery of filling, hoping, waiting. Always the waiting, the inheritance of all those displaced souls fleeing the wreckage of their heaving homeland, the machination of ancestral Pompeiians and modern Syrians alike.
Away, away, run far away, and then, perhaps, we'll let you stay, but only you who wants to, what? Away.
To stay, long enough for the comrades in migratory arms to deliver their own tales of endless woe. Long enough for the expired, the rejects, the missed deadlines by a hair and lack of the proper intersections of licenses to realize that to operate by logic is to fail. Long enough for the concentration camp escapees to become a dime a dozen, long enough for the guarantee of success to become a matter of absurdities complex enough to vaguely hint at serious realities and nothing more, long enough that a life worth writing about is no longer the end, but the means. To hitchhike on a lonely ghost up until the point of departure, and remain in place to see off that saving ship and its triumphant crowds, off on their hard won journey to their final place of rest.
Unbelievable? As unlikely as riotous invasion and systematic imprisonment can be. Disappointing? Depends on your personal definition of success: your life, or your life. Ironic? About as much as an author can make a genocide.
"You know the fairy tale about the man who died, don't you? He was waiting in Eternity to find out what the Lord had decided to do with him. He waited and waited, for one year, ten years, a hundred years. He begged and pleaded for a decision. Finally he couldn't bear the waiting any longer. Then they said to him: 'What do you think you're waiting for? You've been in Hell for a long time already.'With that in mind, let's look now to that Sartre quote, "L'enfer, c'est les autres," ("Hell is other people,"), shall we? In the former, we have the judge, in the latter, the populace. It took a feat of supreme humanity to come up with the machinery bordering on infinite that combines the two in such convulsive precision: bureaucracy.
In this novel, we have the inheritor of Kafka and his brilliantly horrific vision of the vicious contortions human beings would willingly place themselves into. A rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea, the descendants of his compatriots and the wide open refuge and its incorporated corporations of name, line, and visa. World War II, a timeline running roughshod over its hordes of antling men, women, children, accomplishing the phenomenal feat of rendering every tale of terror into one of penultimate banality. Here we see the mad dash overlayed with countless stamps, seals, panderings officiated and otherwise, drawing out the tension laden chaos of millions scrambling for their lives into a thousand year machinery of filling, hoping, waiting. Always the waiting, the inheritance of all those displaced souls fleeing the wreckage of their heaving homeland, the machination of ancestral Pompeiians and modern Syrians alike.
Away, away, run far away, and then, perhaps, we'll let you stay, but only you who wants to, what? Away.
To stay, long enough for the comrades in migratory arms to deliver their own tales of endless woe. Long enough for the expired, the rejects, the missed deadlines by a hair and lack of the proper intersections of licenses to realize that to operate by logic is to fail. Long enough for the concentration camp escapees to become a dime a dozen, long enough for the guarantee of success to become a matter of absurdities complex enough to vaguely hint at serious realities and nothing more, long enough that a life worth writing about is no longer the end, but the means. To hitchhike on a lonely ghost up until the point of departure, and remain in place to see off that saving ship and its triumphant crowds, off on their hard won journey to their final place of rest.
Unbelievable? As unlikely as riotous invasion and systematic imprisonment can be. Disappointing? Depends on your personal definition of success: your life, or your life. Ironic? About as much as an author can make a genocide.
The remnants of crushed armies, escaped slaves, human hordes who had been chased from all the countries of the earth, and having at last reached the sea, boarded ships in order to discover new lands from which they would again be driven; forever running from one death toward another.It's a small world after all, and everyone has been given their share of rope.
July 9, 2019
An incredible novel, written in a surreal time, while the writer was living in exile in Mexico, Anna Seghers (having left Germany in 1933 to settle in France) was forced (with her husband and two children) to flee from Marseille in 1940, the only port in France at that time that still flew the French flag, the rest under German occupation.
With the help of Varian Fry, (Surrender on Demand) an American who came to Marseille to help artists, writers, intellectuals escape Europe, they found safe passage to Mexico, where they stayed until able to return to East Berlin, where she lived until her death in 1983.
While in Mexico she wrote this thought-provoking, accomplished, "existential, political, literary thriller" novel narrated by a 27 year old German man who has escaped two camps before finding himself in Paris and doing a favour for a friend, comes into possession of a suitcase of documents belonging to a German writer Weidel, who he will learn has taken his own life.
The young man takes the suitcase to Marseille, where he hopes to stay, something only possible if one proves one has the documents to leave. Alongside many others genuinely trying to flee, we follow him to hotels, cafes, consulates, shipping offices, travel bureaus and stand in line as he apples for visa and stamps that he has little invested interest in, observing the absurd demands made of people trying to find safe passage to what they hope is a free world.
The man he knows is dead has awife widow waiting for him in Marseille, her story becomes part of the young man's quest, in this transitory city that holds a thin promise of a lifeline to the fulfillment of desperate dreams for so many refugees.
The complexity of requirements means many more are rejected than succeed and all risk being sent to one of the camps that the authorities send those whose papers are not in order.
Because our narrator is alone, without family and not in possesion of a story that invokes much sympathy in the reader, he quite likes this city and would like to stay, it removes something of the terror of what people were actually going through, allowing the reader to see the situation outside of the tragic humanitarian crisis it was, and instead to see the absurd situation and demands all refugees encounter, when they are forced to flee homes they don't want to leave to go to a safe(r) place equally they don't necessarily want to go to, but will do so to survive and in an attempt to keep their families together.
I highlighted so many passages, that I will go back and reread, and even though this book was written 77 years ago, there is something about the bureaucracy that still rings true in France, for immigrants today.
The depiction of Marseille, though in a time of terror is also evocative of that city today, only the places mentioned here are now frequented by people from a different set of countries, those who have fled or left in search of something better in the last 30 years, from parts of Africa, Vietnam, Lebanon and those who need to disappear for a while, finding anonymity and comradeship in the small alleys and cafes of Marseille, a city of temporary refuge, where everyone has a story that begins elsewhere.
With the help of Varian Fry, (Surrender on Demand) an American who came to Marseille to help artists, writers, intellectuals escape Europe, they found safe passage to Mexico, where they stayed until able to return to East Berlin, where she lived until her death in 1983.
While in Mexico she wrote this thought-provoking, accomplished, "existential, political, literary thriller" novel narrated by a 27 year old German man who has escaped two camps before finding himself in Paris and doing a favour for a friend, comes into possession of a suitcase of documents belonging to a German writer Weidel, who he will learn has taken his own life.
The young man takes the suitcase to Marseille, where he hopes to stay, something only possible if one proves one has the documents to leave. Alongside many others genuinely trying to flee, we follow him to hotels, cafes, consulates, shipping offices, travel bureaus and stand in line as he apples for visa and stamps that he has little invested interest in, observing the absurd demands made of people trying to find safe passage to what they hope is a free world.
The man he knows is dead has a
The complexity of requirements means many more are rejected than succeed and all risk being sent to one of the camps that the authorities send those whose papers are not in order.
Because our narrator is alone, without family and not in possesion of a story that invokes much sympathy in the reader, he quite likes this city and would like to stay, it removes something of the terror of what people were actually going through, allowing the reader to see the situation outside of the tragic humanitarian crisis it was, and instead to see the absurd situation and demands all refugees encounter, when they are forced to flee homes they don't want to leave to go to a safe(r) place equally they don't necessarily want to go to, but will do so to survive and in an attempt to keep their families together.
I highlighted so many passages, that I will go back and reread, and even though this book was written 77 years ago, there is something about the bureaucracy that still rings true in France, for immigrants today.
The depiction of Marseille, though in a time of terror is also evocative of that city today, only the places mentioned here are now frequented by people from a different set of countries, those who have fled or left in search of something better in the last 30 years, from parts of Africa, Vietnam, Lebanon and those who need to disappear for a while, finding anonymity and comradeship in the small alleys and cafes of Marseille, a city of temporary refuge, where everyone has a story that begins elsewhere.
August 31, 2024
What a wonderful atmospheric novel it is. It is written in 1942 and set in Marseille, but it possess this proto-Modiano quality of transience. People searching for those they lost but find someone else instead, gaining new, often false identities, telling each other their stories, melting in the city. But all of them are waiting to leave. And only the lucky ones would. In the deadly shadow of the Nazis their individual fates are decided by absurd and random authorities, endless pointless carousel of ridiculous paperwork. Rarely there is some merciful individual who appeals to sanity and courageous enough to bend the absurd rules.
There are a lot of reasons that this short novel might stay with me. But if there is one message that I find still shockingly and regrettably relevant, it would be this one:
It seems it never loses its actuality and this fact hurts.
There are a lot of reasons that this short novel might stay with me. But if there is one message that I find still shockingly and regrettably relevant, it would be this one:
"And what if some of these poor souls , still bleeding physically and spiritually, had fled to this house, what harm could it do to giant nation if a few of these saved souls, worthy, half-worthy, or unworthy, were to join them in their country- how could it possibly harm such a big country?"
It seems it never loses its actuality and this fact hurts.
June 20, 2024
Political opponents, Jews, and fugitive citizens in search of a new world all found themselves in Marseille in 1940 in the aftermath of the great debacle, and there they waited. Dragging from café to café, from consulate to embassy, stuck in an empty and distressing present, they get lost in the labyrinthine journey to obtain visas, tickets for hypothetical boats, transit certificates, and exit visas, a journey constantly restarted when the expiration of the first document cancels the effort made to obtain all the others.
In this time stopped between a past that no longer exists and an uncertain future, a man struggles not to sink into this nothingness, to remain master of his present and, through it, of his deep identity, even if it means usurping another and letting go of the hand of destiny when it had incarnated in the shifty eyes of a woman.
It is a book on uprooting that vibrates very deep fibers in the reader by making him experience to the point of uneasiness the reality of transit, a reality all the more palpable as it was transcribed live by the author: communist, Jewish, German, who nourishes this fiction with her wanderings in the city, her hours of waiting and tenuous hope before managing to take a boat to Mexico.
This book disturbed me, but I am happy to have, through it, perceived a reality that was little known to me.
In this time stopped between a past that no longer exists and an uncertain future, a man struggles not to sink into this nothingness, to remain master of his present and, through it, of his deep identity, even if it means usurping another and letting go of the hand of destiny when it had incarnated in the shifty eyes of a woman.
It is a book on uprooting that vibrates very deep fibers in the reader by making him experience to the point of uneasiness the reality of transit, a reality all the more palpable as it was transcribed live by the author: communist, Jewish, German, who nourishes this fiction with her wanderings in the city, her hours of waiting and tenuous hope before managing to take a boat to Mexico.
This book disturbed me, but I am happy to have, through it, perceived a reality that was little known to me.
June 29, 2022
"But I knew deep down in my bones—of course I didn’t tell her this—that love sometimes goes along with suffering, that there’s also death, separation, and hardship, and that happiness can overtake you for no reason at all, as can the sadness into which it often imperceptibly turns."
These past two weeks have been terrible for me. A personal crisis that came at the most inopportune of times–as they often do, threatened and disrupted a lot. My reading of course stagnated, and while I still reel from it, the worst seems to have passed. Reading pace in a way has always been an unconscious gauge to how I'm doing, and that I've finally finished this book and gone back to consistently reading others, is a positive sign of the crisis abating.
