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The Holocaust
Liquidation
Imre Kertesz’s savagely lyrical and suspenseful new novel traces the continuing echoes the Holocaust and communism in the consciousness of contemporary Eastern Europe.
Ten years after the fall of communism, a writer called B. commits suicide, devastating his circle and deeply puzzling his friend Kingsbitter. For among B.’s effects, Kingsbitter finds a play that eerily predicts events after his death. Why did B.–who was born at Auschwitz and miraculously survived–take his life? As Kingsbitter searches for the answer –and for the novel he is convinced lies hidden among his friend’s papers–Liquidation becomes an inquest into the deeply compromised inner life of a generation. The result is moving, revelatory, and haunting.
Ten years after the fall of communism, a writer called B. commits suicide, devastating his circle and deeply puzzling his friend Kingsbitter. For among B.’s effects, Kingsbitter finds a play that eerily predicts events after his death. Why did B.–who was born at Auschwitz and miraculously survived–take his life? As Kingsbitter searches for the answer –and for the novel he is convinced lies hidden among his friend’s papers–Liquidation becomes an inquest into the deeply compromised inner life of a generation. The result is moving, revelatory, and haunting.
130 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
32 people are currently reading
1905 people want to read
About the author
Imre Kertész
83 books390 followersBorn in Budapest in 1929, during World War II Imre Kertész was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944 and later at Buchenwald. After the war and repatriation, Kertész soon ended his brief career as a journalist and turned to translation, specializing in German language works. He later emigrated to Berlin. Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for "writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
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March 30, 2018
Interview
Imre Kertész, The Art of Fiction No. 220, The Paris Review No. 205, summer 2013
Interviewed by Luisa Zielinski
Kertész was born in 1929, in Budapest, into a Jewish family. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, and then to Buchenwald. The Holocaust and its aftermath are the central subjects of his best-known novels—Fatelessness (1975), Fiasco (1988), Kaddish for an Unborn Child (1990), and Liquidation (2003)—as well as his memoirs, such as Dossier K. (2006). When Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2002, the committee lauded his writing for upholding the “fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.” Yet for Kertész, the Holocaust is not the stuff of personal anecdotes. Instead, it represents a rupture in civilization, the implications of which he explores far beyond his own personal experience. “Auschwitz,” as he has said, “is everywhere.”
Excerpts from the interview :
INTERVIEWER
Do you consider the Fatelessness, Fiasco, Kaddish for an Unborn Child, and Liquidation tetralogy your life’s work?
KERTÉSZ
No, it was some dumb Hungarian journalist who came up with this notion of a tetralogy. Back when I’d only published Fatelessness and Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child, he said I had conceived a trilogy. He really knew nothing of my work.
...
In your Nobel Lecture you said, “The nausea and depression to which I awoke each morning led me at once into the world I intended to describe.” Did writing subdue this condition?
KERTÉSZ
I was suspended in a world that was forever foreign to me, one I had to reenter each day with no hope of relief. That was true of Stalinist Hungary, but even more so under National Socialism. The latter inspired that feeling even more intensely. In Stalinism, you simply had to keep going, if you could. The Nazi regime, on the other hand, was a mechanism that worked with such brutal speed that “going on” meant bare survival. The Nazi system swallowed everything. It was a machine working so efficiently that most people did not even have the chance to understand the events they lived through.
To me, there were three phases, in a literary sense. The first phase is the one just before the Holocaust. Times were tough, but you could get through somehow. The second phase, described by writers like Primo Levi, takes place in medias res, as though voiced from the inside, with all the astonishment and dismay of witnessing such events. These writers described what happened as something that would drive any man to madness—at least any man who continued to cling to old values. And what happened was beyond the witnesses’ capacity for coping. They tried to resist it as much as they could, but it left a mark on the rest of their lives. The third phase concerns literary works that came into existence after National Socialism and which examine the loss of old values. Writers such as Jean Améry or Tadeusz Borowski conceived their works for people who were already familiar with history and were aware that old values had lost their meaning. What was at stake was the creation of new values from such immense suffering, but most of those writers perished in the attempt. However, what they did bequeath to us is a radical tradition in literature.
INTERVIEWER
Do you consider your own works part of this radical tradition?
KERTÉSZ
Yes, I do, except I’m not sure whether it is my work or my illness that’s going to kill me now. Well, at least I tried to go on for as long as I could. So obviously I haven’t yet died in the attempt to come to terms with history, and indeed it looks as though I will be dying of a bourgeois disease instead—I am about to die of a very bourgeois Parkinson’s.
INTERVIEWER
Is writing a means of survival?
KERTÉSZ
I was able use my own life to study how somebody can survive this particularly cruel brand of totalitarianism. I didn’t want to commit suicide, but then I didn’t want to become a writer either—at least not initially. I rejected that idea for a long time, but then I realized that I would have to write, write about the astonishment and the dismay of the witness—Is that what you are going to do to us? How could we survive something like this, and understand it, too?
Look, I don’t want to deny that I was a prisoner at Auschwitz and that I now have a Nobel Prize. What should I make of that? And what should I make of the fact that I survived, and continue to survive? At least I feel that I experienced something extraordinary, because not only did I live through those horrors, but I also managed to describe them, in a way that is bearable, acceptable, and nonetheless part of this radical tradition. Those of us who were brave enough to stare down this abyss—Borowski, Shalamov, Améry—well, there aren’t too many of us. For these writers, writing was always a prelude to suicide. Jean Améry’s gun was always present, in both his articles and his life, always by his side.
I am somebody who survived all of it, somebody who saw the Gorgon’s head and still retained enough strength to finish a work that reaches out to people in a language that is humane. The purpose of literature is for people to become educated, to be entertained, so we can’t ask them to deal with such gruesome visions. I created a work representing the Holocaust as such, but without this being an ugly literature of horrors.
Perhaps I’m being impertinent, but I feel that my work has a rare quality—I tried to depict the human face of this history, I wanted to write a book that people would actually want to read.
...
INTERVIEWER
How do you write these days?
KERTÉSZ
It’s tricky, because I can no longer use a computer. Nor am I able to write by hand. But I’ve got all this material I’ve collected over the course of my life—my diaries, my reports, Liquidation. With all of that done, I no longer have to write anything new. I’ve finished my work.
INTERVIEWER
Then let’s talk about your last novel, Liquidation. What was the initial spark of inspiration?
KERTÉSZ
I had originally intended to write a play. I thought I was done writing novels. But I wanted to depict this moment during the regime change in 1990, a moment that I felt had dramatic value itself. Then it struck me that I was wrong—I’m not a playwright, nor am I particularly interested in the stage. The stage, for me, seemed an obstacle, an inbuilt disadvantage. And so I tore up the play’s manuscript, understanding that this was a topic for a great novel in a small format.
I was interested in examining how different people coped with the regime change. I had met so many people, read their biographies, and listened to their stories, most of which were full of lies. It was a society of informants. But combining that with the legacy of Auschwitz—that’s what drew me in. I tried to find a key figure. Someone who did not live through a concentration camp but whose life is cast in its shadow. That’s when I found the characters Judit and B., the editor whose career is a fiasco and the writer who commits suicide.
INTERVIEWER
Fukuyama’s “end of history” has become something of a cliché perhaps, but I wonder whether that was on your mind when you were writing Liquidation.
KERTÉSZ
I’ve never thought of it like that. What did you make of the novel?
INTERVIEWER
It seems to me that your novel is akin to something like this end of history. It’s written from the vantage point of the early 2000s, yet it captures the moment at the fall of Communism in 1990, a moment at which various currents merge and collide, forming a point of crystallization, and possibly liquidation, for twentieth-century history.
KERTÉSZ
Actually, you’re completely right. It’s exactly like that. We’ve got the man who was born in Auschwitz, and then Judit, the woman who experiences Auschwitz through him and who attempts to find a conclusion to her own history. But then she escapes that world and marries a man who is untouched by totalitarianism. She decides to have children, and thus commits herself to life. That was the secret, the gesture—bearing children is the gesture that creates the possibility of continued life. Faced with choosing between life and death, she opts for life.
All right, that’s enough. That was my last interview.
INTERVIEWER
For today?
KERTÉSZ
Forever. Now it’s done.
https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...
Imre Kertész, The Art of Fiction No. 220, The Paris Review No. 205, summer 2013
Interviewed by Luisa Zielinski
Kertész was born in 1929, in Budapest, into a Jewish family. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, and then to Buchenwald. The Holocaust and its aftermath are the central subjects of his best-known novels—Fatelessness (1975), Fiasco (1988), Kaddish for an Unborn Child (1990), and Liquidation (2003)—as well as his memoirs, such as Dossier K. (2006). When Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2002, the committee lauded his writing for upholding the “fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.” Yet for Kertész, the Holocaust is not the stuff of personal anecdotes. Instead, it represents a rupture in civilization, the implications of which he explores far beyond his own personal experience. “Auschwitz,” as he has said, “is everywhere.”
Excerpts from the interview :
INTERVIEWER
Do you consider the Fatelessness, Fiasco, Kaddish for an Unborn Child, and Liquidation tetralogy your life’s work?
KERTÉSZ
No, it was some dumb Hungarian journalist who came up with this notion of a tetralogy. Back when I’d only published Fatelessness and Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child, he said I had conceived a trilogy. He really knew nothing of my work.
...
In your Nobel Lecture you said, “The nausea and depression to which I awoke each morning led me at once into the world I intended to describe.” Did writing subdue this condition?
KERTÉSZ
I was suspended in a world that was forever foreign to me, one I had to reenter each day with no hope of relief. That was true of Stalinist Hungary, but even more so under National Socialism. The latter inspired that feeling even more intensely. In Stalinism, you simply had to keep going, if you could. The Nazi regime, on the other hand, was a mechanism that worked with such brutal speed that “going on” meant bare survival. The Nazi system swallowed everything. It was a machine working so efficiently that most people did not even have the chance to understand the events they lived through.
To me, there were three phases, in a literary sense. The first phase is the one just before the Holocaust. Times were tough, but you could get through somehow. The second phase, described by writers like Primo Levi, takes place in medias res, as though voiced from the inside, with all the astonishment and dismay of witnessing such events. These writers described what happened as something that would drive any man to madness—at least any man who continued to cling to old values. And what happened was beyond the witnesses’ capacity for coping. They tried to resist it as much as they could, but it left a mark on the rest of their lives. The third phase concerns literary works that came into existence after National Socialism and which examine the loss of old values. Writers such as Jean Améry or Tadeusz Borowski conceived their works for people who were already familiar with history and were aware that old values had lost their meaning. What was at stake was the creation of new values from such immense suffering, but most of those writers perished in the attempt. However, what they did bequeath to us is a radical tradition in literature.
INTERVIEWER
Do you consider your own works part of this radical tradition?
