Στο τέλος θα φταίμε κι από πάνω, εμείς τα θύματα κι εγώ προσπάθησα να του εξηγήσω ότι το θέμα δεν είναι ποιος φταίει, το θέμα είναι να καταλάβουμε κάτι, πολύ απλά, για χάρη της λογικής, από ευπρέπεια, θα έλεγα. Δεν μπορεί κανείς, ας προσπαθήσουν να το καταλάβουν, δεν μπορεί κανείς να μου πάρει τα πάντα. Δεν γίνεται να μην μου επιτραπεί να είμαι ούτε νικητής ούτε νικημένος, ούτε η αιτία ούτε το αποτέλεσμα, ούτε να γελιέμαι ούτε να έχω δίκιο. Μπορώ σχεδόν τους ικέτευα πια να προσπαθήσουν να καταλάβουν: δεν μπορώ να καταπιώ έτσι απλά την ανόητη πικρία του να πρέπει να είσαι απλώς αθώος. "
Στο έργο περιγράφεται το πως ο η ζωή του νέου πρωταγωνιστή ανατρέπεται, καθώς μεταφέρεται σε στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης, την παραμονή του στο Auschwitz και το Buchenwald, την απελευθέρωση και την επιστροφή του στο σπίτι,
Το ιδιαίτερο του συγκεκριμένου βιβλίου είναι ότι ο πρωταγωνιστής αντιμετωπίζει τις φρικαλεότητες και τον παραλογισμό των στρατοπέδων συγκέντρωσης με απάθεια. Θεωρεί φυσιολογικό να συμβαίνει κάτι τέτοιο, ότι τα βασανιστήρια και οι εκτελέσεις, η εξόντωση, είναι κάτι το φυσιολογικό σε κάτι μη φυσιολογικό, τα στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης δηλαδή. Ωστόσο, αυτή η απάθεια δεν στερεί από τον αναγνώστη να νιώσει την φρίκη και τον παραλογισμό που επικρατούσε, αφού οι έντονες και γραφικές περιγραφές δεν είναι κάτι απαραίτητο για να συνειδητοποιήσει κανείς τι συνέβαινε τότε.
Το τέλος του έργου, παρά το γεγονός ότι έχει έρθει η ελευθερία και ο ήρωας επιστρέφει στο σπίτι του, είναι στενάχωρο, αφού δείχνει ότι τίποτα δεν είναι ίδιο στο σπίτι και ότι κανείς δεν μπορεί να καταλάβει τους επιζήσαντες των στρατοπέδων συγκέντρωσης. Η ζωή δεν είναι και δεν θα είναι η ίδια ούτε για όσους ήταν στα στρατόπεδα, ούτε για όσους έμειναν πίσω. Οι γνωστοί και συγγενείς του πρωταγωνιστή περιμένουν να ακούσουν περιγραφές φρίκης, αλλά αυτός τους μιλάει για πράγματα που "φυσικά" και θα συνέβαιναν σε ένα τέτοιο μέρος, τους μιλάει για επιβίωση, χωρίς αυτοί να τον καταλαβαίνουν.
Γιατί όπως αναφέρεται και στο βιβλίο:
" Όταν η μέρα εκείνη τελείωσε, ένιωσα ότι κάτι μέσα μου είχε χαθεί ανεπιστρεπτί, στο εξής νόμιζα κάθε πρωί ότι είναι το τελευταίο πρωί που θα σηκωνόμουν, σε κάθε μου βήμα νόμιζα ότι το επόμενο δεν θα το έκανα, σε κάθε μου κίνηση ότι την επόμενη δεν πρόκειται να την κατάφερνα. Προς το παρόν όμως τα κατάφερνα κάθε φορά. "
" Και όσο και να προσπαθούσα να ζυγίσω τα πράγματα, όση λογική, όση σύνεση, όση νηφαλιότητα κι αν προσπαθούσα να επιδείξω, δεν βοηθούσε σε τίποτα δεν ήταν δυνατό να κλείσω τ'αυτιά μου σ' εκείνη τη μυστική φωνή, σ' εκείνη τη φωνή που κατά κάποιον τρόπο ντρεπόταν κι η ίδια για τον παραλογισμό της κι ωστόσο γινόταν όλο και επίμονη, σ' εκείνη τη φωνή μιας αμυδρής λαχτάρας: θα ήθελα να ζήσω λίγο ακόμα σε τούτο το ωραίο στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης, "
Im not often proud of my brother, Much of the time, and in most circumstances, our personalities and values are very different, However, some time ago a friend of his tried to get him to watch one of those execution videos, in which some poor sod gets his head lopped off.
And he refused, quite aggressively so, he told me he wanted nothing to do with it, It occurred to me then that one thing my brother and I do have in common is an aversion to violence and suffering, Hold on, youll say, doesnt everyone No, I dont think they do, Or certainly only an aversion to that which is directed at themselves, I believe that many normally functioning people by which I mean people who are not dangerous criminals are drawn to violence and other peoples suffering, they seek them out, at least at a safe distance.
Im sure there are complex reasons for why this is the case most of which are, in my opinion, based around power and sex, I can imagine many of you shaking your head as you read this I accept that this is not a popular view yet to me it is undeniable one only needs to look at the popularity of certain kinds of TV programmes, or films or books.