I learnt of Anna Seghers a while ago through an essay by Christa Wolf. Wolf had highly praised her work, written of the influence it had on her and shared how Seghers had been of help to her as a personal friend. Seghers had quite a life, her books were among those burned by the Nazis during that infamous book burning, she had been jailed by the Gestapo and fled to France where she lived in exile until she left for further exile in Mexico.
This book is set in France during the early period of German occupation. The protagonist, like Seghers, is a German who flees to France. Having escaped a concentration camp, he goes to Paris but soon leaves when the city falls to the Germans, and then heads to Marseille. However while still in Paris he discovers the documents of a dead writer named Weidel, among them a manuscript, and begins to adopt the dead man's identity as his own. One dramatic turn after another ensues as the protagonist encounters people that Weidel knew and the dead man's past enjoins his present and moulds his future.
One of the similarities between Wolf and Seghers is the antithesis of the unreliable narrator. A protagonist who is self-aware of their faults, and attempts to be as honest as they can be to the reader even if they're not always honest to themselves or the other characters. A reassuring voice that a reader can almost completely trust, and I enjoy stories with such narrators.
Among the reasons this book will become an unforgettable experience for me, other than the great storytelling, is how eerily familiar it was. Since I was two I've lived in exile and in a place, just like France during the second world war, meant to be transitory. A transitory country is one that has no solid structures for refugee integration. It's a place that harbours refugees with plans for either resettlement or repatriation. The precarity of this situation, the despair and restlessness and listlessness of those caught in this limbo while still unhealed from the violence they've fled, the harassment and police raids and arrests and deportations, the bureaucracy of documentation, the grief of separation among those who leave and those who stay, the physical and spiritual deaths, and the survival of all this were all uncannily familiar to me and so brilliantly captured. The figures in this story could have easily been people I've known since I was a child. All this familiarity meant that a mixture of wonderment and aversion accompanied me as I read this.
These past two weeks have been terrible for me. A personal crisis that came at the most inopportune of times–as they often do, threatened and disrupted a lot. My reading of course stagnated, and while I still reel from it, the worst seems to have passed. Reading pace in a way has always been an unconscious gauge to how I'm doing, and that I've finally finished this book and gone back to consistently reading others, is a positive sign of the crisis abating.
I learnt of Anna Seghers a while ago through an essay by Christa Wolf. Wolf had highly praised her work, written of the influence it had on her and shared how Seghers had been of help to her as a personal friend. Seghers had quite a life, her books were among those burned by the Nazis during that infamous book burning, she had been jailed by the Gestapo and fled to France where she lived in exile until she left for further exile in Mexico.
This book is set in France during the early period of German occupation. The protagonist, like Seghers, is a German who flees to France. Having escaped a concentration camp, he goes to Paris but soon leaves when the city falls to the Germans, and then heads to Marseille. However while still in Paris he discovers the documents of a dead writer named Weidel, among them a manuscript, and begins to adopt the dead man's identity as his own. One dramatic turn after another ensues as the protagonist encounters people that Weidel knew and the dead man's past enjoins his present and moulds his future.
One of the similarities between Wolf and Seghers is the antithesis of the unreliable narrator. A protagonist who is self-aware of their faults, and attempts to be as honest as they can be to the reader even if they're not always honest to themselves or the other characters. A reassuring voice that a reader can almost completely trust, and I enjoy stories with such narrators.
Among the reasons this book will become an unforgettable experience for me, other than the great storytelling, is how eerily familiar it was. Since I was two I've lived in exile and in a place, just like France during the second world war, meant to be transitory. A transitory country is one that has no solid structures for refugee integration. It's a place that harbours refugees with plans for either resettlement or repatriation. The precarity of this situation, the despair and restlessness and listlessness of those caught in this limbo while still unhealed from the violence they've fled, the harassment and police raids and arrests and deportations, the bureaucracy of documentation, the grief of separation among those who leave and those who stay, the physical and spiritual deaths, and the survival of all this were all uncannily familiar to me and so brilliantly captured. The figures in this story could have easily been people I've known since I was a child. All this familiarity meant that a mixture of wonderment and aversion accompanied me as I read this.
June 20, 2022
Malo mi je bilo jedno čitanje da bih sagledala šta (sve) Tranzitna viza može biti, pa sledi pobroj onoga što sam sigurna da nije, tačnije, na šta je ne treba svoditi, uz napomenu da je reč o romanu zbog koga ciglo deset dana imam akutne napade, afazije, disleksije i logoreje – naizmence. I sreće. Polaaako rastuće sreće.
Već sam isticala posvećenost izdavača Radni sto i pohvaljujem opet, ovoga puta sa naročitim naglaskom na prevodu Bojane Denić zbog... hajde, reći ću senzitivnosti i samokontole, budući da ničim objektivnim ne mogu braniti utisak da se iz ove knjige (još) nešto čuje. Da pojasnim: Anu Zegers ranije nisam čitala, nisam gledala izvor i sumnjam da je bilo nekih velikih začkoljica. Ipak, gotovo sigurna da nije bilo naivno preneti atmosferu i uhvatiti veoma, veoma finu frekvencu ovog romana, a bez zabasavanja u vinaverstvo, žangorska kinđurenja i ostala pretakanja tuđe melanholije.
Višeslojnost Tranzitne vize je u potki ali se otvara odmah, od prve strane, sa puno poštovanja prema čitaocu, a bez uvodnog naklona, sedativnog rukavca ili budilnika za pažnju. Odatle narativ teče sasvim glatko, pa vam se čini da je pravolinijski, vremenski i prostorno gotovo u celosti plošan, sa tek suptilnim ponirućima tu i tamo. A nije. Jer nije po sredi tendeciozno skrivanje, modernističko opsenarstvo (pre bi se moglo govoriti o realističkom maniru sa malo i odmerenih efekata), ili maskiranje formom: lak je korak Ane Zegers, miran. I upravo njime ćete biti zavedeni, pa će vam tek naknadna pamet ispostaviti račun za dezorijentisanost koje, očekujući nešto drugo, tokom čitanja niste bili svesni. I sa likovima ćete se pomiriti, ali i to tek naknadno, kad shvatite da su i dovršeni i na pravim mestima.
Ne bojte se bauljanja po šizoidnoj lapavici fantomskih strahova, bez obzira što ste se tokom onih godina pred ambasadama toliko nadreždali da se i dan danji živi zakafkijanite u jezi ma i na pomen birokratskog vilmana. Ovde i najsmolavija izmaglica postaje nežni akvarel (u otmenom ramu), pa još stopljen živim zvucima, da čovek zdravo pomisli kako, evo, Deblin lično strimuje sa Berlinaleksanderplaca. Ni govora, međutim, nema o bojenju Kafke, a kamoli trbuhozborstvu: ne hoda hrabrost Ane Zegers ničijom prtinom. Ni po lavirintu apsurda.
Nije Tranzitna viza od sećanja klesan spomenik užasu koji je autorka preživela: nije ona ego za memoarske intervencije po arhivima, niti je bakica koja se ljulja na obodu senilnosti u žal-za-mladost, krpeći od minulog pakla reminiscentne bajke sa poukom za naraštaje boljih ljudi (sažaljevam slučaj, ljubitelji Regine Šer). Ana Zegers je svoj užas nadživela, ne dozvlivši mu da joj žigoše integritet i postane njena glavna odrednica. Ožiljci joj nisu odlikovanja, a ni stid, te svoje iskustvo mirne duše predaje osobi koja je drugog pola, druge dobi, drugih pogleda na svet, znanja i navika i, taj će nam, sasvim običan, svojim, sasvim običnim rečima – jer pričati se mora – iz sasvim direktng prvog lica ispričati svašta smešno, strašno i tužno: da se može umreti od čekanja, da se može piti kafa od sušenog graška, lihvariti, potkazivati, izdavati (i soba i prijatelji), lako otići, ali i ostati. I živeti.
Nije Tranzitna viza ni ratna, ni antiratna knjiga. Ratne su kulise.
Nije ni priča o bezuslovnoj žrtvi kakvu samo sudbinska ljubav može da traži. Sudbina tera svoj neumitni ćef – gola ironija i mučni bizar – šta tu više ima da se piše.
Nije ni lament na krhkom ljudskosti i svih metamorfoza na koje je goni stampedo gole egzistencije, ni trebljenje nada od strepnji, ni traktat o sebičnosti, ni poziv na solidarnost, ni triler, ni detektivski roman. A sve su joj to elementi, pojedinosti koje se lako mogu uhvatiti. Celina je nešto drugo.
Evo, najzad, jednog mogućeg jeste, makar moga: Tranzitna viza je utočište književnosti: i za književnost i za identitet.
Izvol’te:
„... Sunce je sijalo, ali me je ipak tog jutra obuzela tuga koji Francuzi nazivaju cafard, ’bubašvaba’. Oni žive tako lepo u svojoj lepoj zemlji, sve im ide glatko, sve životne radosti im leže nadohvat ruke, a opet ih ponekad obuzme neka neizmerna dosada, neka neutaživa praznina – sve u svemu cafard...
... Od silne dosade počeo sam da čitam. Čitao sam i čitao. Možda i zato što sve do tog trenutka ni jednu jedinu knjigu nisam pročitao do kraja, ova me je očarala. Ne, sigurno nije zbog toga... Ja o svemu tome ne znam ništa. To nije moj svet. Ali mislim da je čovek koji je ono napisao istinski razumeo umetnost. Zaboravio sam na svoj cafard...
... Šta da radim s njim*? Tri četvrt gotova priča! Da odem do mosta Alma i da ga bacim u Senu? Radije bih udavio neko dete u reci nego da to uradim! „
*pronađenim rukopisom
Već sam isticala posvećenost izdavača Radni sto i pohvaljujem opet, ovoga puta sa naročitim naglaskom na prevodu Bojane Denić zbog... hajde, reći ću senzitivnosti i samokontole, budući da ničim objektivnim ne mogu braniti utisak da se iz ove knjige (još) nešto čuje. Da pojasnim: Anu Zegers ranije nisam čitala, nisam gledala izvor i sumnjam da je bilo nekih velikih začkoljica. Ipak, gotovo sigurna da nije bilo naivno preneti atmosferu i uhvatiti veoma, veoma finu frekvencu ovog romana, a bez zabasavanja u vinaverstvo, žangorska kinđurenja i ostala pretakanja tuđe melanholije.
Višeslojnost Tranzitne vize je u potki ali se otvara odmah, od prve strane, sa puno poštovanja prema čitaocu, a bez uvodnog naklona, sedativnog rukavca ili budilnika za pažnju. Odatle narativ teče sasvim glatko, pa vam se čini da je pravolinijski, vremenski i prostorno gotovo u celosti plošan, sa tek suptilnim ponirućima tu i tamo. A nije. Jer nije po sredi tendeciozno skrivanje, modernističko opsenarstvo (pre bi se moglo govoriti o realističkom maniru sa malo i odmerenih efekata), ili maskiranje formom: lak je korak Ane Zegers, miran. I upravo njime ćete biti zavedeni, pa će vam tek naknadna pamet ispostaviti račun za dezorijentisanost koje, očekujući nešto drugo, tokom čitanja niste bili svesni. I sa likovima ćete se pomiriti, ali i to tek naknadno, kad shvatite da su i dovršeni i na pravim mestima.