KERTÉSZ
Yes, I do, except I’m not sure whether it is my work or my illness that’s going to kill me now. Well, at least I tried to go on for as long as I could. So obviously I haven’t yet died in the attempt to come to terms with history, and indeed it looks as though I will be dying of a bourgeois disease instead—I am about to die of a very bourgeois Parkinson’s.
INTERVIEWER
Is writing a means of survival?
KERTÉSZ
I was able use my own life to study how somebody can survive this particularly cruel brand of totalitarianism. I didn’t want to commit suicide, but then I didn’t want to become a writer either—at least not initially. I rejected that idea for a long time, but then I realized that I would have to write, write about the astonishment and the dismay of the witness—Is that what you are going to do to us? How could we survive something like this, and understand it, too?
Look, I don’t want to deny that I was a prisoner at Auschwitz and that I now have a Nobel Prize. What should I make of that? And what should I make of the fact that I survived, and continue to survive? At least I feel that I experienced something extraordinary, because not only did I live through those horrors, but I also managed to describe them, in a way that is bearable, acceptable, and nonetheless part of this radical tradition. Those of us who were brave enough to stare down this abyss—Borowski, Shalamov, Améry—well, there aren’t too many of us. For these writers, writing was always a prelude to suicide. Jean Améry’s gun was always present, in both his articles and his life, always by his side.
I am somebody who survived all of it, somebody who saw the Gorgon’s head and still retained enough strength to finish a work that reaches out to people in a language that is humane. The purpose of literature is for people to become educated, to be entertained, so we can’t ask them to deal with such gruesome visions. I created a work representing the Holocaust as such, but without this being an ugly literature of horrors.
Perhaps I’m being impertinent, but I feel that my work has a rare quality—I tried to depict the human face of this history, I wanted to write a book that people would actually want to read.
...
INTERVIEWER
How do you write these days?
KERTÉSZ
It’s tricky, because I can no longer use a computer. Nor am I able to write by hand. But I’ve got all this material I’ve collected over the course of my life—my diaries, my reports, Liquidation. With all of that done, I no longer have to write anything new. I’ve finished my work.
INTERVIEWER
Then let’s talk about your last novel, Liquidation. What was the initial spark of inspiration?
KERTÉSZ
I had originally intended to write a play. I thought I was done writing novels. But I wanted to depict this moment during the regime change in 1990, a moment that I felt had dramatic value itself. Then it struck me that I was wrong—I’m not a playwright, nor am I particularly interested in the stage. The stage, for me, seemed an obstacle, an inbuilt disadvantage. And so I tore up the play’s manuscript, understanding that this was a topic for a great novel in a small format.
I was interested in examining how different people coped with the regime change. I had met so many people, read their biographies, and listened to their stories, most of which were full of lies. It was a society of informants. But combining that with the legacy of Auschwitz—that’s what drew me in. I tried to find a key figure. Someone who did not live through a concentration camp but whose life is cast in its shadow. That’s when I found the characters Judit and B., the editor whose career is a fiasco and the writer who commits suicide.
INTERVIEWER
Fukuyama’s “end of history” has become something of a cliché perhaps, but I wonder whether that was on your mind when you were writing Liquidation.
KERTÉSZ
I’ve never thought of it like that. What did you make of the novel?
INTERVIEWER
It seems to me that your novel is akin to something like this end of history. It’s written from the vantage point of the early 2000s, yet it captures the moment at the fall of Communism in 1990, a moment at which various currents merge and collide, forming a point of crystallization, and possibly liquidation, for twentieth-century history.
KERTÉSZ
Actually, you’re completely right. It’s exactly like that. We’ve got the man who was born in Auschwitz, and then Judit, the woman who experiences Auschwitz through him and who attempts to find a conclusion to her own history. But then she escapes that world and marries a man who is untouched by totalitarianism. She decides to have children, and thus commits herself to life. That was the secret, the gesture—bearing children is the gesture that creates the possibility of continued life. Faced with choosing between life and death, she opts for life.
All right, that’s enough. That was my last interview.
INTERVIEWER
For today?
KERTÉSZ
Forever. Now it’s done.
https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...
March 19, 2024
Of. Holokost ile ilgili çok kitap okudum ama böylesini hiç okumadım. Vay canına Imre Kertesz. Ne ihtişamlı bir tanışma oldu bu böyle... Üstelik de daha çok övülen üçlemene gelmedim bile. Beni muazzam heyecanlandırdın.
Macarların son Nobelli yazarı Kertesz. 1929 Budapeşte doğumlu yazar, ilkgençliğinde Nazilerin Auschwitz ve Buchenwald toplama kamplarında tutulmuş ve oralardan sağ çıkan sayılı insan arasında yer almış. Dolayısıyla çok iyi bildiği bir yerden yazıyor: bizzat cehennemin içinden.
Tasfiye’de, Auschwitz'de doğan ve yıllar sonra intihar eden bir yazarın öyküsünü anlatıyor yazar. Auschwitz'den çıkılabilir mi sahiden? Yahut Auschwitz insanın içinden hiç çıkar mı? Kitabın ana sorusu bu. Yazarın keskin üslubu o kadar ama o kadar lezzetli ki. Sanki acı bir yemek yemek gibi bu kitabı okumak, her cümlenin genzinizi yakma ihtimali var ama kaşığı elinizden bırakamıyorsunuz... Öyle acayip bir şey.
Kurgu içinde kurgu ile başlıyor metin. Mevzubahis yazar intihar etmiş, etmeden önce de bir oyun metni bırakmış geriye. Oyunda da yazar intihar ediyor ve intiharından sonra olacakları anlatıyor. Ölümünün ardından da oyunda yazdıkları bir bir gerçekleşiyor. Oyunu bulan arkadaşlarından biri, oyunda bir kayıp romandan bahsedildiğini görünce, o romanı aramaya başlıyor ve yazarın sevgilisine, eski karısına vs gidiyor. Bundan sonra kendimizi bir aşk üçgeni, dörtgeni, beşgeni içinde buluyoruz. İlişkiler karmaşıklaşıyor, hikaye katmanlanıyor.
Bu kitabı anlatmak sahiden çok zor, o yüzden çok uğraşmayacağım çünkü biliyorum ki nafile olacak. Şu diyaloğu bırakacağım sadece buraya. Umarım tez zamanda yeniden basılıp daha çok okura ulaşır.
"- Bir kadınla bir erkek arasındaki savaş. Başlangıçta birbirlerini seviyorlar, daha sonra kadın erkekten bir çocuk istiyor ve o da bundan dolayı onu hiçbir zaman affetmiyor. Dünyaya olan güvenini sarsmak, yıkmak için kadına değişik işkenceler yapıyor. Onu ağır bir ruhsal krize sokuyor, neredeyse intihara sürüklüyor ve bunun farkına vardığında kadının yerine kendisi intihar ediyor.
Sen sustun. Sonra adamın kadını yalnızca çocuk istiyor diye niçin cezalandırdığını sordun.
- Çünkü bunu isteyemez.
- Neden isteyemez?
- Auschwitz yüzünden."
Macarların son Nobelli yazarı Kertesz. 1929 Budapeşte doğumlu yazar, ilkgençliğinde Nazilerin Auschwitz ve Buchenwald toplama kamplarında tutulmuş ve oralardan sağ çıkan sayılı insan arasında yer almış. Dolayısıyla çok iyi bildiği bir yerden yazıyor: bizzat cehennemin içinden.
Tasfiye’de, Auschwitz'de doğan ve yıllar sonra intihar eden bir yazarın öyküsünü anlatıyor yazar. Auschwitz'den çıkılabilir mi sahiden? Yahut Auschwitz insanın içinden hiç çıkar mı? Kitabın ana sorusu bu. Yazarın keskin üslubu o kadar ama o kadar lezzetli ki. Sanki acı bir yemek yemek gibi bu kitabı okumak, her cümlenin genzinizi yakma ihtimali var ama kaşığı elinizden bırakamıyorsunuz... Öyle acayip bir şey.
Kurgu içinde kurgu ile başlıyor metin. Mevzubahis yazar intihar etmiş, etmeden önce de bir oyun metni bırakmış geriye. Oyunda da yazar intihar ediyor ve intiharından sonra olacakları anlatıyor. Ölümünün ardından da oyunda yazdıkları bir bir gerçekleşiyor. Oyunu bulan arkadaşlarından biri, oyunda bir kayıp romandan bahsedildiğini görünce, o romanı aramaya başlıyor ve yazarın sevgilisine, eski karısına vs gidiyor. Bundan sonra kendimizi bir aşk üçgeni, dörtgeni, beşgeni içinde buluyoruz. İlişkiler karmaşıklaşıyor, hikaye katmanlanıyor.
Bu kitabı anlatmak sahiden çok zor, o yüzden çok uğraşmayacağım çünkü biliyorum ki nafile olacak. Şu diyaloğu bırakacağım sadece buraya. Umarım tez zamanda yeniden basılıp daha çok okura ulaşır.
"- Bir kadınla bir erkek arasındaki savaş. Başlangıçta birbirlerini seviyorlar, daha sonra kadın erkekten bir çocuk istiyor ve o da bundan dolayı onu hiçbir zaman affetmiyor. Dünyaya olan güvenini sarsmak, yıkmak için kadına değişik işkenceler yapıyor. Onu ağır bir ruhsal krize sokuyor, neredeyse intihara sürüklüyor ve bunun farkına vardığında kadının yerine kendisi intihar ediyor.
Sen sustun. Sonra adamın kadını yalnızca çocuk istiyor diye niçin cezalandırdığını sordun.
- Çünkü bunu isteyemez.
- Neden isteyemez?
- Auschwitz yüzünden."
May 15, 2020
Αν ήταν ένας οποιοσδήποτε άλλος συγγραφέας, το βιβλίο του θα μιλούσε πιθανότατα για τα ίδια περίπου πράγματα (την αυτοκτονία του συγγραφέα Β., το θεατρικό έργο που βρέθηκε ανάμεσα στα λογοτεχνικά του κατάλοιπα και την εκπληκτική διαύγεια με την οποία περιγράφονταν σε αυτό πράγματα που δεν είχαν ακόμη συμβεί και αφορούσαν τα πιο προσφιλή πρόσωπα του συγγραφέα Β.), όχι, όμως, για το Άουσβιτς, με τον τρόπο τουλάχιστον που, σε κάθε βιβλίο του, μιλούσε ο Ίμρε Κέρτες, σε βαθμό που να υποστηρίζεται ότι όλο το λογοτεχνικό έργο του νομπελίστα συγγραφέα θυμίζει παραλλαγή σ’ ένα και μόνο θέμα: το Άουσβιτς, «το μεγαλύτερο τραύμα των ανθρώπων μετά τον Σταυρό», το ορόσημο μετά το οποίο -για να θυμηθούμε τον γνωστό αφορισμό του Τέοντορ Αντόρνο- «είναι βάρβαρο να γράψει κανείς ποιήματα», την ανεπούλωτη πληγή στο σώμα και το πνεύμα της ανθρωπότητας.
