Fatelessness

Who every day must conquer them anew. These words of Goethe provide the emotional context within which I experienced Imre Kertész' masterful novel Fateless. Kertesz was an assimilated Hungarian-Jew living in relative comfort in Budapest. In the summer of 1944 he was picked up and shipped to Auschwitz. He was fourteen years old. He was transferred from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, from Buchenwald to Zeitz (a lesser-known concentration camp) and then back to Buchenwald. He was liberated a year later and returned to Budapest. The life of György (George) Köves, the protagonist of Fateless, tracks the experiences of Kertesz. The novel is written in George's voice and we see the world through his recollection of events. (Kertesz has indicated in interviews that although Fateless takes the form of an autobiographical novel it is not an autobiography but a work of fiction.) George is a relatively care free, naive 14 year old leading a middle class life with his family. As the story opens, the family is preparing to say goodbye to George's father who is being sent to a labor camp. I was struck immediately by George's detachment as these early events unfold. George obtains a job at a factory. This provides him with a pass out of his neighborhood although he is still required to wear a yellow star identifying him as Jewish. One morning, on the way to work, he is swept up along with thousands of others and is sent on his journey into the seven layers of hell known as concentration camps. The rest of novel details George's experiences in the camps, his gradual physical deterioration that leaves him near death, the chain of events that kept him alive, his liberation and his eventual return to Budapest. I expected that any book that had the Holocaust as a central theme would be filled with vivid descriptions of the horrors found there and the emotional turmoil that any prisoner experienced. In fact, the opposite was the case. George's narrative is, until the very end, devoid of emotion. It consists of a spare, narrative recitation of events. I think the book was all the more chilling and had a greater emotional impact as a result. No words can adequately describe the horrors and misery and Kertesz does not really try. Rather, the emotion is inferred from the factual context. At one point, George finds a mirror and looks at his image. He sees in himself the gaunt vision of shuffling prisoners that met him on his arrival at the camps. He doesn't complain, he simply observes. The observation is stunning not for its emotional content but for the very fact of it. I was also struck by the irony expressed in many of Kertesz' passages. George, like Kertesz, was not particularly religious nor did he speak the lingua franca of many European Jews, Yiddish. Despite his presence in the camp he was rejected by many of his fellow prisoners because he was not, in their eyes, sufficiently Jewish. He didn't know Yiddish nor did he know enough Hebrew to reci

I admit to knowing nothing about this book until reading that Kertesz won the Nobel prize for writing it. I am probably one of the least informed people to read this book, and just having finished an MBA curriculum, I wanted to read something that actually looked interesting. Before I began this book, about all I knew about it was that it was a first-hand accounting of the Holocaust. I really didn't know what to expect, but once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. Fatelss is the fascinating story of a 15 year old Hungarian Jewish boy's journey through the Nazi concentration camps. It is told in the first person, and Kertesz makes the most mundane detail seem vivid and worthy of all the reader's thought and attention.The story is told through the eyes of a 15 year old. He enters the camps not knowing what to expect, and he has no idea that an organized extermination is taking place. He never seems to take too much personally, but instead simply treats each new situation as something to be dealt with and survived. His journey through the camps becomes part of his childhood that he does not want to forget, because doing so would mean forgetting part of his life. It is as if he is thinking that other people get to remember their childhoods, so why can't I.After returning from the camps after being liberated, Kertesz recalls a conversation with a relative who keeps talking about 'the fate of the Jews'. I think this conversation is the main point of the book. Kertesz feels that if fate is a reality, then life is not worth living, because of the implied predetermination. Kertesz rejects any notion of 'fate', preferring to live each day, even in the camps, as though tomorrow will bring a new day to be lived.Kertesz presents an amazing perspective of life as a Jew and life in the Holocaust. This book will capture you from the very beginning. You will put yourself in the main character's shoes and ponder how you would have handled every situation, however, you will be doing it from the perspective of someone who knows the historical outcome and circumstance of the Holocaust. You will not be experiencing it as the story is told, through the eyes of a youngster who is experiencing a historical event that has not yet been defined or named. My opinion is that everyone should read this book.

Due to my close personal ties to the author, I am unable to provide an objective review of this book. However, readers should be warned that the English translation of Kertesz's book does not live up to the standards worthy of a Nobel Prize. The poor translation is one of the reasons why Kertesz has remained obscure in the world of English literature. Anyone truly interested should refer to the original language (Hungarian), or to the German version (Kertesz is fluent in German and was able to proofread the translation). The Swedish version was translated by a close friend and is also true to the original text (if I am correct, this is the version reviewed by the Nobel committee). I do not have any information about any of the other languages. For those locked into English, do not despair: a new translation will be released hopefully within the next year.

This year's Nobel prize winner Imre Kertesz's book about the Holocaust is one of the most powerful and touching books ever writen about this theme. Kertesz was a surprise Nobel-prize winner but after reading this book you'll probably see it was a well-earned prize for a very talented and gifted writer. At the time the story is going on, it is 1944 and a Jewish boy is departed to a Nazi concentration camp along with his father. The book gives a different perspective of the horror, because it is written in an "I" form. As a reviewer mentioned before, this is not a "Life Is Beautiful" story. This is a "Life Is Horrible" story and it is a shocking experience you will never forget. Though the book is not about the writer himself, Kertesz experienced much of the story.The book is never boring and makes you going on with the things to come - most of them unexpected and even more horrible than the ones before. Imre Kertesz survived this mayhem and he is the living proof of fate, even though this book's title is Fateless. It could only be fate that saved him and the survivors of the darkest times of the 20th century.The only shame: he is not well known in his home country. Many Hungarian writers say: Hungary is a "language island" with a language barrier that can't be put down. I hope Kertesz's success shows every writer in the world that language can't be a barrier. Good stories make a writer. And if they're true - as this is case with Fateless - they can make very good writers. I recommend this book everyone with a heart and soul.

This is the most shocking book about the Holocaust I know. What makes the book so unique is the narrator, a 15-year-old Hungarian Jew whose language reminded me of Salinger in the beginning. The perspective of this naive boy allows Kertesz to describe the narrator's and his father's deportation without any idea of what's going to happen next. - Kertesz experienced much of this in his own life, and yet he had enormous trouble getting the book published. It was regarded as a scandal that the hero says that even in the concentration camps he experienced moments of happiness. This does not mean, however, that Kertesz makes it appear to be fairly harmless in the manner of "Life is Beautiful". No, his perspective, which is free from any hindsight makes us see the Shoa in all its horror for the first time.