Ne bojte se bauljanja po šizoidnoj lapavici fantomskih strahova, bez obzira što ste se tokom onih godina pred ambasadama toliko nadreždali da se i dan danji živi zakafkijanite u jezi ma i na pomen birokratskog vilmana. Ovde i najsmolavija izmaglica postaje nežni akvarel (u otmenom ramu), pa još stopljen živim zvucima, da čovek zdravo pomisli kako, evo, Deblin lično strimuje sa Berlinaleksanderplaca. Ni govora, međutim, nema o bojenju Kafke, a kamoli trbuhozborstvu: ne hoda hrabrost Ane Zegers ničijom prtinom. Ni po lavirintu apsurda.
Nije Tranzitna viza od sećanja klesan spomenik užasu koji je autorka preživela: nije ona ego za memoarske intervencije po arhivima, niti je bakica koja se ljulja na obodu senilnosti u žal-za-mladost, krpeći od minulog pakla reminiscentne bajke sa poukom za naraštaje boljih ljudi (sažaljevam slučaj, ljubitelji Regine Šer). Ana Zegers je svoj užas nadživela, ne dozvlivši mu da joj žigoše integritet i postane njena glavna odrednica. Ožiljci joj nisu odlikovanja, a ni stid, te svoje iskustvo mirne duše predaje osobi koja je drugog pola, druge dobi, drugih pogleda na svet, znanja i navika i, taj će nam, sasvim običan, svojim, sasvim običnim rečima – jer pričati se mora – iz sasvim direktng prvog lica ispričati svašta smešno, strašno i tužno: da se može umreti od čekanja, da se može piti kafa od sušenog graška, lihvariti, potkazivati, izdavati (i soba i prijatelji), lako otići, ali i ostati. I živeti.
Nije Tranzitna viza ni ratna, ni antiratna knjiga. Ratne su kulise.
Nije ni priča o bezuslovnoj žrtvi kakvu samo sudbinska ljubav može da traži. Sudbina tera svoj neumitni ćef – gola ironija i mučni bizar – šta tu više ima da se piše.
Nije ni lament na krhkom ljudskosti i svih metamorfoza na koje je goni stampedo gole egzistencije, ni trebljenje nada od strepnji, ni traktat o sebičnosti, ni poziv na solidarnost, ni triler, ni detektivski roman. A sve su joj to elementi, pojedinosti koje se lako mogu uhvatiti. Celina je nešto drugo.
Evo, najzad, jednog mogućeg jeste, makar moga: Tranzitna viza je utočište književnosti: i za književnost i za identitet.
Izvol’te:
„... Sunce je sijalo, ali me je ipak tog jutra obuzela tuga koji Francuzi nazivaju cafard, ’bubašvaba’. Oni žive tako lepo u svojoj lepoj zemlji, sve im ide glatko, sve životne radosti im leže nadohvat ruke, a opet ih ponekad obuzme neka neizmerna dosada, neka neutaživa praznina – sve u svemu cafard...
... Od silne dosade počeo sam da čitam. Čitao sam i čitao. Možda i zato što sve do tog trenutka ni jednu jedinu knjigu nisam pročitao do kraja, ova me je očarala. Ne, sigurno nije zbog toga... Ja o svemu tome ne znam ništa. To nije moj svet. Ali mislim da je čovek koji je ono napisao istinski razumeo umetnost. Zaboravio sam na svoj cafard...
... Šta da radim s njim*? Tri četvrt gotova priča! Da odem do mosta Alma i da ga bacim u Senu? Radije bih udavio neko dete u reci nego da to uradim! „
*pronađenim rukopisom
December 25, 2022
This book has been on my to read shelf for some time, part of a set of NYRB editions that were going cheap at Waterstones because of minor stains. This story is largely based on Seghers' own experiences while trying to leave France after the German invasion in 1940, and tells of the chaotic bureaucracy that kept many people trapped in Marseilles. She tells the story from the perspective of a somewhat picaresque antihero who eventually gets drawn into selfless acts for less than altruistic reasons. A masterful piece of storytelling, which reminded me a little of Camus.
October 31, 2024
I started reading Transit as I took a flight for a very modern European reason: a city-break weekend with family. Strangely, very strangely, the last time I took a city-break with these family members, I was reading another book called Transit.
And strangely, though the two Transits wouldn’t seem to have much in common, I found some resonances between them. Cusk’s is about a privileged Londoner redoing her house, while Seghers’s story involves political refugees in Europe, trying to exit visas to flee the continent before the advancing German army. But both books are really about conversations relayed, and about multiple lives swimming briefly into the writer’s focus, and then out again.
Beyond this coincidence, the Seghers Transit was a strange, strange book to read on a city break, as I moved through borders (no problem!) spoke my native language while abroad (we’re happy to help you!) and yet, mourned a little at how homogenized our Brave New Europe can feel. And simultaneously read about a Europe that is all borders, all bureaucracy, in which a different language is the lingua franca, and in which no one is travelling for leisure: they are fleeing on foot or by car, sometimes crossing farmer’s fields in the dusk to circumnavigate check-points. And the Marseille that features here is very much a real place, of cold, of fish nets, of the harsh Mistral wind off the Mediterranean. (I once went on a city break to Marseille, and it is a city with a lot of character, and also a large population of North Africans who have crossed a lot of borders, presumably, to get there. But I digress.) Yet for those just passing through, Seghers’ Marseille is not a real place: all the people pass through the same offices and cafés, and overhear or participate in the same conversations.
And maybe my seamless border-crossing, in comparison with Seghers’s characters’ endless frustrations, should have made me feel smug about all we’ve accomplished, but actually it just reminded me how fragile it all is.
There is a blurb on my copy of the book by Christa Wolf: “Transit belongs to those books that entered my life, and … I have to pick it up every couple of years to see what has happened between me and it.”
This seemed a little over the top as I read along. I found Transit very interesting. Seghers is a fascinating writer; earlier this year I reread and reloved her The Seventh Cross. But Transit is a different sort of book, not as propulsive. Repetitive, as befits its subject.
But anyway by the end I was on Wolf’s side. I can absolutely see rereading this every few years, as a sort of litmus test for the state of the world, and also simply because it’s a beautiful piece of writing, mysterious, assured and strange, that comes to a different conclusion than you might expect.
Some quotes. A Kafkaesque brush with bureaucracy:
The consul was even more precise, the map he had was more exact. It turned out that my home village, which I’ve never gone back to, increased in population so that now, twenty years later, it’s become a town in the country of of Lithuania. So my Polish identity papers are of no use to me anymore. I need to be recognized by the Lithuanians. And on top of that, the Germans have been there for quite a while already…So now I need a new certificate of citizenship, and for that I need a birth certificate from a town that no longer exists.
I rushed to the American travel bureau as if it were a sacred temple that would provide refuge to a human being hounded by the furies, facing an infinite desolation within himself.
“The last [ship]? Maybe! But so what? Why do you of all people have to be on it? If you didn’t go, you’d be one of a huge number of people staying behind, the masses in this part of Europe. I’m just an ordinary employee of an ordinary travel bureau. Your reservation would be no guarantee that you’d survive events.”
Maybe the ennui has always been real:
You mean over there. In the country that gave you the visa. I haven’t given that much thought so far. I think everything will be different over there. The air will be different, there’ll be different fruit, a different language. And in spite of that, everything will be the same. Those who are alive will continue to live as before. The dead will remain dead.
As usual from NYRB, wonderful translation, great introduction (really, 5 stars for this introduction) and plenty of snob appeal for the design.
And strangely, though the two Transits wouldn’t seem to have much in common, I found some resonances between them. Cusk’s is about a privileged Londoner redoing her house, while Seghers’s story involves political refugees in Europe, trying to exit visas to flee the continent before the advancing German army. But both books are really about conversations relayed, and about multiple lives swimming briefly into the writer’s focus, and then out again.
Beyond this coincidence, the Seghers Transit was a strange, strange book to read on a city break, as I moved through borders (no problem!) spoke my native language while abroad (we’re happy to help you!) and yet, mourned a little at how homogenized our Brave New Europe can feel. And simultaneously read about a Europe that is all borders, all bureaucracy, in which a different language is the lingua franca, and in which no one is travelling for leisure: they are fleeing on foot or by car, sometimes crossing farmer’s fields in the dusk to circumnavigate check-points. And the Marseille that features here is very much a real place, of cold, of fish nets, of the harsh Mistral wind off the Mediterranean. (I once went on a city break to Marseille, and it is a city with a lot of character, and also a large population of North Africans who have crossed a lot of borders, presumably, to get there. But I digress.) Yet for those just passing through, Seghers’ Marseille is not a real place: all the people pass through the same offices and cafés, and overhear or participate in the same conversations.
And maybe my seamless border-crossing, in comparison with Seghers’s characters’ endless frustrations, should have made me feel smug about all we’ve accomplished, but actually it just reminded me how fragile it all is.
There is a blurb on my copy of the book by Christa Wolf: “Transit belongs to those books that entered my life, and … I have to pick it up every couple of years to see what has happened between me and it.”
This seemed a little over the top as I read along. I found Transit very interesting. Seghers is a fascinating writer; earlier this year I reread and reloved her The Seventh Cross. But Transit is a different sort of book, not as propulsive. Repetitive, as befits its subject.
But anyway by the end I was on Wolf’s side. I can absolutely see rereading this every few years, as a sort of litmus test for the state of the world, and also simply because it’s a beautiful piece of writing, mysterious, assured and strange, that comes to a different conclusion than you might expect.
Some quotes. A Kafkaesque brush with bureaucracy:
The consul was even more precise, the map he had was more exact. It turned out that my home village, which I’ve never gone back to, increased in population so that now, twenty years later, it’s become a town in the country of of Lithuania. So my Polish identity papers are of no use to me anymore. I need to be recognized by the Lithuanians. And on top of that, the Germans have been there for quite a while already…So now I need a new certificate of citizenship, and for that I need a birth certificate from a town that no longer exists.
I rushed to the American travel bureau as if it were a sacred temple that would provide refuge to a human being hounded by the furies, facing an infinite desolation within himself.
“The last [ship]? Maybe! But so what? Why do you of all people have to be on it? If you didn’t go, you’d be one of a huge number of people staying behind, the masses in this part of Europe. I’m just an ordinary employee of an ordinary travel bureau. Your reservation would be no guarantee that you’d survive events.”
Maybe the ennui has always been real:
You mean over there. In the country that gave you the visa. I haven’t given that much thought so far. I think everything will be different over there. The air will be different, there’ll be different fruit, a different language. And in spite of that, everything will be the same. Those who are alive will continue to live as before. The dead will remain dead.
As usual from NYRB, wonderful translation, great introduction (really, 5 stars for this introduction) and plenty of snob appeal for the design.
April 23, 2023
Trotz, dass man Mitleid, Anteilnahme, Wut für die Exilanten empfindet, hat der Roman sehr schöne Sätze. Für mich ist der Roman spannend, grandios.
April 2, 2017
Ein Erzähler, dessen wahren Namen wir nie erfahren: Er hatte auf der Flucht irgendwann den Namen Seidler angenommen und gibt sich jetzt, er, der nie gerne las, als Schriftsteller Weidel aus, der in Paris Selbstmord beging. In einer Marseiller Pizzeria (im Roman durchgehend Pizzaria geschrieben) erzählt er einem unbekannt bleibenden Zuhörer die Geschichte seiner Nichtflucht. Während ihm irgendwann die seltsame Rolle zufällt, anderen zu Papieren, Schiffspassagen, Kontakten zu verhelfen, reizt ihn diese Flucht nicht.