Διότι ο Ι. Κέρτες, που, στα δεκαπέντε του, μαζί με δεκαεπτά ακόμη συνομηλίκους του, εκτοπίστηκε στο Άουσβιτς κι απελευθερώθηκε σχεδόν έναν χρόνο μετά από το Μπούχεβαλντ, ό,τι κι αν σκέφτηκε μετά από αυτό, πάντοτε σκεφτόταν το Άουσβιτς. «Ακόμη κι αν φαίνεται ότι μιλάω για κάτι άλλο, εγώ μιλάω για το Άουσβιτς, το Άουσβιτς μιλάει μέσα από μένα. Σε σύγκριση μ’ αυτό όλα τα άλλα μου φαίνονται ανοησίες….» Κι όπως ο Ι. Κέρτες, έτσι και το κεντρικό πρόσωπο του μυθιστορήματός του, ο συγγραφέας Β., σαν άλλο μυθιστορηματικό alter ego του, δεν είναι απαλλαγμένος από την εμπειρία του Άουσβιτς. Γεννημένος εντός του στρατοπέδου εξόντωσης, εν έτει 1944 (τη χρονιά, δηλαδή, του εκτοπισμού του Κέρτες), γόνος μιας Ουγγροεβραίας κρατουμένης κι ένα από τα ελάχιστα μωρά που γεννήθηκαν σε τέτοιες συνθήκες και επιβίωσαν, δεν μπορούσε παρά να νιώθει ότι κουβαλούσε το Άουσβιτς μέσα του: «Ένιωθε ότι είχε γεννηθεί παράνομα, ότι είχε παραμείνει στη ζωή χωρίς λόγο και ότι ο μόνος τρόπος να νομιμοποιηθεί η ύπαρξή του ήταν να αποκρυπτογραφήσει τον μυστικό κώδικα ονόματι Άουσβιτς.»
Αριστοτεχνική γραφή κι αληθινά αξιοθαύμαστη η αξεδιάλυτη κάποιες φορές εμπλοκή του θεατρικού έργου με τη βιωμένη πραγματικότητα των ηρώων του μυθιστορήματος (με τον ίδιο τρόπο που η ζωή του Κέρτες αποτέλεσε την πρώτη ύλη για τα μυθιστορήματά του).
Διότι ο Ι. Κέρτες, που, στα δεκαπέντε του, μαζί με δεκαεπτά ακόμη συνομηλίκους του, εκτοπίστηκε στο Άουσβιτς κι απελευθερώθηκε σχεδόν έναν χρόνο μετά από το Μπούχεβαλντ, ό,τι κι αν σκέφτηκε μετά από αυτό, πάντοτε σκεφτόταν το Άουσβιτς. «Ακόμη κι αν φαίνεται ότι μιλάω για κάτι άλλο, εγώ μιλάω για το Άουσβιτς, το Άουσβιτς μιλάει μέσα από μένα. Σε σύγκριση μ’ αυτό όλα τα άλλα μου φαίνονται ανοησίες….» Κι όπως ο Ι. Κέρτες, έτσι και το κεντρικό πρόσωπο του μυθιστορήματός του, ο συγγραφέας Β., σαν άλλο μυθιστορηματικό alter ego του, δεν είναι απαλλαγμένος από την εμπειρία του Άουσβιτς. Γεννημένος εντός του στρατοπέδου εξόντωσης, εν έτει 1944 (τη χρονιά, δηλαδή, του εκτοπισμού του Κέρτες), γόνος μιας Ουγγροεβραίας κρατουμένης κι ένα από τα ελάχιστα μωρά που γεννήθηκαν σε τέτοιες συνθήκες και επιβίωσαν, δεν μπορούσε παρά να νιώθει ότι κουβαλούσε το Άουσβιτς μέσα του: «Ένιωθε ότι είχε γεννηθεί παράνομα, ότι είχε παραμείνει στη ζωή χωρίς λόγο και ότι ο μόνος τρόπος να νομιμοποιηθεί η ύπαρξή του ήταν να αποκρυπτογραφήσει τον μυστικό κώδικα ονόματι Άουσβιτς.»
Αριστοτεχνική γραφή κι αληθινά αξιοθαύμαστη η αξεδιάλυτη κάποιες φορές εμπλοκή του θεατρικού έργου με τη βιωμένη πραγματικότητα των ηρώων του μυθιστορήματος (με τον ίδιο τρόπο που η ζωή του Κέρτες αποτέλεσε την πρώτη ύλη για τα μυθιστορήματά του).
January 25, 2025
לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/חיסו...
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/חיסו...
June 4, 2025
Imre Kertész crafts a haunting and complex story about memory, survival, and the collapse of meaning.
The novel follows Mr. Mar, a disillusioned editor in Budapest after the fall of Communism, who becomes obsessed with the suicide of his friend B. — a writer born in Auschwitz. After B.’s death, Mar discovers a play among his papers that seems to predict its own writing, its own reading, and even Mar’s own reactions. The story becomes a strange mirror in which reality and fiction are tangled together.
As Mar tries to make sense of the manuscript, he begins to question whether he is living his life or just performing a role that was written for him.
The book is full of dark humor, despair, and philosophical reflection, all circling around one question: how do you go on living when life no longer seems real?
At the center of it all is B.’s impossible existence — a man born in a Nazi death camp, marked from birth, who grows up unable to find a story that can contain his life. For him, survival isn’t a victory; it’s a mistake. He writes to explain his life, and simultaneously to say that some things cannot be explained at all.
Mr. Mar, left with B.’s writings and haunted by his absence, tries to turn B.’s life into a story, but keeps running into silence, contradiction, and doubt.
This is a novel about history, politics, and about the failure of stories themselves. Kertész shows us people who survive horror only to find that nothing makes sense afterward, not even the stories they tell to make it bearable. It’s a powerful, unsettling meditation on what’s left when the world, and language, fall apart.
בינות כותליה של הוצאה לאור מזרח אירופאית מוזנחת שנראית כמו אסופה של ספרים גוססים, מר מַר צופה מחלונו כאחוז דיבוק בנוודי בודפשט עטויי כומתות קצינים מדומיינים וחגורות משי שנגזרו מחלוקי שינה נשיים. הוא חושד שהם סוכני משמעות בתחפושת.
תיאטרון האבסורד ממשיך ומתגבר: מחזה שנמצא בעיזבונו של סופר שהתאבד – אותו סופר שנולד באושוויץ עם קעקוע מספר על הירך כי זרועו הייתה קצרה מדי – חוזה במדויק את תגובת העורך למותו שלו עצמו, תשע שנים קודם. החוקר בתיק מותו תוהה בקול אם לא מדובר ב"התאבדות פילוסופית כמו של דמות של דוסטויבסקי."
קִירְטִי חברו של מר מַר הוא דמות מורכבת שנעה בין ציניות מרירה לאפאתיה אינטלקטואלית שבעברו היה סוציולוג, ואף ישב בכלא כמתנגד משטר, מה שגרם לו לאבד את שמיעתו באוזן אחת. לאחר קריסת הקומוניזם, כמו רבים מבני דורו, קירטי נותר עם תחושת ריקנות קיומית, מיחוש כרוני, ותבוסתנות כללית, שמתבטאת באירוניה שקטה ובזלזול מתמשך בסובבים אותו. יום אחד הוא מכריז בגאווה: "אני לא גיבור, אלא סתם אחד שדפק לעצמו את החיים," ואילו אוֹבְּלָת, ד"ר לפילוסופיה, משיב באירוניה עייפה: "כאן כולם דופקים לעצמם את החיים. זו הרי המיומנות המקומית."
תרגומו של רמי סערי, כהרגלו בקודש, מצליח לשמר ואף לחדד את הלשון הפואטית, האירונית והמרירה של קרטס, ולעיתים להבריק מעבר למקור. הנה כמה מן הפנינים:
– “הדבר הקרוי מציאות” – ביטוי ששב וחוזר כמעין לחש מאגי.
– “הוא לוקח את השעמום שלו לכל מקום כמו כלב פּוּלִי שעיר ועצבני, ומדי פעם בפעם הוא משסה אותו בזולת.”
– “חסר צורה ומדמם כמו שִׁלְיָה.”
– “המשטרה? סתם מטומטמים.”
סערי הגאון מיטיב לתרגם לא רק את המילים, אלא גם את צליליו של העולם המזרח אירופאי בו אפילו השתיקה כבר לא דוממת.
"... האדם חי כמו תולעת, אבל כותב כמו האֵלים. פעם ידעו את הסוד הזה, בינתיים שכחו אותו: כל העולם כולו חלקיקים מפוזרים שמתרוצצים, תוהו ובוהו חשוך שמחזיק מעמד רק בזכות הכתיבה. אם קיים בדעתך ציור של העולם, אם טרם שכחת את כל מה שקרה, כלומר, יש לך עולם: הרי את זה בָּרְאָה למענך הכתיבה, והיא מוסיפה לברוא בלי הרף, אותה רשת סמויה מן העין של קורי עכביש המחזיקה יחדיו את חיינו, הלוֹגוֹס. קיימת מילה עתיקה, תנכית: משכיל. כבר מזמן אין משתמשים עוד במונח הזה. משכיל אין פירושו מוכשר, משכיל אין פירושו סופר טוב. לא הוגה דעות, לא בלשן ולא מומחה בניסוח. גם אם יגמגם, גם אם לא תרד תכף לסוף דעתו, תוכל לזהות מייד את המשכיל. בִּי היה משכיל. לא ייתכן שיאבַד מה שהשאיר אחריו, כי לנו הוא השאיר זאת. כאן קבור הכלב. וזהו אינו רק סודו, אלא גם סודנו. וגם הסיבה לכך שעשה מה שעשה. על סמך זה עליי לדעת אם גם עליי ללכת בדרכו, או שמא אני יכול לבחור גם בדרך אחרת. אולי חמש מילים בלבד הן אלה שעליי לפרש, אולם אותן חמש מילים, הן הן הלקח. התמצית הסופית, המשמעות..."
The novel follows Mr. Mar, a disillusioned editor in Budapest after the fall of Communism, who becomes obsessed with the suicide of his friend B. — a writer born in Auschwitz. After B.’s death, Mar discovers a play among his papers that seems to predict its own writing, its own reading, and even Mar’s own reactions. The story becomes a strange mirror in which reality and fiction are tangled together.
As Mar tries to make sense of the manuscript, he begins to question whether he is living his life or just performing a role that was written for him.
The book is full of dark humor, despair, and philosophical reflection, all circling around one question: how do you go on living when life no longer seems real?
At the center of it all is B.’s impossible existence — a man born in a Nazi death camp, marked from birth, who grows up unable to find a story that can contain his life. For him, survival isn’t a victory; it’s a mistake. He writes to explain his life, and simultaneously to say that some things cannot be explained at all.
