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korrick's review against another edition
5.0
This is when I found out that you could be bored even in Auschwitz - provided you were choosy. We waited and we waited, and as I come to think of it, we waited for nothing to happen. This boredom, combined with this strange waiting, was, I think, approximately what Auschwitz meant to me, but of course I am only speaking for myself.As he said, he's only speaking for himself. Here, I am speaking for myself, as is the case for any and all fiction, and even some of the non. What I speak involves my understanding, not my knowledge, my general aversion to gnosticism grown to unpronounceable proportions. Such as it should be with regards to the Shoah, yes? First the horror, then the silence.
Despite that, let's talk. If Kertész is willing, how are we to forbear?
With a cracking voice, she desperately shouted something to the effect that if our distinctiveness was unimportant, than all this was mere chance, and that if there was the possibility of her being someone other than whom she was fated to be, then all of this was utterly without reason, and to her that idea was totally "unbearable."If you are punished, and have committed a crime, you are guilty. If you are punished, and have committed [...], ranging from birth to creed to whatever the reason one condemns another wholesale and complete, each on either side simply one of a many millions, you are innocent. A horror, the horror, your horror, or so they say. They, the bystanders, millions compounded and compounded again muttering in the stands, still capable of wanting, needing, crafting a story. They need their catharsis, especially the diffuse of responsibilities and unwitting (maybe? perhaps? they claim victimhood as well and don't want to think about it) accomplices. You will provide.
You? You lived. That length of time of your life, that skein of events and your reactions to such, the ideas and emotions filling in ever faster as all those gift baskets of audience prescribed sensibilities of disbelief, rage, terror, tears, fall by the wayside. You, a human being, lived, and made full use of your human capacity for feeling. Happiness, annoyance, puzzlement. The finding of beauty in a concentration camp.
All of this, as I said, I noticed, but not in the same way as later, when I started to fit the pieces together and could sum up and recall the events step by step. I had become used to every new step gradually, and this hadn't given me the detachment I needed to actually notice what was happening.Was there a story in there somewhere, one a little more entertaining than the fact you managed to live to this day, and all the turns and twists and often boring banalities involved in such a happenstance? That would imply a reason behind it all, when everyone knows the capriciousness of life. Far deeper down than I would have thought, this knowledge, considering how they keep insisting on the climax, the tragedy, the entertainment. And this is only one genocide out of many, only one part of one genocide if one thinks only of the six million. What of the rest of the voices? Do they not fit within the parameters of what deserves to be heard? If those who still live on refuse the title of "victim", contemplate the multifarious of their experiences within the full range of feeling and thought, grasp their memories of such a time of their life as anyone else would, are they worth the time?
Then, that day I also experienced that very same tenseness, that same itchy feeling and clumsiness that came over me when I was with them, that I had occasionally felt at home: as if I weren't entirely okay, as if I didn't entirely conform to the ideal; in other words, somehow as if I were Jewish. That was a rather strange feeling, because, after all, I was among Jews and in a concentration camp.He speaks of his lack of faith while the blood bound heritage of it couples him to a baffled mind and moldering body.
Only slowly, and not without some humorous puzzlement and wonder, did the idea dawn on me: this situation, this state of imprisonment, had to be what was causing his agony. I was almost tempted to say to him: "Don't be sad. After all, it's not important." But I was afraid to be so bold, and then I also remembered that I didn't know any French.He puzzles at the monotone view of his day to day life by others, one restricted to pity, pity, pity. As if his effort to see the worth in living had time for that, when there were so many other things to think upon.
But who can judge what is possible or believable in a concentration camp? Who could explore, exhaust all those countless ideas, inventions, games, jokes, and ponderable theories, which are easily accessible and transferable from a make-believe world of fantasy into a concentration-camp reality? You couldn't, even if you mustered the totality of your knowledge.The horror, the horror, the horror. What else?
fekete_macska's review against another edition
4.0
At first I didn't really understand why this novel was so highly regarded, as it seemed yet another testimony of the life in the camps. The style was also putting me off (I thought that the translation followed the Hungarian syntax too much sometimes, but then maybe if I could properly read Hungarian I would have had the same problem).
Everything came together in the last chapter, when the narrator reminisces about his recent experience in the camp and decides to tell only the good memories he had from the camps. I found that to be deeply moving and above all an interesting take on trauma.
Everything came together in the last chapter, when the narrator reminisces about his recent experience in the camp and decides to tell only the good memories he had from the camps. I found that to be deeply moving and above all an interesting take on trauma.
rougetaureau's review against another edition
5.0
C'est un roman extrêmement troublant, car il nous met en face ce paradoxe de l'être humain qui, petit à petit, pas à pas, s'accommodera d'à peu près n'importe quelle situation, même la plus révoltante et abominable. Et c'est d'autant plus difficile à accepter (à la lecture) que cette posture est ici adoptée par la victime.
L'auteur, en plus, élude presque complètement la violence dans ses descriptions. On sait jusqu'à quel point la violence est aujourd'hui banalisée et utilisée sans relâche, autant en cinéma qu'en littérature.
Ce qui rend ce roman très singulier. Et nous oblige à une réflexion concernant la violence-spectacle.
L'auteur, en plus, élude presque complètement la violence dans ses descriptions. On sait jusqu'à quel point la violence est aujourd'hui banalisée et utilisée sans relâche, autant en cinéma qu'en littérature.
Ce qui rend ce roman très singulier. Et nous oblige à une réflexion concernant la violence-spectacle.
chris_homet's review against another edition
5.0
Les reflexions, la prosa, la humanitat que apareix en aquestes pàgines no té preu. Una obra amarga però necessària, com tota peça de literatura testimonial.
vleblanc's review against another edition
3.0
I discovered this book by searching for novels set in Budapest ahead of my trip there. This novel is the story of a boy who survives the Holocaust. It was very heavy, so I read it intermittently. This likely affected my rating of the book. It has very beautiful language, though sometimes the sentences are so long and have so many clauses, I get lost. Finishing it after having visited Budapest was very touching as there is mention of the incident commemorated by the Shoes on the Danube memorial.
I think I would like to read it a second time to fully digest it.
I think I would like to read it a second time to fully digest it.
marcelbuijs's review against another edition
4.0
Jongen (14) uit Budapest in Auschwitz en Buchenwald. Dat de verteller het luchtig brengt maakt de horror des te groter.
“No, it’s impossible to imagine it.” For my part, I could see that, and I even thought to myself: so, that must be why they prefer to talk about hell instead.
“No, it’s impossible to imagine it.” For my part, I could see that, and I even thought to myself: so, that must be why they prefer to talk about hell instead.