So gibt man ihm zu verstehen: „Ich möchte gefälligst endlich verstehen, die Städte seien für mich nicht zum Wohnen da, sondern zum Abfahren.“
Und am Ende wird über ihn, der immer noch nicht abgereist ist, gesagt, immer noch in der Annahme es handle sich um den Schriftsteller Weidel: „Denn wissen Sie, er ist ja nicht der Mann, um solche Dinge erst noch zu kämpfen. Das lohnt sich ihm nicht. Er hat um Besseres gekämpft. [...] Um jeden Satz, um jedes Wort in seiner Muttersprache, damit seine kleinen, manchmal ein wenig verrückten Geschichten so fein wurden und so einfach, daß jedes sich an ihnen freuen konnte, ein Kind und ein ausgewachsener Mann. Heißt das nicht auch, etwas für sein Volk tun? Auch wenn er zeitweilig, von den Seinen getrennt, in diesem Kampf unterliegt, seine Schuld ist das nicht. Er zieht sich zurück mit seinen Geschichten, die warten können wie er, zehn Jahre, hundert Jahre.“
Er hat sich in diesem Transitbereich eingerichtet, auch wenn die Situation immer unhaltbarer wird, Pensionsbesitzerinnen nur Mieter aufnehmen wollen, die die Stadt bald wieder verlassen und die Gestapo bereits nach Personen sucht, die sie besonders gerne in ein deutsches Lager überführen würden. Zwar befinden wir uns mit Marseille in dem unbesetzten Teil Frankreichs, doch gab es eine Waffenstillstandserklärung, die eine Klausel über das „Auslieferung auf Verlangen“ enthält. Varian Fry, in dieser Zeit Leiter des Emergency Rescue Committees, dem zahlreiche Menschen ihre Flucht verdanken, hat das in seinem gleichnamigen Buch eindrücklich beschrieben. Aber damit greife ich weit über den Roman heraus, in dem es zwar um die ständige Suche nach Transitvisen, Ausreisevisen, Einreisevisen, Schiffspassagen usw. geht – eine Suche, die zeitweise den Leser ermüdet, doch scheint mir diese Ermüdung durchaus gewollt, spiegelt sie doch die Müdigkeit der Emigranten. Überhaupt ist die Atmosphäre des Romans das Besondere: die Leere, die Menschen empfinden, die Traurigkeit, die sich über alles legt, die flüchtigen Begegnungen und Liebschaften – alles festgehalten in einer Sprache, die man in anderen Roman über diese Zeit und dieses Thema vergebens sucht. Dadurch wird dieser Exilroman, denn das ist er, darüber hinaus zu einem Roman über die menschliche Existenz selbst. Es ist ein Roman, der zahlreiche autobiographische Elemente enthält und es ist der Roman, in dem Seghers dem mexikanischen Konsul Gilberto Bosquez ein Denkmal setzt (mehr über seine Arbeit in Letzte Zuflucht Mexiko. Gilberto Bosques und das deutschsprachige Exil nach 1939). Es ist schließlich die Geschichte einer unmöglichen Liebe, und diese Geschichte wirkt gar nicht aufgesetzt, weil sich auch hier die Verlorenheit der Menschen spiegelt, ihre ständige Suche nach etwas und jemand, was nicht auffindbar ist, ein Gefangensein zwischen Bleiben und Gehen.
Ich kann dieses Buch jedem nur wärmstens ans Herz legen, der Bücher liebt, die nicht nur ein wichtiges und historisches Thema zum Inhalt haben, sondern für dieses auch eine ganz ausgezeichnete Sprache finden und Gedanken, die über das Thema hinausgehen, das Menschsein in brüchigen Zeit überhaupt, beschreiben. Und dann ist es ein ungemein aktuelles Buch, das das Elend des Flüchtlingseins nicht aus der Sicht von Politikern, Journalisten und Helfern beschreibt, sondern aus der Sicht des Flüchtlings selbst, inmitten seines Kampfes mit der Bürokratie, seinen Ängsten und seinem Gefühl der Verlorenheit, in einer Art Transitzustand – dort noch nicht ganz weg und hier noch nicht ganz angekommen. Dieses Buch gehört überhaupt, und jetzt besonders, auf Schulpläne.
So gibt man ihm zu verstehen: „Ich möchte gefälligst endlich verstehen, die Städte seien für mich nicht zum Wohnen da, sondern zum Abfahren.“
Und am Ende wird über ihn, der immer noch nicht abgereist ist, gesagt, immer noch in der Annahme es handle sich um den Schriftsteller Weidel: „Denn wissen Sie, er ist ja nicht der Mann, um solche Dinge erst noch zu kämpfen. Das lohnt sich ihm nicht. Er hat um Besseres gekämpft. [...] Um jeden Satz, um jedes Wort in seiner Muttersprache, damit seine kleinen, manchmal ein wenig verrückten Geschichten so fein wurden und so einfach, daß jedes sich an ihnen freuen konnte, ein Kind und ein ausgewachsener Mann. Heißt das nicht auch, etwas für sein Volk tun? Auch wenn er zeitweilig, von den Seinen getrennt, in diesem Kampf unterliegt, seine Schuld ist das nicht. Er zieht sich zurück mit seinen Geschichten, die warten können wie er, zehn Jahre, hundert Jahre.“
Er hat sich in diesem Transitbereich eingerichtet, auch wenn die Situation immer unhaltbarer wird, Pensionsbesitzerinnen nur Mieter aufnehmen wollen, die die Stadt bald wieder verlassen und die Gestapo bereits nach Personen sucht, die sie besonders gerne in ein deutsches Lager überführen würden. Zwar befinden wir uns mit Marseille in dem unbesetzten Teil Frankreichs, doch gab es eine Waffenstillstandserklärung, die eine Klausel über das „Auslieferung auf Verlangen“ enthält. Varian Fry, in dieser Zeit Leiter des Emergency Rescue Committees, dem zahlreiche Menschen ihre Flucht verdanken, hat das in seinem gleichnamigen Buch eindrücklich beschrieben. Aber damit greife ich weit über den Roman heraus, in dem es zwar um die ständige Suche nach Transitvisen, Ausreisevisen, Einreisevisen, Schiffspassagen usw. geht – eine Suche, die zeitweise den Leser ermüdet, doch scheint mir diese Ermüdung durchaus gewollt, spiegelt sie doch die Müdigkeit der Emigranten. Überhaupt ist die Atmosphäre des Romans das Besondere: die Leere, die Menschen empfinden, die Traurigkeit, die sich über alles legt, die flüchtigen Begegnungen und Liebschaften – alles festgehalten in einer Sprache, die man in anderen Roman über diese Zeit und dieses Thema vergebens sucht. Dadurch wird dieser Exilroman, denn das ist er, darüber hinaus zu einem Roman über die menschliche Existenz selbst. Es ist ein Roman, der zahlreiche autobiographische Elemente enthält und es ist der Roman, in dem Seghers dem mexikanischen Konsul Gilberto Bosquez ein Denkmal setzt (mehr über seine Arbeit in Letzte Zuflucht Mexiko. Gilberto Bosques und das deutschsprachige Exil nach 1939). Es ist schließlich die Geschichte einer unmöglichen Liebe, und diese Geschichte wirkt gar nicht aufgesetzt, weil sich auch hier die Verlorenheit der Menschen spiegelt, ihre ständige Suche nach etwas und jemand, was nicht auffindbar ist, ein Gefangensein zwischen Bleiben und Gehen.
Ich kann dieses Buch jedem nur wärmstens ans Herz legen, der Bücher liebt, die nicht nur ein wichtiges und historisches Thema zum Inhalt haben, sondern für dieses auch eine ganz ausgezeichnete Sprache finden und Gedanken, die über das Thema hinausgehen, das Menschsein in brüchigen Zeit überhaupt, beschreiben. Und dann ist es ein ungemein aktuelles Buch, das das Elend des Flüchtlingseins nicht aus der Sicht von Politikern, Journalisten und Helfern beschreibt, sondern aus der Sicht des Flüchtlings selbst, inmitten seines Kampfes mit der Bürokratie, seinen Ängsten und seinem Gefühl der Verlorenheit, in einer Art Transitzustand – dort noch nicht ganz weg und hier noch nicht ganz angekommen. Dieses Buch gehört überhaupt, und jetzt besonders, auf Schulpläne.
May 19, 2024
I had been so impressed by Seghers' 1939 novel 'The Seventh Cross':
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
that I decided to track down more of her work. As it turns out, not an easy task. Though it seems that Seghers produced more than a fair amount in the period between 1928-80 (novels, novellas, short stories, etc.), the bulk of it appears to have never been translated into English (or is currently out-of-print). (NYRB Classics set out to right the wrong by releasing new translations of both 'The Seventh Cross' and 'Transit'; as well, that savvy publishing house just recently served up an intriguing collection, 'The Dead Girls' Class Trip: Selected Stories'.)
Since there was a Hollywood film version of 'The Seventh Cross', that story was not completely new to me. But I didn't know what to expect from 'Transit'. I only knew it was about WWII refugees.
The description on the back of the book ("an existential... thriller that explores the agonies of boredom") didn't exactly seem promising (I mean, what's 'thrilling boredom'?) but I ignored the sales pitch and dove in. With 'The Seventh Cross', I was already on the writer's side.
Having now read this exquisite novel - and it's certainly *that*; exquisite - I think I'd also have a hard time capsulizing its plot. ~ except to say that, like 'The Seventh Cross', it's about escaping from the Nazis; being in-flight from a concentration camp. The difference with 'Transit' is that it's not, ultimately, a single protagonist's story. Or not *just* his story. The unnamed narrator is one of many, many people who are in the port city of Marseilles and desperate to get out of France. France has fallen to Germany and full capitulation seems only a matter of time.
So Marseilles is more than a bit of a madhouse; it's a combo of beehive and spider's web. Dealing (and negotiating) with the local authorities is a variation of the Catch-22 that Joseph Heller would eventually write about; you can be screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.
It's not just a matter of a visa - there are several kinds of those; all of them necessary. Acquiring all of the necessary kinds in one required package can take careful coordination or luck or connections / money... or a combination of all of that. Even if, through some miracle, you make it on-board a departing ship - well, some of those ships are sunk. There's a war on.
This is a story Seghers lived through. She herself had fled Germany, through France, gaining passage to Mexico (where she lived from 1941-47, until her post-war return to West Berlin).
I noted in my review of 'The Seventh Cross' that it contained a certain "warmth" in spite of its setting and situation. 'Transit' is a tougher work, reflecting en masse desperation and the resultant, pinball-like dispersion of anxiety.