Mr. Mar, left with B.’s writings and haunted by his absence, tries to turn B.’s life into a story, but keeps running into silence, contradiction, and doubt.
This is a novel about history, politics, and about the failure of stories themselves. Kertész shows us people who survive horror only to find that nothing makes sense afterward, not even the stories they tell to make it bearable. It’s a powerful, unsettling meditation on what’s left when the world, and language, fall apart.
בינות כותליה של הוצאה לאור מזרח אירופאית מוזנחת שנראית כמו אסופה של ספרים גוססים, מר מַר צופה מחלונו כאחוז דיבוק בנוודי בודפשט עטויי כומתות קצינים מדומיינים וחגורות משי שנגזרו מחלוקי שינה נשיים. הוא חושד שהם סוכני משמעות בתחפושת.
תיאטרון האבסורד ממשיך ומתגבר: מחזה שנמצא בעיזבונו של סופר שהתאבד – אותו סופר שנולד באושוויץ עם קעקוע מספר על הירך כי זרועו הייתה קצרה מדי – חוזה במדויק את תגובת העורך למותו שלו עצמו, תשע שנים קודם. החוקר בתיק מותו תוהה בקול אם לא מדובר ב"התאבדות פילוסופית כמו של דמות של דוסטויבסקי."
קִירְטִי חברו של מר מַר הוא דמות מורכבת שנעה בין ציניות מרירה לאפאתיה אינטלקטואלית שבעברו היה סוציולוג, ואף ישב בכלא כמתנגד משטר, מה שגרם לו לאבד את שמיעתו באוזן אחת. לאחר קריסת הקומוניזם, כמו רבים מבני דורו, קירטי נותר עם תחושת ריקנות קיומית, מיחוש כרוני, ותבוסתנות כללית, שמתבטאת באירוניה שקטה ובזלזול מתמשך בסובבים אותו. יום אחד הוא מכריז בגאווה: "אני לא גיבור, אלא סתם אחד שדפק לעצמו את החיים," ואילו אוֹבְּלָת, ד"ר לפילוסופיה, משיב באירוניה עייפה: "כאן כולם דופקים לעצמם את החיים. זו הרי המיומנות המקומית."
תרגומו של רמי סערי, כהרגלו בקודש, מצליח לשמר ואף לחדד את הלשון הפואטית, האירונית והמרירה של קרטס, ולעיתים להבריק מעבר למקור. הנה כמה מן הפנינים:
– “הדבר הקרוי מציאות” – ביטוי ששב וחוזר כמעין לחש מאגי.
– “הוא לוקח את השעמום שלו לכל מקום כמו כלב פּוּלִי שעיר ועצבני, ומדי פעם בפעם הוא משסה אותו בזולת.”
– “חסר צורה ומדמם כמו שִׁלְיָה.”
– “המשטרה? סתם מטומטמים.”
סערי הגאון מיטיב לתרגם לא רק את המילים, אלא גם את צליליו של העולם המזרח אירופאי בו אפילו השתיקה כבר לא דוממת.
"... האדם חי כמו תולעת, אבל כותב כמו האֵלים. פעם ידעו את הסוד הזה, בינתיים שכחו אותו: כל העולם כולו חלקיקים מפוזרים שמתרוצצים, תוהו ובוהו חשוך שמחזיק מעמד רק בזכות הכתיבה. אם קיים בדעתך ציור של העולם, אם טרם שכחת את כל מה שקרה, כלומר, יש לך עולם: הרי את זה בָּרְאָה למענך הכתיבה, והיא מוסיפה לברוא בלי הרף, אותה רשת סמויה מן העין של קורי עכביש המחזיקה יחדיו את חיינו, הלוֹגוֹס. קיימת מילה עתיקה, תנכית: משכיל. כבר מזמן אין משתמשים עוד במונח הזה. משכיל אין פירושו מוכשר, משכיל אין פירושו סופר טוב. לא הוגה דעות, לא בלשן ולא מומחה בניסוח. גם אם יגמגם, גם אם לא תרד תכף לסוף דעתו, תוכל לזהות מייד את המשכיל. בִּי היה משכיל. לא ייתכן שיאבַד מה שהשאיר אחריו, כי לנו הוא השאיר זאת. כאן קבור הכלב. וזהו אינו רק סודו, אלא גם סודנו. וגם הסיבה לכך שעשה מה שעשה. על סמך זה עליי לדעת אם גם עליי ללכת בדרכו, או שמא אני יכול לבחור גם בדרך אחרת. אולי חמש מילים בלבד הן אלה שעליי לפרש, אולם אותן חמש מילים, הן הן הלקח. התמצית הסופית, המשמעות..."
October 13, 2016
He did not understand how I imagined Florence was not a Florence of murderers when everything nowadays belongs to murderers.If things were left up to the people who view social justice movements as inevitable, they'd all be dead or enslaved or worse, and everyone who's already dead or enslaved or worse would be wiped from history entirely. These are the people for whom there are no monsters under the bed, or on the streets, or speaking in front of a podium, so what, exactly, will spawn a surge towards liberty? Ethical capitalism? Choosing one military industrial complex over another for reasons of the novelty of gender? Being polite and kind and grateful to those who have hinted very strongly over the years that they'd like nothing more than to shoot those you profess to be friends with in the face? Now, you can't apply Liquidation to all genocides or governments that favor the use of torture as a means for justice, as that'll only result in the annihilation that is one of the characters claiming that everyone is Jewish, thus signifying Jewish people have only other Jewish people to blame for their oppression. You can, however, refer back to it if you ever feel the need to tell those being subversive or antagonizing or contemptuous of the status quo that it's really not that bad; if they see fit to exit stage left, all they need to do is be a dear and leave behind some masterwork for us to incorporate while leaving their trials and tribulations far behind.
The problem with reading books like this is it makes one unfit for reading practically everything else. Why read something that doesn't in some way deal with one systematic erasure or another? Will it make you happy when the bombs come? Will it save you and your offspring when what you could never have imagined comes to pass? Sure, you need to make a paycheck, but you can do that while facing the fact that you're able to do so only through stepping on the backs of others, right? Perhaps we need to raise the bar of adulthood from the level of the ability to do taxes, brown-nose, and beat one's children to something involving an engagement with reality that doesn't think Israel absolutely had to happen, and that the most one can be is ethically political, not apolitical. There's another side of this that talks about the right one has to kill themself, but there are so many do-gooder eugenicists pretending they're anything but a less popular branch than their Nazi cousins using disabled people as poster faces to support their argument that they've reduced the issue to little more than pull yourself up by your bootstraps ethnic cleansing. There are other sides that talk about communism and metafiction and Judaism, but you're going to have to go somewhere else for that. Preferably to someone who's Jewish. They, unlike practically all others, will not be pulling out the Shoah as a rhetorical trump card.
This being without Self is the disaster, the true Evil, said Bee, though, comically enough, without your being evil yourself, albeit capable of any evil act.This book will make you think if you let it. Sure, the fictional tricks are cute, but you're engaging with literature, not the latest release of the iPhone cult. You could try your hardest to avoid thinking about how all this horrible things happened and keep on happening, but then what exactly are you doing reading Kertész in the first place. You'd be better off with Kafka, whose deathbed wishes were violated for the sake of your entertainment and academic wankery, or with any number of writers who were defanged by their decision to not burn their works. Survival of the fittest, remember? Anything can be made to fit once the troublesome implements are reduced and the survivors are domesticated.
The state is always the same. The only reason it financed literature up till now was in order to liquidate it.Do you kill yourself to avoid conformation? Or do you not kill yourself because, no matter what happens, you can never be conformed? Whatever the case, you'll be proof of the system, living or dead.
P.S. This is my 501st review. I missed the 500th mark for whatever reason, but better late than never. Such a ways I have come.
December 9, 2014
I rate few books as 5 stars these days. This one is a life-changer. The writing, at least in the French translation from the Hungarian, is beautiful to read. Beautiful in the way that so much of Beckett is beautiful.
I have previously said that Kertész book, Etre sans destin, is the best book that I have read on the holocaust. It portrays our human capacity for cruelty in an absurd world through the eyes of a child living through the holocaust as Kertész experienced it. The absurdity of it all leaves the reader reeling.
In Liquidation, Kertész takes us back a step to a man born in Auschwitz. The man, B, a writer and translator, has committed suicide after a life of trying to understand Auschwitz. He is finally left facing the absurdity of his own project in life.
The short novel looks back from several viewpoints: a play written by B; an editor, Keserü, who is obsessed with both B and a novel he believes B to have written; and, a letter written by B to his ex-wife.
The book is a harsh commentary both on being Jewish and on being human post holocaust. How can we live with this absurdity? Why do we continue to live in a world of death, suffering, poverty, starvation and torture which are all created by other humans, which are all unnecessary, all absurd? I can't help but wonder. We make no sense but we go on.
(Forgive me my translation.) "We live in the era of catastrophe, each of us is a carrier of the catastrophe, that's why we need a particular lifestyle if we hope to survive, he says. The man of catastrophe has no destiny, no qualities, no character. His frightful society - the state, the dictatorship, call it what you will - attracting him with the force of a dizzying whirl until he stops resisting and the chaos springs up in him like a hot geyser - and that chaos becomes his natural element. For him, there is no longer a possibility to return to a centre of Me, towards an unwavering and undeniable certainty of Me: he is, in the most literal sense of the word, lost. The being without Me, is the catastrophe, true evil, and bizarrely, says Bé, without being evil himself, is capable of all wickedness."
Is this not also the world of Camus in L'étranger? Both Camus and Kertész were able to find a reason to continue with life. Neither Camus' Meursault nor Kertész' Bé can find that reason. I'm not sure.
I have previously said that Kertész book, Etre sans destin, is the best book that I have read on the holocaust. It portrays our human capacity for cruelty in an absurd world through the eyes of a child living through the holocaust as Kertész experienced it. The absurdity of it all leaves the reader reeling.
In Liquidation, Kertész takes us back a step to a man born in Auschwitz. The man, B, a writer and translator, has committed suicide after a life of trying to understand Auschwitz. He is finally left facing the absurdity of his own project in life.
The short novel looks back from several viewpoints: a play written by B; an editor, Keserü, who is obsessed with both B and a novel he believes B to have written; and, a letter written by B to his ex-wife.
The book is a harsh commentary both on being Jewish and on being human post holocaust. How can we live with this absurdity? Why do we continue to live in a world of death, suffering, poverty, starvation and torture which are all created by other humans, which are all unnecessary, all absurd? I can't help but wonder. We make no sense but we go on.
