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Imre Kert?sz’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 named 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.
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This is the third book by Kertesz that I have read. “Fateless” was the best but “Kaddish to a Child not Born” was pretty good after I got used to the non-stop monologue format. “Liquidation” has a lot to offer as well but, frankly, I found the format a bit incoherant.
The novella is about an Aushwitz survivor who took his life. We see most things through the eyes of our narrator, another concentration-camp survivor. The deceased was a writer and the narrator is a literary person as well. The narrator becomes obsessed with the notion that an author would not take his life without completing his opus first. Thus he examines the available writings he can find and pursues his search for the elusive novel. It is in this context that the truth reveals itself. Truth is hard to find if life seems to be a lie. That is, essentially, the focus of the message in “Liquidation”. Since the message builds on itself much better than I can do it justice, I will not attempt to further define what our narrator discovers. However, I will say that my observation of Holocaust literature is that those that try to define what happened and give it meaning generally reach the same end. The Holocaust defies definition because we look to define in relation to our concepts of reality. What the literary Holocaust survivor shares with us, often, is a glimpse of a totally different reality but their ability to explain generally exceeds our ability to comprehend. In “Liquidation” Kertesz expands his message by giving us a debate about that reality through the perspectives of seperate Holocaust survivors. The debate enhances our efforts to understand but leaves us wondering if we have heard the conclusion or the introduction.
. . . a tragedy to those who feel. Horace Walpole.
Liquidation is the fourth in a series of books by Imre Kertesz, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002. Three, “Fateless”, “Kaddish for a Child not Born”, and “Liquidation” have been published in English. The fourth, “Fiasco” awaits translation. Although each is related to the other, the recurring characters and their life’s story tends to change, the common thread in all is that monstrous thing known as Auschwitz. Kertesz himself is an Auschwitz survivor, and all his books have put Auschwitz, something that defies explanations or answers, on center stage.
Liquidation contains a story within a story. The protagonist, the aptly named Kingbitter, is a book editor in Budapest. It is the turn of the new century, 2000, and company that employs him is in serious economic trouble. The book opens with Kingbitter and his small circle of `friends’ discussing “B”. “B”, an author, committed suicide in 1990 by means of an overdose of morphine, the morphine provided by his ex-wife. The friends are discussing “B” last known work, a play entitled “Liquidation”. Oddly enough, the play, which discusses Kingbitter and that circle of friends, has foretold their personal course of events in the ten years since his suicide. Additionally, references in the play to a book supposedly written by “B” have caused Kingbitter to spend ten years in search of the manuscript. The manuscript is never found and doubts arise as to whether it ever existed.
Although Kingbitter is the principal `living’ person in the book, the story does focus on “B” and his life and death. “B” was one of those few children born at Auschwitz. The story of his birth and survival is one of life’s small miracles, a small drop of water in a sea of evil and death. As the story progresses, and as the play within the play progresses, Kertesz exposes us to “B”, his ex-wife, his mistress, and Kingbitter and company. Each has their own take on “B’s” life and each provides the reader with some insight into “B”s life. As one friend notes, “B” once said that “Man, when reduced to nothing, or in other words a survivor, is not tragic but comic, because he has no fate.” Taking the quote from Walpole, above, as a reference, it is clear that “B” is one given to thought and not to feeling. In fact, I had the distinct imperssioin that feeling was an emotion that “B” avoided, perhaps understandably, at all costs. Ultimately, as with his other books, neither Kertesz nor his characters can answer the question that is Auschwitz and the meaning of survival. For “B”, his survival has rendered him fateless as the fact of his surviving deprived fate of an intended victim.
Kertesz’ writing is sparse and to the point. He does not provide the reader with emotional content. He provides text and a description of his characters, their actions, and their thoughts. As was the case in Fateless, any emotions to be gained from reading Liquidation will come from your own sense of the text. Kertesz does not provide you with an emotional road map.
Although Liquidation is one of a series, each book stands on its own and may be enjoyed on its own merits. However, for anyone interested in reading Kertesz, I suggest they start with Fateless. Although Kaddish comes next chronologically, I suggest reading Liquidation next. The only reason for this order is the assertion by some devotees of Kertesz that the book “Kaddish for a Child not Born” may represent the manuscript not found by Kingbitter in Liquidation. That may or may not be the case but it may enhance the reader’s enjoyment if it is viewed as the lost manuscript of “B”. The reader should also be aware that although each book is related to the other and there is an overlap in characters at times, this is not a trilogy. Kertesz shifts the story line around quite a bit. The Auschwitz survivor in Fateless, for example, was taken to the camps as a teenager, unlike “B” who was born there. The stories are connected by theme, not by plot line.
Kertész writes the same old books all the time, from the liquidation of Fateless. But we can not get enough of it. The questions raised in these books poke in mind that with such sheer fiercness fight to keep the remains of these sanity. It is a question the potential for existence. I world that, in this issue possible. How can you live life, even if his birth was the anomaly, something that never should have been, lucky coincidence, life in the death camp where Arbeit mach frei … Is there as a writer, and his personal legacy from the literature strong enough to undo the effects of concentrational camps. Kertész say "no", and leaves a void for each reader to fill in yourself. Love and sex, marriage and relationships do not hold the meaning of Kertész world of pain, and morbid bound world of humanity, which is, unfortunately, that the world we live in What is a Jew, and what is the meaning of being a Jew? The questions posed in the post (yeay! Everything is now postmodern) as the author, who wrote that art speaks of an author's reading … But it is just a style of practice … Final part of Kertész's tetralogy doesen not close this chapter in general, only increases the time needed answers … A must read!
In this novel, the central character of the same answers to the essential question in the "Kaddish for a child is not born ': why it will remain alive after Auschwitz? " In "Kaddish" The author has decided to live in such a way as to write: "My pencil is my shovel." The real rebellion was for him to remain alive. The central figure here commits suicide and orders that his literary creations to be incinerated. The liquidation is complete. "Why did this?" is the question that the narrator of this book is trying to find out. The novel is an accumulation of liquidation. In telling the family was the product of wars and dictatorships. After Auschwitz and fascism, as a reader at the publishing company gets on the problems of bureaucracy, collectivist, where state subsidies are a disguised form of winding-up literature. "Finally, the publishing house goes bankrupt. The general sentiment in the "Liquidation" is one of bitterness and nausea provoked by the poison of universal impotence. Although a combination of theater / novel is very original, I found that this book is more loosely constructed than the "Kaddish." However, it is still very much, but worth reading.
Hungarian writer B. commits suicide after the fall of communism. Its editor, keserű, trying to find out why he killed himself, for which you must keep track of site B. However, the manuscript is becoming increasingly clear that B. is a victim of Auschwitz: was born in Auschwitz and the rest of his life devoted to the question whether a man is alllowed to live life after Auschwitz. And in the background there is no drama in which B has described very accurately, as the people near him will react after his death. The title of the book "Liquidation" is very appropriately chosen: Auschwitz killed millions of Jews, B. makes the life of his wife Judith, a communism gets wiped in the publishing house for which B. and keserű work goes broke, B. commits suicide after the end of his major life crisis results in a second marriage, Judith and the manuscript of his novel is liquidated. A beautifully written book, which leaves both the reader and keserű empty-handed, and many questions.