This is a book I took my time with - or it took its time with me. Upon finishing a chapter, I often felt the need to absorb it before continuing on. I don't know that I would call it a tough read but I would certainly call it a rich one. Though only about 250 pp., it's still a large, ornate tapestry. And, once the reading was finished, I felt a sort of sadness in saying goodbye to the novel.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
that I decided to track down more of her work. As it turns out, not an easy task. Though it seems that Seghers produced more than a fair amount in the period between 1928-80 (novels, novellas, short stories, etc.), the bulk of it appears to have never been translated into English (or is currently out-of-print). (NYRB Classics set out to right the wrong by releasing new translations of both 'The Seventh Cross' and 'Transit'; as well, that savvy publishing house just recently served up an intriguing collection, 'The Dead Girls' Class Trip: Selected Stories'.)
Since there was a Hollywood film version of 'The Seventh Cross', that story was not completely new to me. But I didn't know what to expect from 'Transit'. I only knew it was about WWII refugees.
The description on the back of the book ("an existential... thriller that explores the agonies of boredom") didn't exactly seem promising (I mean, what's 'thrilling boredom'?) but I ignored the sales pitch and dove in. With 'The Seventh Cross', I was already on the writer's side.
Having now read this exquisite novel - and it's certainly *that*; exquisite - I think I'd also have a hard time capsulizing its plot. ~ except to say that, like 'The Seventh Cross', it's about escaping from the Nazis; being in-flight from a concentration camp. The difference with 'Transit' is that it's not, ultimately, a single protagonist's story. Or not *just* his story. The unnamed narrator is one of many, many people who are in the port city of Marseilles and desperate to get out of France. France has fallen to Germany and full capitulation seems only a matter of time.
So Marseilles is more than a bit of a madhouse; it's a combo of beehive and spider's web. Dealing (and negotiating) with the local authorities is a variation of the Catch-22 that Joseph Heller would eventually write about; you can be screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.
It's not just a matter of a visa - there are several kinds of those; all of them necessary. Acquiring all of the necessary kinds in one required package can take careful coordination or luck or connections / money... or a combination of all of that. Even if, through some miracle, you make it on-board a departing ship - well, some of those ships are sunk. There's a war on.
This is a story Seghers lived through. She herself had fled Germany, through France, gaining passage to Mexico (where she lived from 1941-47, until her post-war return to West Berlin).
I noted in my review of 'The Seventh Cross' that it contained a certain "warmth" in spite of its setting and situation. 'Transit' is a tougher work, reflecting en masse desperation and the resultant, pinball-like dispersion of anxiety.
This is a book I took my time with - or it took its time with me. Upon finishing a chapter, I often felt the need to absorb it before continuing on. I don't know that I would call it a tough read but I would certainly call it a rich one. Though only about 250 pp., it's still a large, ornate tapestry. And, once the reading was finished, I felt a sort of sadness in saying goodbye to the novel.
December 24, 2018
"...Ölmüş adamın öyküsünü biliyor musunuz? Öteki dünyada Tanrı'nın hakkını vermesini beklemiş. Bir yıl, on yıl, yüz yıl. Sonunda kararını vermesi için ona yakarmış. Daha fazla beklemeye dayanamayacağını söylemiş. Ve şu yanıtı almış: 'Neyi bekliyorsun? Sen çoktandır cehennemdesin!'" (s.239)
4,5/5
4,5/5
December 15, 2017
Every war creates its human collateral damage, not just among those engaged in or on the periphery of combat. People are redefined as casualties, victims, refugees and statistics. That’s easier and more palatable. Abstraction and distance—geographical, cultural, historical—makes it easier for the rest of us to get on with our lives. Even with the constant barrage of news and images of war that enter our living rooms, it’s rare that we ever really understand what it means to live in times of war. But literature—for those of us who actually read—can transcend that hollowness. Transit illuminates how trying to escape the coming of the Nazis in occupied France meant overcoming a bureaucratic reality that would have tested Kafka’s ability to describe. Even the tension in this story has a bureaucratic feel.
The first person narrator, whose name we never learn, has escaped a concentration camp and French internment to arrive in Marseilles under the assumed identity of a writer who committed suicide, a suicide triggered by the betrayal of the people and institutions of his life (was he based on Walther Benjamin?). Marseilles was filled with displaced persons from throughout Europe whose goal was to get out to anywhere across the Atlantic. It required money, visas, sponsoring patrons, something almost unimaginable for international travelers today, transit passes—authorization to travel through each country on the way to the destination—and, most perversely, documentation from point of origin including official verification from authorities from communities people were escaping from like, for example, release from prisons or concentration camps. In short, visas from the nation of one’s destination was not nearly enough to emigrate. And even if everything lined up, getting on a ship during war time was no guarantee that they would reach the promised land.
The meaning of the title Transit is about more than passes. It is about the transitory life refugees from war and political oppression lead. Their connections to each other are transactional and temporary. Their lives have no solid foundation of security or community. Although they seek stability, their experiences in trying to get there will probably ensure that they will never find it. While the story is set in a unique historical era, it is not a stretch to apply the fundamental experiences to all 20th and 21st century refugees. Each of their stories finds, in their own way, connections and echoes in this story. While I was intrigued with how Seghers crafted a story that ultimately is focused on tension-filled boredom and tedium without making it boring and tedious, I found Remarque’s three novels encompassing these themes—Liebe deinen Nächsten, Arc de Triomphe, and Die Nacht von Lissabon—to be more compelling and insightful. But then again, Remarque didn’t focus on the mundane mechanics of escape as Seghers did. Taken together, their novels provide a complete picture.
Seghers drew on her own family’s experience in escaping Germany through Marseilles with transits in Martinique, New York, and Veracruz before reaching Mexico City. She returned to Germany after the war, became a member of the SED, the Kremlin-linked political party that controlled East Germany, and served as the chair of the East German Writer’s Union from 1952-1978. She was, with occasional exceptions, silent when writers were expelled or denied entry into the union, including the publisher of Aufbau Verlag, the premiere, official publishing house of East Germany which published her books. (Aufbau survived the fall of East Germany to arguably be one the best sources of German literature today. It seems the almost all my German books today are Aufbau.) I couldn’t help but reflect on a nagging irony as I read this book. It is ultimately about the freedom to travel. Yet Seghers chose to serve and write in a nation in which the denial of traveling rights was the norm. East Germans dreamed of traveling outside their borders. I see a certain connection between the characters in Transit and the people of the state among whom Seghers lived and worked. Perhaps that lessens my enthusiasm as I thought about how to rate it.
The first person narrator, whose name we never learn, has escaped a concentration camp and French internment to arrive in Marseilles under the assumed identity of a writer who committed suicide, a suicide triggered by the betrayal of the people and institutions of his life (was he based on Walther Benjamin?). Marseilles was filled with displaced persons from throughout Europe whose goal was to get out to anywhere across the Atlantic. It required money, visas, sponsoring patrons, something almost unimaginable for international travelers today, transit passes—authorization to travel through each country on the way to the destination—and, most perversely, documentation from point of origin including official verification from authorities from communities people were escaping from like, for example, release from prisons or concentration camps. In short, visas from the nation of one’s destination was not nearly enough to emigrate. And even if everything lined up, getting on a ship during war time was no guarantee that they would reach the promised land.
The meaning of the title Transit is about more than passes. It is about the transitory life refugees from war and political oppression lead. Their connections to each other are transactional and temporary. Their lives have no solid foundation of security or community. Although they seek stability, their experiences in trying to get there will probably ensure that they will never find it. While the story is set in a unique historical era, it is not a stretch to apply the fundamental experiences to all 20th and 21st century refugees. Each of their stories finds, in their own way, connections and echoes in this story. While I was intrigued with how Seghers crafted a story that ultimately is focused on tension-filled boredom and tedium without making it boring and tedious, I found Remarque’s three novels encompassing these themes—Liebe deinen Nächsten, Arc de Triomphe, and Die Nacht von Lissabon—to be more compelling and insightful. But then again, Remarque didn’t focus on the mundane mechanics of escape as Seghers did. Taken together, their novels provide a complete picture.
Seghers drew on her own family’s experience in escaping Germany through Marseilles with transits in Martinique, New York, and Veracruz before reaching Mexico City. She returned to Germany after the war, became a member of the SED, the Kremlin-linked political party that controlled East Germany, and served as the chair of the East German Writer’s Union from 1952-1978. She was, with occasional exceptions, silent when writers were expelled or denied entry into the union, including the publisher of Aufbau Verlag, the premiere, official publishing house of East Germany which published her books. (Aufbau survived the fall of East Germany to arguably be one the best sources of German literature today. It seems the almost all my German books today are Aufbau.) I couldn’t help but reflect on a nagging irony as I read this book. It is ultimately about the freedom to travel. Yet Seghers chose to serve and write in a nation in which the denial of traveling rights was the norm. East Germans dreamed of traveling outside their borders. I see a certain connection between the characters in Transit and the people of the state among whom Seghers lived and worked. Perhaps that lessens my enthusiasm as I thought about how to rate it.
October 10, 2013
War? It is what it is. It can't be helped or stopped. I have escaped from a French prison camp. Joining the other seeking refugees across the river we feel the Germans close behind.
Paris is the first time I have felt anything. The Nazis already occupy the streets. The names are changed to German names as are the hotels and landmark buildings. The feeling of disorientation and repair is brief. Gone. Now survival. I am a survivor. Feelings cut into the keenness of awareness and reaction.
As happens I run into someone I knew from a prison camp. A writer. He has little to say but to ask a favor. Twice he has been turned away at the front desk of a hotel where a friend of his stays. Could I try then meet him with the briefcase I will find in the room. I find the briefcase filled with the friend's writing but my friend is not there at the meeting place. Betrayed. When everyone is fleeing, trying to survive, betrayal is the language one speaks and is spoken to. It is to be expected. I respect it.
After a stay with former friends Paris is no longer safe and with the briefcase and everyone else I flee. Marseille is where we stop if we have survived. I have because I know how to not let anything touch me. It is the price of war, the price of others who only see you as an other, as you now see yourself, having power over you. Another form of loss. A form of death not calculated into the statistics. It would make for a pretty poor character in a book. Unless one holds out for some change of character. Some external event triggering an internal change. But would I then survive?
I hold onto the briefcase-giving myself some sort of mission in life? Believing there is meaning in writing? The existence of texts and manuscripts as carrying value, the value increased if returned to their creator? The writer would already be in Marseille. A red herring or a true mission? I no longer know or care.
Marseille does not house the living. It exists, as in some parable, dream, as a ship leaving port that if you have waited for days or weeks on the endless lines of endless bureaucratic schemes, have not been told at the very end due to some minor misinformation you and your family have been denied and must start all over again, you may escape. But you will land in another country that no longer recognizes your existence, as you do not yourself, and this is where you will die. I watch these people who once led an existence of varying meaning and dignity reduced to a rat in a Skinner Box. They press a bar a contrived number of times authored by malicious forces outside of themselves. They press for a pellet of food appearing down a chute into a waiting try. They continue to press whether they are hungry or sated. They have squandered what little sense of humanity they have left. Even if it's understandable I have no interest in dealing away my little shard.
My only ambition is to do away with ambition. It is an illumination of an illusion. Even Walter Benjamin, with all of his brains, escaped France, and when caught without the proper papers, killed himself rather than be deported and sent back. Walter Benjamin! I will use my powers of scheming to get the necessary papers to stay in Marseille. All I want is to continue my existence. I can scheme enough for a bare-bones room, cheap food and to fuck. The only one's that stay are like me. We visit, eat at bad restaurants, and have nothing to say. We scheme to survive. Scheme each other.