(Forgive me my translation.) "We live in the era of catastrophe, each of us is a carrier of the catastrophe, that's why we need a particular lifestyle if we hope to survive, he says. The man of catastrophe has no destiny, no qualities, no character. His frightful society - the state, the dictatorship, call it what you will - attracting him with the force of a dizzying whirl until he stops resisting and the chaos springs up in him like a hot geyser - and that chaos becomes his natural element. For him, there is no longer a possibility to return to a centre of Me, towards an unwavering and undeniable certainty of Me: he is, in the most literal sense of the word, lost. The being without Me, is the catastrophe, true evil, and bizarrely, says Bé, without being evil himself, is capable of all wickedness."
Is this not also the world of Camus in L'étranger? Both Camus and Kertész were able to find a reason to continue with life. Neither Camus' Meursault nor Kertész' Bé can find that reason. I'm not sure.
April 7, 2019
Uma inflamada ode à desolação. Escrita meticulosa e apaixonadamente, comove, incomoda e não nos larga. Keseru, Judit e B, são a multiplicação espectral de Kertész, num comovente carrossel de pensamento.
Tremenda falha a minha, ter demorado 40 anos a chegar a este enorme autor.
Tremenda falha a minha, ter demorado 40 anos a chegar a este enorme autor.
April 16, 2012
This novel alludes to Mann's Doktor Faustus and Roth's The Radetzky March (among others). Those are books that attempt to sum up an entire historical progression, to diagnose it and analyse it in some sort of definitive way, using the age-old method of writing a vast, integral novel.
Kertesz is dealing with some of the same historical sweep here, his novel is about people who have survived the depredations of ideology, of Auschwitz, of life behind the Iron Curtain. Now, as ideology seems to recede in the late 90s, how do they make sense of what has been? Adrian Leverkuhn revoked the Ninth Symphony; can B., Auschwitz survivor, reluctant writer and consummate nihilist revoke Auschwitz?
This is an odd little novel, fragmented, prone to sudden changes of narrator, person and format, inconclusive, sketchy but still vivid, rich with resonance and ideas in a manner akin to those magisterial novels alluded to earlier, with none of their elaborate narrative scaffolding. It's more than a little disturbing, and even a little skimpy at times, but it's a brilliant skimpiness, the gesture of a writer who has been in hell and is unwilling to reduce it to kitsch, even by simply telling it like it was. I'll stack this novel against a raft of boys in pyjamas of any stripe.
I need to get a hold of Fatelessness, which is a far less oblique take on some of this subject matter, apparently, and see how it compares.
Kertesz is dealing with some of the same historical sweep here, his novel is about people who have survived the depredations of ideology, of Auschwitz, of life behind the Iron Curtain. Now, as ideology seems to recede in the late 90s, how do they make sense of what has been? Adrian Leverkuhn revoked the Ninth Symphony; can B., Auschwitz survivor, reluctant writer and consummate nihilist revoke Auschwitz?
This is an odd little novel, fragmented, prone to sudden changes of narrator, person and format, inconclusive, sketchy but still vivid, rich with resonance and ideas in a manner akin to those magisterial novels alluded to earlier, with none of their elaborate narrative scaffolding. It's more than a little disturbing, and even a little skimpy at times, but it's a brilliant skimpiness, the gesture of a writer who has been in hell and is unwilling to reduce it to kitsch, even by simply telling it like it was. I'll stack this novel against a raft of boys in pyjamas of any stripe.
I need to get a hold of Fatelessness, which is a far less oblique take on some of this subject matter, apparently, and see how it compares.
December 21, 2018
Hoe is het mogelijk? Veertien jaar lang stond dit boekje ongerept en ongelezen in de kast. Gekocht op de boekenbeurs in Antwerpen op 11 november 2004, 17,5 euro (maar een fikse korting gekregen – merci Pieter). Fraai uitgegeven, mooie hardcover, schitterend omslagontwerp; Nobelprijswinnaar, ei zo na vergeten. En pas nu gelezen. Vreemd? Niet echt: op diezelfde boekenbeurs kocht ik, zo zegt het kassaticket, ook ‘Grijze zielen’ van Philippe Claudel. En dat vond ik zó indrukwekkend dat ik daarna alles van Claudel ben beginnen lezen…
‘Liquidatie’ verscheen oorspronkelijk in 2003, het jaar nadat Kertész de Nobelprijs Literatuur had gekregen. (De vertaling in het Nederlands is van 2004 - De Bezige Bij). ‘Liquidatie’ is dus een “late” Kertész: op het moment van publicatie was de auteur al tweeënzeventig. Maar wat een parel.
Het verhaal is gesitueerd in Boedapest, in de late jaren negentig. Het communistisch regime is geïmplodeerd, de intellectuelen zijn stuurloos. Verveling is de basso continuo. Schrijver B., een overlever van Auschwitz, pleegt zelfmoord. Zijn omgeving is volslagen verrast. Protagonist Keserű, zijn redacteur op de uitgeverij, hoopt - enig opportunisme en cynisme is hem niet vreemd - postuum de laatste roman van zijn vriend B. te kunnen uitgeven. Maar die ultieme roman, waarin Keserű ook het echte motief voor B.’s fatale beslissing hoopt te lezen, is zoek. Of heeft nooit bestaan? Keserű begint een hardnekkige zoektocht. Er wordt gegist en gefilosofeerd, er volgen pijnlijke confrontaties met B.’s ex en B.’s minnares. En ja hoor, het geheim wordt uiteindelijk ontrafeld.
Zo samengevat lijkt het een simpel verhaal. Dat is het beslist niet. Vormtechnisch niet (de hoofdfiguren in het verhaal zijn tegelijk ook de hoofdrolspelers in een toneeltekst van B. met als titel ‘Liquidatie’ – complex en, zeker in het begin, behoorlijk verwarrend). Maar ook inhoudelijk niet: ‘Liquidatie’ is diepzinnig, intellectualistisch, en de thematiek is topzwaar (is een “normaal” leven mogelijk na Auschwitz? Het antwoord van Kertész, zelf een overlever van Auschwitz, is onomwonden NEEN).
Je zweeg.
Daarna vroeg je waarom de man de vrouw strafte enkel omdat ze een kind wilde.
‘Omdat ze dat niet mocht willen.’
‘Waarom niet?’
‘Vanwege Auschwitz.’
Luchtige vakantielectuur is ‘Liquidatie’ zeker niet. Maar wat een heerlijke schrijver is Kertész. “Zijn werk is de bekroning van de literatuur. Want Kertész heeft de verschrikkingen van de twintigste eeuw op een buitengewoon literaire manier vormgegeven” vermeldt de flaptekst. Daar valt, wat mij betreft, niets aan toe te voegen.
‘Liquidatie’ verscheen oorspronkelijk in 2003, het jaar nadat Kertész de Nobelprijs Literatuur had gekregen. (De vertaling in het Nederlands is van 2004 - De Bezige Bij). ‘Liquidatie’ is dus een “late” Kertész: op het moment van publicatie was de auteur al tweeënzeventig. Maar wat een parel.
Het verhaal is gesitueerd in Boedapest, in de late jaren negentig. Het communistisch regime is geïmplodeerd, de intellectuelen zijn stuurloos. Verveling is de basso continuo. Schrijver B., een overlever van Auschwitz, pleegt zelfmoord. Zijn omgeving is volslagen verrast. Protagonist Keserű, zijn redacteur op de uitgeverij, hoopt - enig opportunisme en cynisme is hem niet vreemd - postuum de laatste roman van zijn vriend B. te kunnen uitgeven. Maar die ultieme roman, waarin Keserű ook het echte motief voor B.’s fatale beslissing hoopt te lezen, is zoek. Of heeft nooit bestaan? Keserű begint een hardnekkige zoektocht. Er wordt gegist en gefilosofeerd, er volgen pijnlijke confrontaties met B.’s ex en B.’s minnares. En ja hoor, het geheim wordt uiteindelijk ontrafeld.
Zo samengevat lijkt het een simpel verhaal. Dat is het beslist niet. Vormtechnisch niet (de hoofdfiguren in het verhaal zijn tegelijk ook de hoofdrolspelers in een toneeltekst van B. met als titel ‘Liquidatie’ – complex en, zeker in het begin, behoorlijk verwarrend). Maar ook inhoudelijk niet: ‘Liquidatie’ is diepzinnig, intellectualistisch, en de thematiek is topzwaar (is een “normaal” leven mogelijk na Auschwitz? Het antwoord van Kertész, zelf een overlever van Auschwitz, is onomwonden NEEN).
Je zweeg.
Daarna vroeg je waarom de man de vrouw strafte enkel omdat ze een kind wilde.
‘Omdat ze dat niet mocht willen.’
‘Waarom niet?’
‘Vanwege Auschwitz.’
Luchtige vakantielectuur is ‘Liquidatie’ zeker niet. Maar wat een heerlijke schrijver is Kertész. “Zijn werk is de bekroning van de literatuur. Want Kertész heeft de verschrikkingen van de twintigste eeuw op een buitengewoon literaire manier vormgegeven” vermeldt de flaptekst. Daar valt, wat mij betreft, niets aan toe te voegen.
May 22, 2023
অমর মুদির অনুবাদে সন্দেশ থেকে প্রকাশিত 'বিনষ্ট প্রজন্ম' বইটা আমি বায়তুল মোকাররমের সামনে আবিষ্কার করি।
কানের কাছে বারবার বলে যাচ্ছিল, ২০ টাকা, মাত্র ২০ টাকা।
নেড়েচেড়ে দেখি কন্ডিশন ভালো, মাত্র কেনা নতুন বইয়ের মত।
অমর মুদিকে আমি চিনতাম না, ইমরে কারতেশজ এর নাম এক দু'বার শুনেছি রেডিটে—এ বই কেনার কোনো কারণ আমার ছিল না। কিন্তু কানের কাছে ওই, ২০ টাকা, মাত্র ২০ টাকা...
নিজেকে আমি মাঝেমধ্যে সৌভাগ্যবান ভাবি৷ এভাবেই কী করে জানি আমার হাতে এসে পড়ে অদ্ভুত সব বই। পড়ি, আর অবাক হই। অবাক হই আর ভাবি সাহিত্যে হারিয়ে যাওয়া কত সহজ। যত ভালো লিখেনই না কেন, সাহিত্য আপনাকে ছুঁড়ে মারবে আস্তাকুঁড়ে। এই সমুদ্র কাকে জায়গা দেয়, আর কাকে না, কেউ জানে না।
ইমরে কারতেশ্জ তাও অন্তত নোবেল পেয়েছেন। বী পায় নি। বী-র কোনো লেখাও ঠিকঠাক পড়া হল না আমার৷ তাও কিংবিটার ছিল, হায় আমাদের প্রিয়(?) সাহিত্য সম্পাদক কিংবিটার! ও না থাকলে নাটকের পান্ডুলিপিটার ছেঁড়াফাটা সংলাপগুলোও আমার পড়া হত না। তবু কেমন আয়রনিক, বী-র অনবদ্য সব লেখা যেমন গার্বেজ ব্যাগে জায়গা পেয়েছে, ঠিক তেমনই অসাধারণ অনুবাদে অসাধারণ এই বইও জায়গা পেয়েছে জাতীয় মসজিদের সামনে, বিশ টাকা দামের কিছু চটি বইয়ের সাথে।
কানের কাছে বারবার বলে যাচ্ছিল, ২০ টাকা, মাত্র ২০ টাকা।
নেড়েচেড়ে দেখি কন্ডিশন ভালো, মাত্র কেনা নতুন বইয়ের মত।
অমর মুদিকে আমি চিনতাম না, ইমরে কারতেশজ এর নাম এক দু'বার শুনেছি রেডিটে—এ বই কেনার কোনো কারণ আমার ছিল না। কিন্তু কানের কাছে ওই, ২০ টাকা, মাত্র ২০ টাকা...
