{"id":2203,"date":"2008-07-01T02:03:23","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T06:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=2203"},"modified":"2017-09-22T17:05:23","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T21:05:23","slug":"imre-kertesz-liquidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2008\/07\/01\/imre-kertesz-liquidation\/","title":{"rendered":"Imre Kert\u00e9sz: Liquidation<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Liquidation<\/em><\/strong> <\/span>
\nby Imre Kert\u00e9sz (Felsz\u00e1mol\u00e1s<\/em>, 2003)<\/span>
\n translated from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson (2004)<\/span>
\n Vintage (2005)<\/span>
\n 130 pp<\/span><\/p>\n

[\/fusion_title][fusion_text]<\/p>\n

\"Liquidation\"<\/p>\n

[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]A[\/fusion_dropcap]t the book store I was in the mood to try some Kert\u00e9sz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002.\u00a0Born in 1929, he was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and he was old enough to know what was going on.\u00a0I saw his latest book Liquidation<\/em>, written after he won the Prize.<\/p>\n

With a title that connotes closing shops, selling assets, and cutting losses accompanied with abstract illustrations of people, none looking at each other, I was very interested.\u00a0Add to that the fact that it is only a novella, something I could get through in one day, and it was a must-read.\u00a0After reading it, I have to ask, why don’t we, at least we in America, care much about those who win the Nobel Prize in Literature unless they’re from here?\u00a0This book was well worth the short time I put into reading it — in fact, it will be paying off for years to come.<\/p>\n

In a way, I hear, Liquidation<\/em>is kind of a part of a tetralogy that also includes Fatelessness<\/em> (1975), Fiasco<\/em> (1988), and Kaddish for an Unborn Child<\/em> (1990) (Fiasco <\/em>is not available in English yet**).\u00a0I haven’t read the others (but will),\u00a0but this work stood on its own as a tightly packed rumination on Auschwitz.<\/p>\n

The book is set in Hungary in the 1990s.\u00a0A decade or two earlier, “the hero of this story, Kingbitter” met B. or Bee, depending on the sentence.\u00a0B.’s mother was four months pregnant when she was put into Auschwitz.\u00a0Against the odds\u00a0(“The blokova<\/em>, possibly stirred by the thought of helping bring a child into the world in the death camp”), B. is born and survives, though he was immediately taken from his parents.\u00a0Despite the miracle of B.’s birth, years later he commits suicide.\u00a0That is where the book begins.<\/p>\n

But for what reasons did B. commit suicide?\u00a0That is where the book goes.<\/p>\n

B. prepares a deliberate, intricate suicide, even having the foresight to write a play (called Liquidation<\/em>) that word-for-word foretells events and dialogues after his death.\u00a0Kingbitter finds the play and then becomes obsessed with finding the novel, a master work that he knows B. would not have left the world without writing; after all, “[B.] felt that he had been born illegally, had remained alive for no reason, and nothing could justify his existence unless he were to ‘decipher the code name Auschwitz.'”<\/p>\n

Thankfully, this very clever device is not the impetus of the story, as it would be for other writers.\u00a0Some reviewers have said this is a flaw, that Kert\u00e9sz started with something interesting and then never really returns to it except as an afterthought.\u00a0I disagree.\u00a0I think it’s great that this device is almost incidental to the larger and (almost?) incomprehensible themes.<\/p>\n

After reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus<\/em>, I have been baffled by the lives of the “survivors of the survivors,” these children of those who lived through the death camps.\u00a0How can they (how can any of us) get past all of this?\u00a0Is it ethical?\u00a0Isn’t it alarming that we are moving on?\u00a0And in doing so, are we not ignoring reality?\u00a0Aren’t we creating a fiction for ourselves by somehow living happily in the wake of such an event?<\/p>\n

Some of the characters are bound to yet trying to escape the heritage that is Auschwitz, especially B.’s ex-wife Judit.\u00a0She was not a prisoner in Auschwitz, but it is part of her Jewish heritage, and her attempt to understand it was one reason, perhaps the reason, she married B.\u00a0Later in life she visited the camp.\u00a0It was not as it should have been:<\/p>\n

I found myself unable to capture the right mood, despite having prepared for it for days.\u00a0I was haunted by the sense of walking around an outdoor folk museum.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her purse gets stolen.\u00a0“The receptionist enlightened her that Auschwitz was teeming with pickpockets, who took advantage of the visitor’s deep emotional state and attendant inattentiveness.”<\/p>\n

Judit’s current husband Adam, who is not a Jew, has spent a lot of time since he met Judit reading up on Auschwitz.\u00a0Here is a telling scene from the play B. wrote where Judit interrogates Adam’s motives for reading:<\/p>\n

Judit<\/strong>:\u00a0And you understand now, perhaps?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Adam<\/strong>:\u00a0 I’ve read at least fifteen books about manic depression and paranoia.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

(long silence.)
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam<\/strong>:\u00a0No one can revoke Auschwitz, Judit.\u00a0No one, and by virtue of no authority.\u00a0Auschwitz is irrevocable.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Judit<\/strong> (in growing distress):\u00a0I was there.\u00a0I saw. Auschwitz does not exist.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam<\/strong> (steps to Judit and grabs her roughly by the shoulders):\u00a0I have two children, two half-Jewish children.\u00a0They know nothing as yet.\u00a0They are asleep. Who is going to tell them about Auschwitz?\u00a0Which of us is going to tell them they are Jewish?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really, it’s all incomprehensible to me.\u00a0Recognizing that, I think, is part of the purpose of this book.\u00a0There’s an interesting part where Kingbitter is trying to get B. to write his story.\u00a0B. is indignant at the request and asks how would you <\/em>discern a story like that?<\/p>\n

“Look here, I submit to you a piece concerning how, with the cooperation of a bunch of thoroughly decent people, a child is born in Auschwitz.\u00a0The Kapos<\/em> lay down their clubs and whips, and, moved to the core, they lift the wailing infant on high.\u00a0Tears rise to the eyes of the SS guard.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kingbitter admits it would sound kitsch but contends it could be written in different ways.<\/p>\n

“It can’t.\u00a0Kitsch is kitsch.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“But it’s what happened,” I protested.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s precisely the problem, he explained.\u00a0It happened yet it’s still not true.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

B.’s suicide is somewhat mysterious.\u00a0He seemed to have a lot going for him.\u00a0He seemed happy.\u00a0And after all, he survived Auschwitz, against the odds.\u00a0Kingbitter is also baffled because years earlier B.’s insights prevented Kingbitter from furthering any plan he had at taking his own life, albeit a rather bleak though amusing insight.<\/p>\n

“I could say, I said, that I felt it was superfluous for me to weary both myself and society with that.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But my thought is that B. committed suicide to complete his own story and desentimentalize it.\u00a0The story wasn’t built on triumph.\u00a0We hear stories like his and are amazed into thinking something great and moral took place.\u00a0B. seems to repudiate this position with his own death.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot more to this book.\u00a0The relationships are complex.\u00a0The title alone bears a lot of weight that I didn’t touch on in this post. It’s definitely one I will revisit again.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

** Fiasco<\/em> has indeed been translated into English, and I have read each of the other books. Here are my posts:<\/p>\n