There are many forms of death when oppressed. Few forms that lead to life. Few statistics that cover the breadth of that reality.
Paris is the first time I have felt anything. The Nazis already occupy the streets. The names are changed to German names as are the hotels and landmark buildings. The feeling of disorientation and repair is brief. Gone. Now survival. I am a survivor. Feelings cut into the keenness of awareness and reaction.
As happens I run into someone I knew from a prison camp. A writer. He has little to say but to ask a favor. Twice he has been turned away at the front desk of a hotel where a friend of his stays. Could I try then meet him with the briefcase I will find in the room. I find the briefcase filled with the friend's writing but my friend is not there at the meeting place. Betrayed. When everyone is fleeing, trying to survive, betrayal is the language one speaks and is spoken to. It is to be expected. I respect it.
After a stay with former friends Paris is no longer safe and with the briefcase and everyone else I flee. Marseille is where we stop if we have survived. I have because I know how to not let anything touch me. It is the price of war, the price of others who only see you as an other, as you now see yourself, having power over you. Another form of loss. A form of death not calculated into the statistics. It would make for a pretty poor character in a book. Unless one holds out for some change of character. Some external event triggering an internal change. But would I then survive?
I hold onto the briefcase-giving myself some sort of mission in life? Believing there is meaning in writing? The existence of texts and manuscripts as carrying value, the value increased if returned to their creator? The writer would already be in Marseille. A red herring or a true mission? I no longer know or care.
Marseille does not house the living. It exists, as in some parable, dream, as a ship leaving port that if you have waited for days or weeks on the endless lines of endless bureaucratic schemes, have not been told at the very end due to some minor misinformation you and your family have been denied and must start all over again, you may escape. But you will land in another country that no longer recognizes your existence, as you do not yourself, and this is where you will die. I watch these people who once led an existence of varying meaning and dignity reduced to a rat in a Skinner Box. They press a bar a contrived number of times authored by malicious forces outside of themselves. They press for a pellet of food appearing down a chute into a waiting try. They continue to press whether they are hungry or sated. They have squandered what little sense of humanity they have left. Even if it's understandable I have no interest in dealing away my little shard.
My only ambition is to do away with ambition. It is an illumination of an illusion. Even Walter Benjamin, with all of his brains, escaped France, and when caught without the proper papers, killed himself rather than be deported and sent back. Walter Benjamin! I will use my powers of scheming to get the necessary papers to stay in Marseille. All I want is to continue my existence. I can scheme enough for a bare-bones room, cheap food and to fuck. The only one's that stay are like me. We visit, eat at bad restaurants, and have nothing to say. We scheme to survive. Scheme each other.
There are many forms of death when oppressed. Few forms that lead to life. Few statistics that cover the breadth of that reality.
January 28, 2025
It would be impossible for me to think of this book without thinking of Walter Benjamin, who, like the unnamed protagonist of Transit, fled to France after the Nazi rise to power, eventually making his way to Marseilles, bound for the New World. And, like our protagonist, Benjamin found himself confronted with an extraordinary and Kafkaesque bureaucratic labyrinth. Although he had a ticket to sail from Lisbon, an entry visa to the United States, and a transit visa to cross Spain, he could not obtain the exit visa necessary to leave France. After setting out on foot to try to enter Spain illegally, he found the border closed, and ended his life by suicide rather than be handed to the Nazis for extermination.
It is an open question why the bureaucrats in France would make it so extremely difficult for refugees to leave, when they were apparently unwanted, but there you have it. This is the kind of question that haunts the background of this book, which is mostly set in the harbor of one of the most active points of departure for the most desperate of Europe. Many readers will probably find the setting reminiscent of the film Casablanca, which was based on a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's, inspired by its authors' experience in southern France.
Anna Seghers herself made it out of Marseilles to Mexico, where she wrote this book. She describes the situation of flight with the keen eye of a psychologist and a powerful gift for establishing milieu. For me, the most fascinating and effective part of the novel was her closely-observed characterization of the situation, and her reports of the many people who, say, finally showed up at the harbor to depart with a briefcase full of paperwork, only to find they could not board because they didn't have the necessary permission from the harbormaster. Or those who couldn't get a visa to the United States because they could not find two US citizens willing to write a character reference.
Where the book arguably takes a bit of a misstep is in its somewhat Existentialist maneuvers with the central character, which reminded me of the stories that Sartre and Camus would one day write, telling stories about characters who are allegories, and are not necessarily psychologically convincing. Without giving anything away, I can say that the protagonist of Transit finds himself in an extraordinary situation which serves as a kind of metaphor for the experience of being in "transit," in a kind of limbo where one both is and is not one's self, where one both does and does not have plans and goals, and in which one, ultimately, both is and is not alive.
Seghers mostly pulls this off, but the quotidian, concrete details of ordinary people trying frantically to escape were so much more powerful to me, I could not help but think her story and her gifts as a writer would have been better served by a more conventional story.
The book was originally published in ten equal-sized installments in serialized form, and I think this format became a bit of a straight jacket, as it is sometimes repetitive and sometimes drags.
This book is nearly a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, and I look forward to reading more by Seghers, such as her highly-acclaimed Das Siebte Kreuz.
Note: it took me around 80 pages to realize the protagonist is a man, which I found a bit confusing. If you write a heavily-autobiographical book about your experiences but change the gender of the protagonist, probably better to establish that clearly early on.
It is an open question why the bureaucrats in France would make it so extremely difficult for refugees to leave, when they were apparently unwanted, but there you have it. This is the kind of question that haunts the background of this book, which is mostly set in the harbor of one of the most active points of departure for the most desperate of Europe. Many readers will probably find the setting reminiscent of the film Casablanca, which was based on a play called Everybody Comes to Rick's, inspired by its authors' experience in southern France.
Anna Seghers herself made it out of Marseilles to Mexico, where she wrote this book. She describes the situation of flight with the keen eye of a psychologist and a powerful gift for establishing milieu. For me, the most fascinating and effective part of the novel was her closely-observed characterization of the situation, and her reports of the many people who, say, finally showed up at the harbor to depart with a briefcase full of paperwork, only to find they could not board because they didn't have the necessary permission from the harbormaster. Or those who couldn't get a visa to the United States because they could not find two US citizens willing to write a character reference.
Where the book arguably takes a bit of a misstep is in its somewhat Existentialist maneuvers with the central character, which reminded me of the stories that Sartre and Camus would one day write, telling stories about characters who are allegories, and are not necessarily psychologically convincing. Without giving anything away, I can say that the protagonist of Transit finds himself in an extraordinary situation which serves as a kind of metaphor for the experience of being in "transit," in a kind of limbo where one both is and is not one's self, where one both does and does not have plans and goals, and in which one, ultimately, both is and is not alive.
Seghers mostly pulls this off, but the quotidian, concrete details of ordinary people trying frantically to escape were so much more powerful to me, I could not help but think her story and her gifts as a writer would have been better served by a more conventional story.
The book was originally published in ten equal-sized installments in serialized form, and I think this format became a bit of a straight jacket, as it is sometimes repetitive and sometimes drags.
This book is nearly a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, and I look forward to reading more by Seghers, such as her highly-acclaimed Das Siebte Kreuz.
Note: it took me around 80 pages to realize the protagonist is a man, which I found a bit confusing. If you write a heavily-autobiographical book about your experiences but change the gender of the protagonist, probably better to establish that clearly early on.
April 1, 2017
Es ist heute schwer vorstellbar, dass es während des Zweiten Weltkriegs für die vor Krieg und Faschismus flüchtenden Menschenmassen kaum einen Weg gab, den europäischen Kontinent zu verlassen und Zuflucht in Brasilien, Mexiko, den Vereinigten Staaten oder andernorts zu finden; In Marseille endete ihre Flucht durch Europa, von hier an ging es nur noch für jene weiter, die über Geld oder Beziehungen, am besten über beides verfügten, um eine der raren Schiffspassagen übers Meer zu ergattern. Bürokratische Gründlichkeit gab es nicht nur in den Vernichtungslagern, auch die Reisepapiere in erforderlicher Vollständigkeit zu erlangen unterlag strengstem Regelwerk: Da brauchte es eine Gestattung, um überhaupt in Marseille aufhältlich sein zu dürfen und eine weitere, die die Ausrreise erlaubte; weiter ein Visum für das Land, in dem Zuflucht gesucht wurde und, da die meisten Länder während des Krieges nicht direkt angelaufen werden konnte, ein Transitvisum für etwaige Länder, in denen ein Zwischenstop eingelegt werden musste. Nicht zu vergessen, dass eine Schiffsbillett erworben werden musste. An der Beschaffung all dieser Papiere mochte man verzweifeln, doch kam als zusätzliche Hürde hinzu, dass sämtliche Papiere, die immer nur befristet ausgestellt wurden und voneinander abhängig waren, zum Zeitpunkt der geplanten Ausreise auch alle gültig sein mussten. Mehr noch als "bürokratisch" beschreibt "kafkaesk" die Situation, welcher die Flüchtlinge ausgesetzt wurden. Würde es nicht um Leben und Tod gehen, man wäre geneigt, mit Ironie darauf zu reagieren:
"Damals fing ich schon an, in Konsulatsfristen zu rechnen, eine Art von Planetenzeit, in der man irdische Tage für Millionen von Jahren setzt, weil Welten verbrannt sind, ehe das Transit abläuft."
Allerdings: Ironie kommt erst recht nicht in Betracht, wenn man die derzeitige politische Situation in Europa berücksichtigt, in der eine für rechtspopulistische Heilsversprechen anfällige Enkelgeneration der damaligen Täter und Opfer wieder auf geschlossene Grenzen setzt und angesichts der syrischen und afrikanischen Flüchtlinge vergessen hat, dass vor knapp 80 Jahre die Flucht übers Meer wie heute erfolgte, nur eben in Gegenrichtung.
Es ist heute schwer vorstellbar, dass die Flucht an der europäischen Grenze endete, aber das Unfassbare wird zunehmend wieder fassbarer, warten wir das Wahljahr 2017 ab.
"Ich begann sehr zu staunen, wie diese Obrigkeiten, inmitten des vollkommenen Zusammenbruchs, immer langwierigere Prozeduren erfanden, um die Menschen, über deren Gefühle sie schlechterdings jede Macht verloren hatten, einzuordnen, zu registrieren, zu stempeln, man hätte ebenso gut bei der großen Völkerwanderung jeden Vandalen, jeden Goten, jeden Hunnen, jeden Langobarden registrieren können."
TRANSIT gehört zu den Romanen, die deutlich spürbar machen, wie erschütterbar unsere möblierte Existenz ist, wie wir für selbstverständlich nehmen, was sich in kürzester Zeit radikal ändern kann (was auch ein Blick über den großen Teich zeigt), wie fragil Werte wie Freiheit und Demokratie sind.
TRANSIT hat mich erschüttert, weil es heute so aktuell wie damals ist. Das Buch hat mich deswegen so sehr berührt, weil es nicht vordergründig belehrend und moralisierend daher kommt und auf biografischen Erlebnissen beruht.