নিজেকে আমি মাঝেমধ্যে সৌভাগ্যবান ভাবি৷ এভাবেই কী করে জানি আমার হাতে এসে পড়ে অদ্ভুত সব বই। পড়ি, আর অবাক হই। অবাক হই আর ভাবি সাহিত্যে হারিয়ে যাওয়া কত সহজ। যত ভালো লিখেনই না কেন, সাহিত্য আপনাকে ছুঁড়ে মারবে আস্তাকুঁড়ে। এই সমুদ্র কাকে জায়গা দেয়, আর কাকে না, কেউ জানে না।
ইমরে কারতেশ্জ তাও অন্তত নোবেল পেয়েছেন। বী পায় নি। বী-র কোনো লেখাও ঠিকঠাক পড়া হল না আমার৷ তাও কিংবিটার ছিল, হায় আমাদের প্রিয়(?) সাহিত্য সম্পাদক কিংবিটার! ও না থাকলে নাটকের পান্ডুলিপিটার ছেঁড়াফাটা সংলাপগুলোও আমার পড়া হত না। তবু কেমন আয়রনিক, বী-র অনবদ্য সব লেখা যেমন গার্বেজ ব্যাগে জায়গা পেয়েছে, ঠিক তেমনই অসাধারণ অনুবাদে অসাধারণ এই বইও জায়গা পেয়েছে জাতীয় মসজিদের সামনে, বিশ টাকা দামের কিছু চটি বইয়ের সাথে।
April 12, 2024
This book looks straight at the holocaust via the suicide of a writer, Bee, who was born in Auschwitz, and hence has the PoW number tattooed on his thigh at birth (the arm is too short). Somehow he survives and marries and writes but cannot live with the fact of Auschwitz, there is no way of accommodating such a revelation of man's character. The book is set in the aftermath of his suicide and how his publisher and writer friends are trying to piece together his written legacy, there's a play and fragments of writing but his agent/publisher is convinced there is a novel too. The book itself is fragmented, disjointed, passages from the play (which involve the same protagonists as the book) are cast alongside discussions of the effects of the holocaust and the impasse it presents. It's terrifying really, heart stopping but so dry and oddly humorous, a bit Beckett like. It leaves you sad and numbed. There is a heartfelt bit on the power of writing though:
But I believe in writing - nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it; Logos, the invisible spider's thread that holds our lives together.
But I believe in writing - nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it; Logos, the invisible spider's thread that holds our lives together.
October 2, 2008
beckett and bernhard may be the basis of "Bee," the writer whose suicide is the vacuum at the center of this novel. as such it makes sense that under the layer of gossipy bedswapping tales by intelligentsia and almost crudely titillating descriptions of common breakdowns and various life botchings is the novel's real content--our natural state of depravity which makes such crudeness and vacuity our continued mode of being.
the book is either great because it shows how literature redeems the banality of our evil world or because it honestly depicts how our great arts are debased and fundamentally banal. a dark choice.
the articulation of the former by the book's sometimes narrator: "But I believe in writing--nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it" (97).
and while the book is about the impossibility of existence after auschwitz, the parts that affected me most were strangely those about the comparably negligibly-weighted topic of the literary life. but i think that's the truth and greatness of kertesz--to speak unsentimentally and defiantly crudely. a crudeness that is only possible due to an elemental refinement, a rare ability to look sincerely at our limits.
here's a long passage, capturing both the pleasures of literary life as well as the self-awareness of its vanity and foolishness:
"The fact is that in my nineteenth or twentieth year...a book came into my hands... I knew about the existence of this book only from other books, in the way that an astronomer infers the existence of an unknown celestial body from the motion of other planets; yet in those days, the era of undiscoverable reasons, it was not possible to get hold of it for some undiscoverable reason. I happened to be grinding through university at the time; though I did not have much money, I staked it all on the venture, mobilizing antiquarian booksellers, denying myself meals in order to acquire an old edition. I then read the bulky volume in less than three days, sitting on a bench in the public garden of a city square, as spring was in the air outside while a constant, depressing gloom reigned within my sublet room. I recall to this day the adventures of the imagination that I lived through at the time while I read in the book that the Ninth Symphony had been withdrawn. I felt privileged, like someone who had become privy to a secret reserved for few; like someone who had been suddenly awakened in order to have the world's irredeemable condition revealed to him, all at once, in the blinding light of a judgement.
Still, I don't think it was that book which carried me into my fateful career. I finished reading it; then, like all the others, it gradually died down within me under the dense, soft layers of my subsequent reading matter...
a person becomes a literary editor, and later a publisher's reader, our of error in the first place. In any event, literature is the trap that captures him. To be more precise, reading: reading as a narcotic which pleasantly blurs the merciless outlines of the life that holds sway over us" (38-9).
the book is either great because it shows how literature redeems the banality of our evil world or because it honestly depicts how our great arts are debased and fundamentally banal. a dark choice.
the articulation of the former by the book's sometimes narrator: "But I believe in writing--nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it" (97).
and while the book is about the impossibility of existence after auschwitz, the parts that affected me most were strangely those about the comparably negligibly-weighted topic of the literary life. but i think that's the truth and greatness of kertesz--to speak unsentimentally and defiantly crudely. a crudeness that is only possible due to an elemental refinement, a rare ability to look sincerely at our limits.
here's a long passage, capturing both the pleasures of literary life as well as the self-awareness of its vanity and foolishness:
"The fact is that in my nineteenth or twentieth year...a book came into my hands... I knew about the existence of this book only from other books, in the way that an astronomer infers the existence of an unknown celestial body from the motion of other planets; yet in those days, the era of undiscoverable reasons, it was not possible to get hold of it for some undiscoverable reason. I happened to be grinding through university at the time; though I did not have much money, I staked it all on the venture, mobilizing antiquarian booksellers, denying myself meals in order to acquire an old edition. I then read the bulky volume in less than three days, sitting on a bench in the public garden of a city square, as spring was in the air outside while a constant, depressing gloom reigned within my sublet room. I recall to this day the adventures of the imagination that I lived through at the time while I read in the book that the Ninth Symphony had been withdrawn. I felt privileged, like someone who had become privy to a secret reserved for few; like someone who had been suddenly awakened in order to have the world's irredeemable condition revealed to him, all at once, in the blinding light of a judgement.
Still, I don't think it was that book which carried me into my fateful career. I finished reading it; then, like all the others, it gradually died down within me under the dense, soft layers of my subsequent reading matter...
a person becomes a literary editor, and later a publisher's reader, our of error in the first place. In any event, literature is the trap that captures him. To be more precise, reading: reading as a narcotic which pleasantly blurs the merciless outlines of the life that holds sway over us" (38-9).
December 14, 2019
«Aniquilação», sabemo-lo ao início, é nesta narrativa o nome de uma peça de teatro. Mas não só. Essa aniquilação, de si, do outro, reporta-se também à Shoah, às vidas que aí se perderam e sobretudo às que viveram depois com aquela memória. Kertész, tal como Celan, foi um deles. Ao contrário do poeta não seguiu o caminho da auto-aniquilação, mas projetou-o aqui numa personagem - B. - que viveu sob o signo dos campos de extermínio até ao momento do seu suicídio. E que, tal como Celan, na palavra procurava a expiação ou a respiração. A personagem escreve, num tom que não é de todo o do poeta, que «Morrer é fácil/ a vida é um enorme campo de concentração/ que Deus construiu na terra para os homens/ e que o homem aperfeiçoou/ em campo de extermínio do homem (...)/ A grande insubmissão é/ vivermos até ao fim». Mas este livro não é apenas sobre a Shoah, aliás, diria antes que é sobretudo acerca da (im)possibilidade de viver sob o peso daquela memória, acerca daquele peso que os que por lá passaram tiveram que carregar para o resto das suas vidas, e simultaneamente acerca da forma como os livros e a escrita podem ser uma resposta, ou uma via alternativa, a esse fardo. Talvez porque «(...) a literatura é uma armadilha, que nos prende. Mais precisamente, a leitura. A leitura como droga, que apaga, agradavelmente, os contornos da vida cruel que nos oprime.» É, nesse sentido, um livro espelho, uma interrogação à interrogação e, de resto, muito nele é bastante inventivo nas soluções, por vezes até formais. Num certo diálogo teatral (?) diz-se: «O que podes saber, tu, de Auschwitz?», «Tudo o que é possível ler. E, mesmo assim, não sei nada. Como tu também não podes saber nada.», «Não é a mesma coisa. Eu sou judia.», «Com isso também nada disseste. Todos somos judeus.» Esse labirinto ilusório onde «todos somos» faz com que as personagens, por vezes, sejam puros elementos simbólicos - e talvez resida aí uma das maiores fraquezas do livro, essa forma como parece descartar umas em favor de outras para servir a narrativa. Ainda assim, há aqui momentos de verdadeiro génio que eclipsam essas costuras mais frágeis, e que não posso deixar de comparar ao melhor que o nosso Vergílio Ferreira escreveu. (E que bem que lhe teria também ficado o Nobel, já agora, como ficou a Kertész.) Curiosamente, vim lê-lo por aquilo que Saramago dele disse numa entrevista. Considerava-o «um grande escritor», «uma surpresa total», a quem se rendeu, entregou (embora se considerasse, de entre os que alcançaram o galardão da Academia sueca, mais próximo de Pamuk.) Tal como José, também me rendi. Venham mais livros de todos eles.
June 4, 2009
This is a book about a play about real life.
It is also a book about a book about a marriage that has ended.
This is a book about what it means to be a writer after Auschwitz.
This is a book that does not bother to make any sense.
This is a book that cannot remember which parts of the story it wishes to tell.
This is a book that cannot actually tell the story that it is attempting to tell.
This is a book that cannot be explained.
This is a book about obsession.
Hungry
It is also a book about a book about a marriage that has ended.
This is a book about what it means to be a writer after Auschwitz.
This is a book that does not bother to make any sense.
This is a book that cannot remember which parts of the story it wishes to tell.
This is a book that cannot actually tell the story that it is attempting to tell.
This is a book that cannot be explained.
This is a book about obsession.