Take the recent torture porn craze, films that amount to nothing more thanmins of people being butchered, And why do more people tune into the news the more horrific, the bigger the tragedy Who, likewise, is watching all those murder documentaries Murderers Maniacs I dont think so.
Who is reading all those brutal crime novels The evidence is overwhelming, despite how uncomfortable the reality of it makes people feel, We human beings havent changed since large crowds gathered to watch public hangings, we just get our kicks in more subtle ways these days,
I think that this attraction to violence and suffering accounts for why many people appear to find Imre Kerteszs Fateless or Fatelessness, in another translation boring or disappointing.
Very few people will admit it, of course, but, in a number of the reviews I have read, there is a very real sense of expectations not having been met, without anyone actually truly giving voice to what these expectations were.
I can tell you: these people expected grand horror, Fateless is a book about the holocaust, it is a partially autobiographical account of a young mans experiences in some of the worst concentration camps, These disappointed readers wanted, perhaps subconsciously, to read about the boys suffering, they wanted him to be severely psychologically and physically oppressed, Yet the book lacks these things, in large part, and therefore it is, I believe, for a certain kind of reader, a huge letdown,
For me, however, Fateless is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read, Indeed, one of the things I like about it is how novel it is, how, in essence, it does not conform to expectations, The horror is there, of course, because the holocaust was absolutely, undeniably horrific, so to sidestep it completely is impossible, but it is nearly always in the background, is not lingered over.
The book is a first person narrative, and the boys voice is detached, relentlessly ironic, and this creates a weird form of tension, because you know precisely what kind of awful things are happening around him, and to him, but he seems, at least for the first twothirds of the book, unable to see them himself.
The boy isnt stupid, nor particularly naïve, he just appears to take everything in his stride, to see the commonsense in, the rationale behind, everything, For example, one of the most powerful, poignant and moving scenes takes place as Gyorgy and his friends arrive at Auschwitz and are seen by a doctor who divides the inmates into two groups on the basis of who is fit for work and who isnt.
The reader knows what this process is really about, of course, we know what the outcome will be for those unable to work, but Gyorgy, who at this stage does not, mentally joins in the selection process, justifying to himself or questioning the doctors decisions to pass or condemn his fellow man.
Even when confronted by officers with whips he feels little more than discomforted or wary and when he finally comes to understand what the crematoriums are for he takes this in his stride too.
Kertesz apparently once said that it was important to him that he did not present the holocaust as something in retrospect, as something that has already happened and is being commented on, but rather as something happening, as something being revealed bit by bit to the people involved by which I mean the victims.
However, while I think that is both an interesting approach and one the author makes good use of, I dont believe that it explains why this book is special.
It suggests that Gyorgy would behave as expected i, e. wringing his hands, beating his chest and wailing at the once he understands what is happening, but he doesnt, It is the boys voice, his take on events, that makes Fateless something of a masterpiece for me, Until I read the book I thought it impossible that anyone could bring a freshness to a subject I already knew a great deal about, but Kertesz does exactly that.
Fateless is, it is worth pointing out, also strangely funny, I have seen it compared to Candide by Voltaire, in which a character attempts to keep a sunny, positive outlook in the face of every kind of disaster, and while I can see some of that in Kerteszs novel, the humour is less slapstick, is darker, more subtle and sophisticated indeed, in tone it reminded me more of Gullivers Travels, or Kafka, it is similarly deadpan, so that one isnt sure, at certain moments, whether one is meant to laugh or not.
For example, when Gyorgy is moved to Buchenwald he sets off on a long description of the place, which sounds eerily like a holiday brochure or the script used by an estate agent who is showing you around a property you may wish to purchase, a property that isnt of the highest calibre, of course.
It would be possible to read this description and be slightly bewildered, because it is absurd, yet there is no doubt in my mind that the author is playing for laughs, albeit bitter laughs.
There are, however, more obviously comedic moments, although these too are shot through with bitterness and a kind of searing irony, like when Gyorgys father is taken away:
All the same, I thought, at least we were able to send him off to the labor camp, poor man, with memories of a
nice day.
Or when the boy describes one of the concentration camps as golden days indeed, or when he states, perhaps most movingly of all:
I would like to live a little bit longer in this beautiful concentration camp.
In terms of style the novel is written in Kerteszs recognisably overlyprecise manner, He is a fan of clauses, thats for sure, some of which do not make a great deal of sense to me, although you could put this down to a translation issue.
The narrator is also, as with the authors other work, pedantic, and partly because of this the sentences are inelegant, ugly even, Furthermore, Kertesz, much like Dostovesky, uses repeated words or phrases, such as 'so to say' and 'somehow,' which can make reading him laborious, However, lyrical is certainly not what the writer was gunning for here, so none of this is intended critically, One thing I would like to say, before I finish, is in response to the review by the usually excellent The Complete , which called Fateless something like the autobiography before the art the art being Kerteszs later novels.
I dont agree with that at all, In fact, i think the opposite, Kerteszs other novels including Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child despite many qualities to recommend them, are the imitation after the art, Fiasco is one part Beckett, one part Kafka and one part Bernhard Kaddish is Beckett and Bernhard Fateless, on the other hand, is all Kertesz, it is a singular vision.
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