Anna Seghers namenloser Ich-Erzähler kommt mir in vielen Punkten wie ein vorweg genommener Protagonist eines existenzialistischen Romans vor. Er lebt im Hier und Heute und läßt sich nicht zu einer transitären Existenz degradieren, die vom Wohlwollen anderer und vom Glück abhängig ist. Es gibt keine unmotivierten Lebensrückblicke und überflüssigen Selbsterklärungen; dass der Leser an diesem Menschen, von dem er so manches nicht erfährt, trotzdem starken menschlich Anteil nimmt, verdankt sich auch der vertrackt komponierten schwierigen Liebesbeziehung, die der Ich-Erzähler zu einer unglücklichen jungen Frau eingeht.
Nicht zuletzt hat mich Anna Seghers Sprache berührt, die manche Eigenwilligkeit hat und neben Galgenhumor (""Der kleine Laden war unansehnlich und glanzlos, als hätte man die Verwaltung des Jüngsten Gerichts in ein Tabakgeschäft gelegt, an irgendeiner Straßenecke.") oft sehr poetisch ist:
"Der Wirt, der zugleich der Hauptkoch war, gab, während er seine Lieblingstochter streichelte, Anweisungen an den zweiten Koch, der sein Schwiegersohn war und gleich bei Mariens Eintritt die Hölzer ergriffen hatte, um Teig zu schlagen. Es gab noch zwei Liebespaare mit ineinander geschobenen Händen und Knien, so reglos, als hätte sie die flüchtigste aller Begegnungen für die Ewigkeit zusammen geschmiedet. Das war alles. Man konnte uns an den Fingern abzählen, unsere Schatten nicht eingerechnet, die das Feuer an die Wand warf."
"Damals fing ich schon an, in Konsulatsfristen zu rechnen, eine Art von Planetenzeit, in der man irdische Tage für Millionen von Jahren setzt, weil Welten verbrannt sind, ehe das Transit abläuft."
Allerdings: Ironie kommt erst recht nicht in Betracht, wenn man die derzeitige politische Situation in Europa berücksichtigt, in der eine für rechtspopulistische Heilsversprechen anfällige Enkelgeneration der damaligen Täter und Opfer wieder auf geschlossene Grenzen setzt und angesichts der syrischen und afrikanischen Flüchtlinge vergessen hat, dass vor knapp 80 Jahre die Flucht übers Meer wie heute erfolgte, nur eben in Gegenrichtung.
Es ist heute schwer vorstellbar, dass die Flucht an der europäischen Grenze endete, aber das Unfassbare wird zunehmend wieder fassbarer, warten wir das Wahljahr 2017 ab.
"Ich begann sehr zu staunen, wie diese Obrigkeiten, inmitten des vollkommenen Zusammenbruchs, immer langwierigere Prozeduren erfanden, um die Menschen, über deren Gefühle sie schlechterdings jede Macht verloren hatten, einzuordnen, zu registrieren, zu stempeln, man hätte ebenso gut bei der großen Völkerwanderung jeden Vandalen, jeden Goten, jeden Hunnen, jeden Langobarden registrieren können."
TRANSIT gehört zu den Romanen, die deutlich spürbar machen, wie erschütterbar unsere möblierte Existenz ist, wie wir für selbstverständlich nehmen, was sich in kürzester Zeit radikal ändern kann (was auch ein Blick über den großen Teich zeigt), wie fragil Werte wie Freiheit und Demokratie sind.
TRANSIT hat mich erschüttert, weil es heute so aktuell wie damals ist. Das Buch hat mich deswegen so sehr berührt, weil es nicht vordergründig belehrend und moralisierend daher kommt und auf biografischen Erlebnissen beruht.
Anna Seghers namenloser Ich-Erzähler kommt mir in vielen Punkten wie ein vorweg genommener Protagonist eines existenzialistischen Romans vor. Er lebt im Hier und Heute und läßt sich nicht zu einer transitären Existenz degradieren, die vom Wohlwollen anderer und vom Glück abhängig ist. Es gibt keine unmotivierten Lebensrückblicke und überflüssigen Selbsterklärungen; dass der Leser an diesem Menschen, von dem er so manches nicht erfährt, trotzdem starken menschlich Anteil nimmt, verdankt sich auch der vertrackt komponierten schwierigen Liebesbeziehung, die der Ich-Erzähler zu einer unglücklichen jungen Frau eingeht.
Nicht zuletzt hat mich Anna Seghers Sprache berührt, die manche Eigenwilligkeit hat und neben Galgenhumor (""Der kleine Laden war unansehnlich und glanzlos, als hätte man die Verwaltung des Jüngsten Gerichts in ein Tabakgeschäft gelegt, an irgendeiner Straßenecke.") oft sehr poetisch ist:
"Der Wirt, der zugleich der Hauptkoch war, gab, während er seine Lieblingstochter streichelte, Anweisungen an den zweiten Koch, der sein Schwiegersohn war und gleich bei Mariens Eintritt die Hölzer ergriffen hatte, um Teig zu schlagen. Es gab noch zwei Liebespaare mit ineinander geschobenen Händen und Knien, so reglos, als hätte sie die flüchtigste aller Begegnungen für die Ewigkeit zusammen geschmiedet. Das war alles. Man konnte uns an den Fingern abzählen, unsere Schatten nicht eingerechnet, die das Feuer an die Wand warf."
August 18, 2024
Generally, I can tell within a few chapters if I'm going to like a book or not; and I knew very early on that I was not going to like this. The problem the book has is that it's one of those novels that tries to explore a big theme, one which, through painstaking effort, requires a rather dry style and an extremely prosaic level of prose. It's not an easy thing to do successfully and even when people do succeed, it's not always the most fun to read (hello Kafka). The theme Seghers is exploring is the mind-numbing banality and stifling nature of bureaucracy (especially in regards to refugees trying to find the legal means of moving from one country to another). But, for me, she makes the mistake of allowing her own story to become as dull as the subject matter she's addressing.
The story is narrated by a young nameless man (though it always felt like a very feminine narration) who, after escaping a Nazi camp, and going to Paris, comes across the unfinished novel of a dead man and is tasked with delivering it to him in Marseilles (where he seeks the man's wife instead). This is where the book begins to wallow in repetition and Kafkaesque regurgitation. He goes to the Mexican consulate to discuss a visa. He goes to a cafe and speaks to a friend about getting a visa. He goes to the American consulate to discuss a visa. He goes to another cafe to chat with a Corsican about getting a visa. He goes to the Brazilian consulate to discuss a visa. He has a pizza and discusses a visa. He speaks to his friend Binnet about going to the consulate to get a visa.
It's just excruciatingly boring.
Like I said, this kind of existentialist book is hard to do. The risk of exploring the banal, mediocrity of life and its oppressive institutions can often lead to a book that is equally as tedious as the thing it's exploring. Even when it's done well, it can be very VERY dry. A good example of this would be Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe which, by the skin of its teeth, barely manages to explore the tedium of life and its pointless endeavours. But I'd say Buzzati just about pulls it off despite large amounts of the book being very slow and plodding due to the necessity of writing stories like this (they don't demand wonderful prose after all, only that the theme is properly explored). Seghers doesn't even come close to accomplishing this. Her writing is as basic as it gets, bland, perfunctory, dull. And her story is possibly one of the most boring you will ever encounter. That she's attempting to explore an interesting idea is redundant. Poking a turd with a stick might produce important knowledge that benefits mankind.
But it's still just... poking a turd with a stick.
The story is narrated by a young nameless man (though it always felt like a very feminine narration) who, after escaping a Nazi camp, and going to Paris, comes across the unfinished novel of a dead man and is tasked with delivering it to him in Marseilles (where he seeks the man's wife instead). This is where the book begins to wallow in repetition and Kafkaesque regurgitation. He goes to the Mexican consulate to discuss a visa. He goes to a cafe and speaks to a friend about getting a visa. He goes to the American consulate to discuss a visa. He goes to another cafe to chat with a Corsican about getting a visa. He goes to the Brazilian consulate to discuss a visa. He has a pizza and discusses a visa. He speaks to his friend Binnet about going to the consulate to get a visa.
It's just excruciatingly boring.
Like I said, this kind of existentialist book is hard to do. The risk of exploring the banal, mediocrity of life and its oppressive institutions can often lead to a book that is equally as tedious as the thing it's exploring. Even when it's done well, it can be very VERY dry. A good example of this would be Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe which, by the skin of its teeth, barely manages to explore the tedium of life and its pointless endeavours. But I'd say Buzzati just about pulls it off despite large amounts of the book being very slow and plodding due to the necessity of writing stories like this (they don't demand wonderful prose after all, only that the theme is properly explored). Seghers doesn't even come close to accomplishing this. Her writing is as basic as it gets, bland, perfunctory, dull. And her story is possibly one of the most boring you will ever encounter. That she's attempting to explore an interesting idea is redundant. Poking a turd with a stick might produce important knowledge that benefits mankind.
But it's still just... poking a turd with a stick.
April 3, 2022
I finished this over a heavy weekend of reading and left the review dangling so as not to break the internet with too many book reviews all at once. Then life caught up with me and now it's been two months since I finished it. The lag is no reflection on either how really terrific this novel is or how much I enjoyed and recommend it! This is great stuff--the real drama of those displaced by war turning, ever so slowly, into a deep Kafkaesque meditation on life and our more mundane human desires in a totally absurd universe in which paperwork and the modern nation state, in all of its pseudo-fascist tendencies, utterly betrays our humanity and turns us into "citizens," that is to say documents and statistics to be tallied, controlled, and mostly ignored as inconsequential. The novel is utterly chilling on both counts, both its realistic depiction of war and the absurdist, existentialist fable into which it descends.
I guess I'm a little late to the party, but I've really enjoyed discovering over these last few months Seghers and Christa Wolf, two post-war East German writers I wish I'd read years ago. Seek them out--you won't be sorry you did.
I guess I'm a little late to the party, but I've really enjoyed discovering over these last few months Seghers and Christa Wolf, two post-war East German writers I wish I'd read years ago. Seek them out--you won't be sorry you did.
June 4, 2019
Nazi zulmünden kaçan bir Alman’ın ana karakter olduğu romanda savaşın yıkıcılığı, mültecilerin dramı, işgal altındaki halkın yılgınlığı biraz aşk öyküsü ile harmanlanarak anlatılıyor.
Çalışma kampından kaçarak Fransa’ya giden kahramanımız Marsilya’da Hitler’in bu ülkeyi adım adım işgal edilini izlerken, okyanusu aşarak Amerika’ya gitme çabası veren insanlar arasına katılır. Transit vizesi bu gayretler için kilittir. Romanın kurgusu da dili de gayet iyi. Çeviri mükemmel.
Anna Seghers’in “Yedinci Şafak” (Yedinci Haç) isimli romanından daha zayıf. Ancak yine de faşizmin maskesini düşürerek sonraki nesillere birer belge niteliğinde romanlar bırakan yazarın anti-faşist mücadeleye katkısı çok önemli.
Çalışma kampından kaçarak Fransa’ya giden kahramanımız Marsilya’da Hitler’in bu ülkeyi adım adım işgal edilini izlerken, okyanusu aşarak Amerika’ya gitme çabası veren insanlar arasına katılır. Transit vizesi bu gayretler için kilittir. Romanın kurgusu da dili de gayet iyi. Çeviri mükemmel.
Anna Seghers’in “Yedinci Şafak” (Yedinci Haç) isimli romanından daha zayıf. Ancak yine de faşizmin maskesini düşürerek sonraki nesillere birer belge niteliğinde romanlar bırakan yazarın anti-faşist mücadeleye katkısı çok önemli.