Hungry
Read
December 5, 2019DNF em Julho de 2019
Confirmo que não gosto do estilo do autor.
Confirmo que não gosto do estilo do autor.
May 22, 2020
Der Autor, Nobelpreisträger nicht von ungefähr, hat einen großartigen Schreibstil. Dieser Wechsel von feiner Ironie, Galgenhumor und Ernsthaftigkeit war absolut gelungen. Ein Lektor namens Keserü erinnert sich an seinen Freund, den Schriftstelle Bé, der sich 1990 das Leben nahm. Bé wurde in Auschwitz geboren und kämpfte immer mit der empfundenen Illegalität seines Lebens. Für ihn war das sozialistische Ungarn keineswegs das Land seiner Träume, aber die Unfreiheit passte zu seiner empfundenen Situation. Im Buch heißt es "Er lebte Auschwitz in Budapast". Sich zu wehren gegen die Unfreiheit erhielt ihn am Leben.
Sehr deutlich sah er, was die Zukunft ab 1990 bringen wird. Für ihn war es nicht erstrebenswert, z. B. Kunstwerke in Florenz zu sehen, sich in eine Welt von Mördern zu begeben. Er schrieb ein Theaterstück, das die Situation nach seinem Tod sehr genau wieder gibt und dessen Szenen mit den realen Erlebnissen und Erinnerungen Keserüs wechseln.
Im Grunde ist es ein Buch über die Unmöglichkeit, nach Auschwitz ein normales Leben zu führen, nicht nur für die, die Auschwitz überlebt haben, sondern auch dür die Nachgeborenen von Auschwitzüberlebenden, die keine Erinnerungen haben können.
Es ist berührend und macht nachdenklich und doch konnte mich der Text nicht völlig erreichen, weshalb ich ihm nicht 5 Sterne gab. Es mutet etwas surreal an, dass Bé auch vorwegnahm, dass seine Geschichte die Menschen nicht erreicht. Fast empfinde ich Scham, dass ich einen Stern abzog. Was Literatur alles zustande bringt, ist erstaunlich (und hätte wiederum 5 Sterne verdient).
Sehr deutlich sah er, was die Zukunft ab 1990 bringen wird. Für ihn war es nicht erstrebenswert, z. B. Kunstwerke in Florenz zu sehen, sich in eine Welt von Mördern zu begeben. Er schrieb ein Theaterstück, das die Situation nach seinem Tod sehr genau wieder gibt und dessen Szenen mit den realen Erlebnissen und Erinnerungen Keserüs wechseln.
Im Grunde ist es ein Buch über die Unmöglichkeit, nach Auschwitz ein normales Leben zu führen, nicht nur für die, die Auschwitz überlebt haben, sondern auch dür die Nachgeborenen von Auschwitzüberlebenden, die keine Erinnerungen haben können.
Es ist berührend und macht nachdenklich und doch konnte mich der Text nicht völlig erreichen, weshalb ich ihm nicht 5 Sterne gab. Es mutet etwas surreal an, dass Bé auch vorwegnahm, dass seine Geschichte die Menschen nicht erreicht. Fast empfinde ich Scham, dass ich einen Stern abzog. Was Literatur alles zustande bringt, ist erstaunlich (und hätte wiederum 5 Sterne verdient).
December 26, 2014
This small (129 pp) novel, published two years after Imre Kertesz won the Nobel Prize in 2002, bears an epigraph from Beckett’s Molloy: “Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.” I picked it out of our local neighborhood ‘Little Library’" I always browse on when I walk in that direction--talk about serendipity, to read this when I am still reeling from the death of the Hungarian American writer Les Plesko. I've been investigating the literature of Eastern Europe, especially Hungary, in a certain respect looking for clues to the mindset that set my friend literally ‘over the edge.’
Oddly enough, Kertesz, a great and bleak Hungarian, a Beckettian minaturist, was a notable absence from Les’ reading list (see my blog entry here, A Very Special Reading List). WAs it that they were so similar?
Liquidation concerns an editor working in the newly ‘liberated’ literary economy of post-iron-curtain Hungary--by name, Kingbitter. Particularly he is examining the literary estate of his friend B. (or Bee)—a suicide. The writer is so named for a tattoo on his thigh, B plus a four digit number. Why the thigh? Why the four digits? Because he was born at Auschwitz, and there wasn’t room for a tattoo on an infant’s arm, and not many were born in the death camps.
The novel, about the death of B and his literary legacy, had tremendous overtones for me, especially B’s five page suicide note which is the heart of the book, found by B’s lover Sarah. This short portion, the writer’s losing faith in himself, in the power of his project, the power of the word, hit me square in the chest: “I have no wish to pitch my stall in the literary flea market; shoddy goods, not fit to place in human hands. Then again, I have no wish to be picked up, prodded and then tossed back. If have finished what I have to do, and that is no one else’s business.”
Also this, as the editor considers the note, imagining the suicide as B portrays it in the note: “It is no easy matter, in truth, to assess the difference between stylization and reality, especially if one’s dealing with a writer, I thought to myself; they stylize themselves to the m point that in the end, as the adage goes, the style is the man.”
Surprising that such a bleak book would come from a Nobelist, the project of the Nobel being the affirmation of human life. The end sends you back to the beginning in this house of mirrors, where Kingbitter, the editor and narrator, reads a play by B about Kingbitter, Sarah, Kurti and Oblath, a Beckettian thing which forsees precisesly the discussion they have about his suicide and papers after the fact.
Whether I “liked” this book or not, whether I really completely understood it, there is no doubt the biggest of issues being confronted here—what it is to be ‘born’ into Auschwitz, which of course, everybody in our world has been. How to live in full knowledge that you—we—have been born into monstrosity. Add to that the layers of guilt and compliance and defiance of living in a police state. Add to that the writers’ tenuous faith that writing matters, that it means something.
Quite a lot packed into 129 pages.
Oddly enough, Kertesz, a great and bleak Hungarian, a Beckettian minaturist, was a notable absence from Les’ reading list (see my blog entry here, A Very Special Reading List). WAs it that they were so similar?
Liquidation concerns an editor working in the newly ‘liberated’ literary economy of post-iron-curtain Hungary--by name, Kingbitter. Particularly he is examining the literary estate of his friend B. (or Bee)—a suicide. The writer is so named for a tattoo on his thigh, B plus a four digit number. Why the thigh? Why the four digits? Because he was born at Auschwitz, and there wasn’t room for a tattoo on an infant’s arm, and not many were born in the death camps.
The novel, about the death of B and his literary legacy, had tremendous overtones for me, especially B’s five page suicide note which is the heart of the book, found by B’s lover Sarah. This short portion, the writer’s losing faith in himself, in the power of his project, the power of the word, hit me square in the chest: “I have no wish to pitch my stall in the literary flea market; shoddy goods, not fit to place in human hands. Then again, I have no wish to be picked up, prodded and then tossed back. If have finished what I have to do, and that is no one else’s business.”
Also this, as the editor considers the note, imagining the suicide as B portrays it in the note: “It is no easy matter, in truth, to assess the difference between stylization and reality, especially if one’s dealing with a writer, I thought to myself; they stylize themselves to the m point that in the end, as the adage goes, the style is the man.”
Surprising that such a bleak book would come from a Nobelist, the project of the Nobel being the affirmation of human life. The end sends you back to the beginning in this house of mirrors, where Kingbitter, the editor and narrator, reads a play by B about Kingbitter, Sarah, Kurti and Oblath, a Beckettian thing which forsees precisesly the discussion they have about his suicide and papers after the fact.
Whether I “liked” this book or not, whether I really completely understood it, there is no doubt the biggest of issues being confronted here—what it is to be ‘born’ into Auschwitz, which of course, everybody in our world has been. How to live in full knowledge that you—we—have been born into monstrosity. Add to that the layers of guilt and compliance and defiance of living in a police state. Add to that the writers’ tenuous faith that writing matters, that it means something.
Quite a lot packed into 129 pages.
November 28, 2019
Devastating but beautiful. I’m thoroughly rattled by and in awe of this little tome.
I have little else to say. Kertész left me near-speechless upon my finishing Fatelessness, and my feeling is much the same having just finished Liquidation.
I have to assume that that was (one of) his ultimate aim(s): to leave the reader staring wide-eyed at a closed book in the end, stunned and silent.
Well, he succeeded in doing that again with this one and I’m greatly looking forward to my next encounter with his work. In the meanwhile, I’m going to continue sitting here in silence, pondering the unfathomable depths of the abyss.
Well played, Kertész.
(Also: I somehow didn’t realize that this book was part of a series before reading it, and I feel kind of stupid for it. BUT, considering that it’s the concluding book in that series, it’s all the more remarkable to me how well it stood on its own. It felt very singular. I never felt like I was missing any information during the reading (or at least not missing anything the writer wasn’t purposely concealing from me for stylistic effect). Anyway... now I’m going to have to read the middle two books, Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child. Fatelessness again before those two, because why not, it was incredible. And then Liquidation again for the very same reason.)
I have little else to say. Kertész left me near-speechless upon my finishing Fatelessness, and my feeling is much the same having just finished Liquidation.
I have to assume that that was (one of) his ultimate aim(s): to leave the reader staring wide-eyed at a closed book in the end, stunned and silent.
Well, he succeeded in doing that again with this one and I’m greatly looking forward to my next encounter with his work. In the meanwhile, I’m going to continue sitting here in silence, pondering the unfathomable depths of the abyss.
Well played, Kertész.
(Also: I somehow didn’t realize that this book was part of a series before reading it, and I feel kind of stupid for it. BUT, considering that it’s the concluding book in that series, it’s all the more remarkable to me how well it stood on its own. It felt very singular. I never felt like I was missing any information during the reading (or at least not missing anything the writer wasn’t purposely concealing from me for stylistic effect). Anyway... now I’m going to have to read the middle two books, Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child. Fatelessness again before those two, because why not, it was incredible. And then Liquidation again for the very same reason.)
June 2, 2009
"I mean... was it any good, or bad?"
"What does good and bad mean with a novel? Anyway, he himself never called it a novel."
"What did he call it then?"
"A manuscript, 'my piece'."
"What was it about? What was the story?"
I hesitated before plunging in all the same.
"The struggle of a man and woman. They love each other to start with, but later on the woman wants a child from the man, and he is unable to forgive the woman for that. He subjects the woman to various miseries in order to break and undermine her faith in the world. He drives her into a severe psychological crisis, to the verge of suicide, and when he realizes this, he himself commits suicide instead of the woman."
You were silent. Then you asked why the man was punishing the woman merely because she wanted a child.
"Because it is not permissible to want anything.'
"Why not?"
"Because of Auschwitz."
"What does good and bad mean with a novel? Anyway, he himself never called it a novel."
"What did he call it then?"
"A manuscript, 'my piece'."
"What was it about? What was the story?"
I hesitated before plunging in all the same.