September 6, 2021
Am Anfang war ich von jedem Satz begeistert. Danach fand ich es dann nicht mehr ganz so gut, und ich glaube, das lag nicht nur an Gewöhnung an die großartigen Sätze. Aber der Anfang!
CN: Zweimal N-Wort, wobei Seghers an anderen Stellen des Buchs mit dem Thema elegant umgeht, jedenfalls kam es mir so vor. Am Rande ein bisschen Fatshaming.
CN: Zweimal N-Wort, wobei Seghers an anderen Stellen des Buchs mit dem Thema elegant umgeht, jedenfalls kam es mir so vor. Am Rande ein bisschen Fatshaming.
February 1, 2018
I had never heard of Anna Seghers until a few days ago. Now, having read Transit, I think she is one of the five greatest 20th century authors writing in German.
Transit is about refugees displaced by the Nazi invasion of France holed up in Marseilles desperately trying to collect the exit visas, transit visas, final destination visas, and shipping tickets allowing them to seek safety. The narrator is a German camp escapee who has assumed the identity of a writer who had committed suicide in Paris and who meets up with scores of like-minded displaced persons.
Curiously, he is not that interested in leaving Marseilles (though the Nazis were not long in occupying the city); but his friends an acquaintances are all more or less desperate. The feeling of their travails is well expressed in Paul’s epistle in 2 Corinthians 11 where he writes:
Transit is about refugees displaced by the Nazi invasion of France holed up in Marseilles desperately trying to collect the exit visas, transit visas, final destination visas, and shipping tickets allowing them to seek safety. The narrator is a German camp escapee who has assumed the identity of a writer who had committed suicide in Paris and who meets up with scores of like-minded displaced persons.
Curiously, he is not that interested in leaving Marseilles (though the Nazis were not long in occupying the city); but his friends an acquaintances are all more or less desperate. The feeling of their travails is well expressed in Paul’s epistle in 2 Corinthians 11 where he writes:
Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often; in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils of the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils of the sea, in perils among false brethren.As a final irony, the ship Montreal, on which many of his friends finally leave, is torpedoed by a German U-Boat.
December 19, 2016
I'm honestly very surprised that so many people liked this book. I literally just read a 5-page analysis trying to make Transit seem like an incredible, tragically underrated novel and I'm still not convinced.
I will admit that Transit provides an intriguing insight into the awful struggles refugees face(d), especially during WWII. This is not simply an author's interpretation of how they think refugees felt as they strove to reach a place where they could be safe and free: these are trials that Seghers herself endured, trials that were still fresh in her mind when she wrote this novel. She genuinely experienced the hassle of obtaining miscellaneous permits and overcoming bureaucratic obstacles. Much of what the narrator felt were emotions Seghers herself experienced.
That said, there is little else that makes this book worth reading. The main characters are all ridiculous. One is an author who committed suicide before he even entered the story but for some reason Seghers continues to mention him as if he did anything worthwhile (which he didn't). One is an impatient doctor who single-mindedly concentrates on people across the ocean who might or might not require his assistance when he could definitely be of more use in the country--even in the continent--where he already is. Another is a distracted woman unrealistically and absurdly obsessed with finding a husband she doesn't even like. The narrator himself doesn't even have a purpose to his life, except to vainly persue the young woman hopelessly intent on finding her husband, which leads to an overall tone of apathy in the entire novel. Dull and written by an author who is untrustworthy with regards to the political views she often mentions (Seghers was extremely irrational in her political beliefs, loyal to Communism to the point where even Stalin's mass murder and exile of people who didn't share his opinions didn't sway her faith. Such blind devotion makes it difficult to realistically accept the political opinions she implicitly expresses in this novel), Transit is definitely not a book I would recommend to someone who enjoys real literature.
I will admit that Transit provides an intriguing insight into the awful struggles refugees face(d), especially during WWII. This is not simply an author's interpretation of how they think refugees felt as they strove to reach a place where they could be safe and free: these are trials that Seghers herself endured, trials that were still fresh in her mind when she wrote this novel. She genuinely experienced the hassle of obtaining miscellaneous permits and overcoming bureaucratic obstacles. Much of what the narrator felt were emotions Seghers herself experienced.
That said, there is little else that makes this book worth reading. The main characters are all ridiculous. One is an author who committed suicide before he even entered the story but for some reason Seghers continues to mention him as if he did anything worthwhile (which he didn't). One is an impatient doctor who single-mindedly concentrates on people across the ocean who might or might not require his assistance when he could definitely be of more use in the country--even in the continent--where he already is. Another is a distracted woman unrealistically and absurdly obsessed with finding a husband she doesn't even like. The narrator himself doesn't even have a purpose to his life, except to vainly persue the young woman hopelessly intent on finding her husband, which leads to an overall tone of apathy in the entire novel. Dull and written by an author who is untrustworthy with regards to the political views she often mentions (Seghers was extremely irrational in her political beliefs, loyal to Communism to the point where even Stalin's mass murder and exile of people who didn't share his opinions didn't sway her faith. Such blind devotion makes it difficult to realistically accept the political opinions she implicitly expresses in this novel), Transit is definitely not a book I would recommend to someone who enjoys real literature.
November 10, 2021
This was far better than I expected, a truly outstanding novel that reminded me of Joseph Heller, Louis Ferdinand Celine and the movie Casablanca. It is set in Marseille 1940/41 then part of Vichy France. Many German and French refugees flock to its port to try to get the necessary visa to escape from the Nazis.
The last few months I’d been wondering where all this was going to end up – the trickles, the streams of people from the camps, the dispersed soldiers, the army mercenaries, the defilers of all races, the deserters from all nations. This, then, was where the detritus was flowing, along this channel, this gutter, the Canebière, and via this gutter into the sea, where there would at last be room for all, and peace.
Our main character, Seidler, has escaped from a German concentration camp, but he is not necessarily keen on joining the rat race for visa, transit visa, exit visa, stamps, identity papers etc. However, he also cannot escape it, because to be permitted to stay in Marseille one must be able to demonstrate one is planning to leave. And to do that, Seidler uses the fact that he is mistaken for the dead writer Weider whose Mexican visa he coincidentally obtained. A Kafkaesque puzzle reminiscent of Catch-22 and it is all quite hilarious if it weren’t deeply tragic at the same time.
The reading experience was further enhanced by the fact that the novel was written as the war was still ongoing and that the author, German of Jewish descent, in fact fled to Marseille and later on to Mexico. She describes so well the transitory situation of these refugees, stuck in a limbo between their old and new lives. They really have nothing much to do expect try to get a visa and for the rest they just hang around in cafes endlessly sharing the same ‘boring’ spectacular escape tales, endlessly gossiping about possible ships that might sail. There is a lot of boredom, but at the same time these people are often deeply traumatised and desperately want to share their story.
4,5 rounded up
The last few months I’d been wondering where all this was going to end up – the trickles, the streams of people from the camps, the dispersed soldiers, the army mercenaries, the defilers of all races, the deserters from all nations. This, then, was where the detritus was flowing, along this channel, this gutter, the Canebière, and via this gutter into the sea, where there would at last be room for all, and peace.
Our main character, Seidler, has escaped from a German concentration camp, but he is not necessarily keen on joining the rat race for visa, transit visa, exit visa, stamps, identity papers etc. However, he also cannot escape it, because to be permitted to stay in Marseille one must be able to demonstrate one is planning to leave. And to do that, Seidler uses the fact that he is mistaken for the dead writer Weider whose Mexican visa he coincidentally obtained. A Kafkaesque puzzle reminiscent of Catch-22 and it is all quite hilarious if it weren’t deeply tragic at the same time.
The reading experience was further enhanced by the fact that the novel was written as the war was still ongoing and that the author, German of Jewish descent, in fact fled to Marseille and later on to Mexico. She describes so well the transitory situation of these refugees, stuck in a limbo between their old and new lives. They really have nothing much to do expect try to get a visa and for the rest they just hang around in cafes endlessly sharing the same ‘boring’ spectacular escape tales, endlessly gossiping about possible ships that might sail. There is a lot of boredom, but at the same time these people are often deeply traumatised and desperately want to share their story.
4,5 rounded up
March 15, 2025
This was incredible, the best “refugee” fiction I’ve ever read…atmospheric…I really felt like I was in Marseille - the last free port in Europe - in the early 1940s. There was also something about the infinite waiting that felt so…contemporary and prescient…watching what’s happening in Ukraine and now in the USA and the constant American belligerence in our direction, threatening our sovereignty, our way of life and all of Europe just sitting back, saying very little, and letting it happen. Trump is Hitler and this whole story feels too close, too close if we aren’t careful. And yes, I’m projecting but this novel reminded me that it’s all happened before and we are all just players in the game of the more powerful. Beautifully written…so much to say without saying much at all. My only complaint was that the constant visa seeking grew a little tedious for the reader (but no doubt it really was that tedious for the people experiencing it). It made it a little more challenging to get through.
March 14, 2015
The nameless narrator of Anna Seghers' Transit is on the run having escaped a work camp. He is trying to escape the war in Europe by emigrating, and the novel tells the story of mistaken identity, bureaucratic frustrations, and the multifaceted landscape of Marseilles at the beginning of the Second World War.
Weidel, who our narrator is on his way to deliver a letter to, dies with coveted transit documents in a suitcase containing the manuscript of his last work. Weidel's estranged, ex-wife is in Marseilles and our narrator decides to travel there, maybe to deliver the papers and passes but maybe also to use them to get himself out of France. He is on the run, after all having escaped a German work camp.
With wine, pizza, and the familiarity of a cafe, Seghers' narrator takes the reader along with him in the seedier, less romantic version of "Casablanca". The first time Transit has appeared in English, not only does the publication make available a unique work by an author who lived through the Second World War and in East Germany afterwords, it is also a complex work about desperation and almost unending waiting.
Weidel, who our narrator is on his way to deliver a letter to, dies with coveted transit documents in a suitcase containing the manuscript of his last work. Weidel's estranged, ex-wife is in Marseilles and our narrator decides to travel there, maybe to deliver the papers and passes but maybe also to use them to get himself out of France. He is on the run, after all having escaped a German work camp.
With wine, pizza, and the familiarity of a cafe, Seghers' narrator takes the reader along with him in the seedier, less romantic version of "Casablanca". The first time Transit has appeared in English, not only does the publication make available a unique work by an author who lived through the Second World War and in East Germany afterwords, it is also a complex work about desperation and almost unending waiting.
June 6, 2021
"Everyone was fleeing and everything was temporary."
This was a rare instance where I came to the film first, and then realized that there was conveniently an NYRB edition of the source novel with which I could further feed my unhealthy NYRB completism. Plus, I've always wanted to read Seghers: she has a fine reputation among other German writers.
It's an outstanding book. It's the kind of thing that the wan, uninteresting Kafka would've wished he could've written: the story of a nearly phantasmal narrator wandering through a refugee-clotted Marseilles using a dead writer's identity while falling in love with the dead writer's estranged wife. They're surrounded by a thicket of various weird and spectral folk, all trapped in the titular visa-coveting purgatory. Dreamy and weird and the sort of thing that David Lynch might have filmed if he'd been a midget with a lateral lisp living in East Berlin in the 1950s.
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