"The struggle of a man and woman. They love each other to start with, but later on the woman wants a child from the man, and he is unable to forgive the woman for that. He subjects the woman to various miseries in order to break and undermine her faith in the world. He drives her into a severe psychological crisis, to the verge of suicide, and when he realizes this, he himself commits suicide instead of the woman."
You were silent. Then you asked why the man was punishing the woman merely because she wanted a child.
"Because it is not permissible to want anything.'
"Why not?"
"Because of Auschwitz."
June 25, 2025
"φταίει πάντα εκείνος που μενει ζωντανός . Εγώ όμως θα πρέπει να αντέξω την πληγή."
Συνεπής στο λόγο μου και στο ποσο με ενθουσίασε το "καντις " ,ξεκίνησα ένα ακόμη βιβλίο του Κερτες ,ο οποίος εξελίσσεται ταχύτατα σε αγαπημένο μου συγγραφέα . Εδώ έχουμε την μυστηριωδη ιστορία ενός συγγραφέα ο οποίος κρύβει πολλά μυστικά και αναλαμβάνουν να την πουν οι άνθρωποι που έζησαν και δούλεψαν μαζί του . Το μυστήριο ,τα μυστικά ,οι γρίφοι που συνοδεύουν την ιστορία ,με έκαναν να σκεφτώ πολλές φορές τον Ωστερ ,ωστόσο εκεί έρχεται η προσωπική σφραγίδα που κάθε συγγραφέας που σέβεται τον εαυτό του οφείλει να έχει και η σφραγίδα του Κερτες είναι η ενασχόληση του με το κομμάτι της ιστορίας που ονομάζεται Άουσβιτς. Έτσι και σε αυτό το βιβλίο ,ο πρωταγωνιστής φέρει το τραύμα ενός ενήλικα που γεννήθηκε στο Άουσβιτς και πώς αυτό καθόρισε τη ζωή και τις αποφάσεις του . Συγκλονιστικός και εδώ ο Κερτες ,καταφέρνει να παντρέψει την υψηλή λογοτεχνία ,την ιστορία και τη φιλοσοφία με θαυμάσιο τρόπο και να κάνει ένα βιβλίο 150 σελίδων να φαντάζει τεράστιο ..με την καλύτερη δυνατή έννοια ...
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 αστέρια
Συνεπής στο λόγο μου και στο ποσο με ενθουσίασε το "καντις " ,ξεκίνησα ένα ακόμη βιβλίο του Κερτες ,ο οποίος εξελίσσεται ταχύτατα σε αγαπημένο μου συγγραφέα . Εδώ έχουμε την μυστηριωδη ιστορία ενός συγγραφέα ο οποίος κρύβει πολλά μυστικά και αναλαμβάνουν να την πουν οι άνθρωποι που έζησαν και δούλεψαν μαζί του . Το μυστήριο ,τα μυστικά ,οι γρίφοι που συνοδεύουν την ιστορία ,με έκαναν να σκεφτώ πολλές φορές τον Ωστερ ,ωστόσο εκεί έρχεται η προσωπική σφραγίδα που κάθε συγγραφέας που σέβεται τον εαυτό του οφείλει να έχει και η σφραγίδα του Κερτες είναι η ενασχόληση του με το κομμάτι της ιστορίας που ονομάζεται Άουσβιτς. Έτσι και σε αυτό το βιβλίο ,ο πρωταγωνιστής φέρει το τραύμα ενός ενήλικα που γεννήθηκε στο Άουσβιτς και πώς αυτό καθόρισε τη ζωή και τις αποφάσεις του . Συγκλονιστικός και εδώ ο Κερτες ,καταφέρνει να παντρέψει την υψηλή λογοτεχνία ,την ιστορία και τη φιλοσοφία με θαυμάσιο τρόπο και να κάνει ένα βιβλίο 150 σελίδων να φαντάζει τεράστιο ..με την καλύτερη δυνατή έννοια ...
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 αστέρια
August 24, 2024
I will be processing this one for a long time. It had despairing, post-war similarities to Death and the Penguin, though it was far more metaphysical and complex.
Don’t read if you’re not prepared to be utterly confused with structure—this book was not written to be a good novel but rather as ode to pain and narrative, I think. But it is rather thrilling and suspenseful.
I am rarely as sure of the necessity of a reread as I am with this one
Don’t read if you’re not prepared to be utterly confused with structure—this book was not written to be a good novel but rather as ode to pain and narrative, I think. But it is rather thrilling and suspenseful.
I am rarely as sure of the necessity of a reread as I am with this one
January 16, 2011
There is no explanation for... history.
The second half of 20th-century Hungarian history, as with that of much of eastern europe, is caught in the jaws of a vice formed of fascism on one side and totalitarian communism on the other, epochs which understandably stamped indelible marks into everyone who lived through them. The more I investigate this era, the more I realize how I cannot begin to fathom the kinds of outward and inward struggle, compromise, and perseverance they must have required. But books like this bring me closer. Not so much by capturing the experience of "real" events, as by capturing a terrifying wholesale unmooring of self and reality, that renders inadequate the act (however eloquent as this) of attempting to capture the experience at all.
The second half of 20th-century Hungarian history, as with that of much of eastern europe, is caught in the jaws of a vice formed of fascism on one side and totalitarian communism on the other, epochs which understandably stamped indelible marks into everyone who lived through them. The more I investigate this era, the more I realize how I cannot begin to fathom the kinds of outward and inward struggle, compromise, and perseverance they must have required. But books like this bring me closer. Not so much by capturing the experience of "real" events, as by capturing a terrifying wholesale unmooring of self and reality, that renders inadequate the act (however eloquent as this) of attempting to capture the experience at all.
Indeed, I was also quite sure that if I was to sign the piece of paper -- under physical duress, naturally -- I would be able to explain it to myself in just the same way as the variant, naturally more agreeable, in which I did not sign, and -- how can I put it? -- living with that uncertainty was no easy matter. I struggled with critical philosophical issues in self-imposed solitary confinement: I am no great believer in metaphysical powers, that's for sure, but ethical categories suddenly seemed to me to be rocky in the extreme. I was forced to the acknowledgment of the stark fact that man is, both physically and morally, and utterly vulnerable being -- not an easy thing to accept in a society whose ideals and practice are determined solely by a police view of the world from which there is no escape and where no explanation is satisfactory, not even if those alternatives are set before me by external duress rather than by myself, so that I actually have nothing to do with what I do or what is done to me.
December 6, 2011
I am very glad that I read this book back-to-back with Fatelessness. Here, Kertesz accomplishes in 130 pages what many writers are unable to in 500+. Here, Kertesz manages to bring me to tears on three seperate occasions. I will not summarize this book nor provide my explanation of its premise but I do intend to drive home exactly how absolutely necessary it is -- like not as an opinion but in an objective sense that I can't actually explain -- to read this book. Unforgettable.
October 29, 2021
Rara, complicada y muy muy atractiva esta lectura
http://entremontonesdelibros.blogspot...
http://entremontonesdelibros.blogspot...
October 20, 2020
In een bijwijlen complex geconstrueerd boek vertelt Imre Kertész, de Hongaarse Nobelprijswinnaar, het verhaal van een redacteur die hem zijn werk nalaat wanneer hij zelfmoord pleegt. Boedapest, net na Dé Machtswissel tussen communisme en kapitalisme, blijkt algauw een even treurige plek en de hoofdrolspelers in dit verhaal zijn bovendien beladen door een verleden waarin Auschwitz de hoofdrol opeist. Overtuigd dat er nog een roman moet zijn die zijn vriend Bé heeft nagelaten maar niet tussen de papieren terug te vinden was, gaat hij op zoek, in heden en in het verleden, om steeds meer de onvoorstelbaarheid van Auschwitz te zien opdoemen en daardoor de onmogelijkheid van het leven.
Het boek vraagt veel van de lezer en het is eigenlijk pas na twee derde, wanneer de verteller verandert gedurende enkele tientallen bladzijden, dat de puzzelstukken op hun plaats lijken te vallen, al is niets wat het lijkt in dit boek. En net zoals voor hoofdpersoon Keserü doemen ook voor de lezer onvermijdelijk de onvoorstelbaarheid van Auschwitz en de onmogelijkheid van het leven op.
Het boek vraagt veel van de lezer en het is eigenlijk pas na twee derde, wanneer de verteller verandert gedurende enkele tientallen bladzijden, dat de puzzelstukken op hun plaats lijken te vallen, al is niets wat het lijkt in dit boek. En net zoals voor hoofdpersoon Keserü doemen ook voor de lezer onvermijdelijk de onvoorstelbaarheid van Auschwitz en de onmogelijkheid van het leven op.
August 5, 2019
Such a short but impactful book. I thought it would be a bit more about the Hungarian Revolution and the aftermath effects of it, but it was mostly centred around a Holocaust survivor's experience and his approach to life ever since. As someone who is really interested in WW2 history, I really enjoyed reading this book and I had difficulties putting it down because I got so wrapped up in the characters' intense emotions that I had to just ride it out naturally in the moment. I think another reason why I enjoyed this book so much was how it portrayed the human condition, which was in its most raw and imperfect form. If you're looking for a metaphysical read that takes place shortly after one of human history's most traumatic events, I highly recommend this one. I'm so glad I picked this one up during my travels in Hungary and it just further proves how valuable reading diversely can be.
March 11, 2023
Ei mitään helppoa luettavaa, mutta hyvin vaikuttava ja ajatuksia herättävä, koskettavakin kirja. Hyvin eri tavalla keskitysleirejä sivuava kirja kuin muut aiemmin lukemani, koska tämä ei ole varsinaisesti kuvaus keskitysleireistä, enemmänkin kuvaus siitä, miten valtaisa trauma jättää jälkensä ihmismieleen ja yhteiskuntaan. En ole lukenut aiempia romaanisarjan osia, joten en osaa arvioida, kuinka oleellista olisi ollut lukea ne kokonaisuutena. Mielestäni tämä pieni kirja toimi itsenäisenäkin kirjana.
January 28, 2023
Δυσκολο βιβλιο, με πολλες εναλλαγές ύφους και γραφής, και ασχολείται με τον ψυχισμό ενός χαρακτήρα που θεωρεί τον εαυτο του ως παράδοξο του αουσβιτς κ με ο,τι συνεπάγεται απο αυτο.
3,5* γιατι προς το τελος ειναι πραγματικά ενδιαφέρον
3,5* γιατι προς το τελος ειναι πραγματικά ενδιαφέρον
August 29, 2024
Önerilerine çok güvendiğim bir arkadaşımın tavsiyesiyle okudum. Okurken kitaba bir türlü giremediğim için diğer okurların yorumlarına da baktım. Herkes müthiş etkilenmiş, inanılmaz övmüş ve beş yıldız vermiş. Kısa bir kitap olduğu için bitirebildim ama duygusu bana asla geçmedi. Herkes yanılıyor olamaz, sorun bende olmalı.
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