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Dossier K: A Memoir
The first and only memoir from the Nobel Prize–winning author, in the form of an illuminating, often funny, and often combative interview—with himself
Dossier K. is Imre Kertész’s response to the hasty biographies and profiles that followed his 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature—an attempt to set the record straight.
The result is an extraordinary self-portrait, in which Kertész interrogates himself about the course of his own remarkable life, moving from memories of his childhood in Budapest, his imprisonment in Nazi death camps and the forged record that saved his life, his experiences as a censored journalist in postwar Hungary under successive totalitarian communist regimes, and his eventual turn to fiction, culminating in the novels—such as Fatelessness , Fiasco , and Kaddish for an Unborn Child —that have established him as one of the most powerful, unsentimental, and imaginatively daring writers of our time.
In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Kertész continues to delve into the questions that have long occupied him: the legacy of the Holocaust, the distinctions drawn between fiction and reality, and what he calls “that wonderful burden of being responsible for oneself.”
Dossier K. is Imre Kertész’s response to the hasty biographies and profiles that followed his 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature—an attempt to set the record straight.
The result is an extraordinary self-portrait, in which Kertész interrogates himself about the course of his own remarkable life, moving from memories of his childhood in Budapest, his imprisonment in Nazi death camps and the forged record that saved his life, his experiences as a censored journalist in postwar Hungary under successive totalitarian communist regimes, and his eventual turn to fiction, culminating in the novels—such as Fatelessness , Fiasco , and Kaddish for an Unborn Child —that have established him as one of the most powerful, unsentimental, and imaginatively daring writers of our time.
In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Kertész continues to delve into the questions that have long occupied him: the legacy of the Holocaust, the distinctions drawn between fiction and reality, and what he calls “that wonderful burden of being responsible for oneself.”
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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397 people want to read
About the author
Imre Kertész
83 books392 followersBorn in Budapest in 1929, during World War II Imre Kertész was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944 and later at Buchenwald. After the war and repatriation, Kertész soon ended his brief career as a journalist and turned to translation, specializing in German language works. He later emigrated to Berlin. Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for "writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 2, 2016
Imre Kertész lying on the couch!
Ένας σπουδαίος και αξιοπρεπής συγγραφέας με αξιόλογο έργο. Αυτή είναι η αυτοβιογραφία του και είναι γραμμένη με ένα περίεργο τρόπο, με τη μορφή ερωταπαντήσεων. 'Εχουμε μπροστά μας τη ζωή του, για την οποία ρωτά ο αναγνώστης και από την πλευρά του ο συγγραφέας απαντά. Συγγραφέας και αναγνώστης συμφωνούν, διαφωνούν, αμφισβητούν, αμφιταλαντεύονται, διευκρινίζουν, προκαλούν, σχολιάζουν, φιλοσοφούν, σαστίζουν, προβληματίζονται, εκπλήσσουν,...,...,... (η λίστα με τα ρήματα δεν έχει τελειωμό) Έχουμε, δηλαδή, ένα ανάγνωσμα στο οποίο ο συγγραφές καταφέρνει με ιδιοφυή, ομολογουμένως, τρόπο να παρουσιάσει μια διπλή οπτική της ύπαρξής του.
Το "Μυθιστόρημα ενός Ανθρώπου δίχως Πεπρωμένο" με άφησε με αναπάντητα ερωτήματα, με δίχασε, με προβλημάτισε, το "Καντίς γαι ένα αγέννητο παιδί" με συνεπήρε, μου έδωσε άπειρη τροφή για σκέψη και το "Φάκελος Κ." ήρθε για να μου δώσει απαντήσεις, για να με "συστήσει" και στο υπόλοιπο έργο του συγγραφέα, για να με κάνει να σκέφτομαι ύστερα από κάθε παράγραφο, με άλλα λόγια ήρθε και θα παραμείνει μέσα μου για πάντα.
Μου δημιούργησε την ανάγκη να απευθυνθώ προσωπικά σε όποιον διαβάσει αυτή την κριτική μου και να πω (γράψω) τα εξής:
-Φίλε-η και συναναγνώστη-ρια μου, αξίζει να μελετήσεις το έργο αυτού του συγγραφέα, να ταξιδέψεις μαζί του στον εσωτερικό του κόσμο, να μελετήσεις, να πάρεις μια γεύση σχετικά με το τι νιώθει ένας άνθρωπος που έχει περάσει από Άουσβιτς και Μπούχενβαλντ,(αν σε ενδιαφέρει το θέμα αυτό), ένας άνθρωπος γεννημένος ήδη από το 1929 και έφτασε δεκαετία του '80 για να ζήσει επιτέλους σε ένα ελεύθερο, μη ολοκληρωτικό καθεστώς, ένας τέτοιος άνθρωπος έχει πάααααααααααρα πολλά να σου πει, πάαααααααρα πολλά να σου μάθει. Κάνε αυτό το ταξίδι μαζί του, λοιπόν!
Ένας σπουδαίος και αξιοπρεπής συγγραφέας με αξιόλογο έργο. Αυτή είναι η αυτοβιογραφία του και είναι γραμμένη με ένα περίεργο τρόπο, με τη μορφή ερωταπαντήσεων. 'Εχουμε μπροστά μας τη ζωή του, για την οποία ρωτά ο αναγνώστης και από την πλευρά του ο συγγραφέας απαντά. Συγγραφέας και αναγνώστης συμφωνούν, διαφωνούν, αμφισβητούν, αμφιταλαντεύονται, διευκρινίζουν, προκαλούν, σχολιάζουν, φιλοσοφούν, σαστίζουν, προβληματίζονται, εκπλήσσουν,...,...,... (η λίστα με τα ρήματα δεν έχει τελειωμό) Έχουμε, δηλαδή, ένα ανάγνωσμα στο οποίο ο συγγραφές καταφέρνει με ιδιοφυή, ομολογουμένως, τρόπο να παρουσιάσει μια διπλή οπτική της ύπαρξής του.
Το "Μυθιστόρημα ενός Ανθρώπου δίχως Πεπρωμένο" με άφησε με αναπάντητα ερωτήματα, με δίχασε, με προβλημάτισε, το "Καντίς γαι ένα αγέννητο παιδί" με συνεπήρε, μου έδωσε άπειρη τροφή για σκέψη και το "Φάκελος Κ." ήρθε για να μου δώσει απαντήσεις, για να με "συστήσει" και στο υπόλοιπο έργο του συγγραφέα, για να με κάνει να σκέφτομαι ύστερα από κάθε παράγραφο, με άλλα λόγια ήρθε και θα παραμείνει μέσα μου για πάντα.
Μου δημιούργησε την ανάγκη να απευθυνθώ προσωπικά σε όποιον διαβάσει αυτή την κριτική μου και να πω (γράψω) τα εξής:
-Φίλε-η και συναναγνώστη-ρια μου, αξίζει να μελετήσεις το έργο αυτού του συγγραφέα, να ταξιδέψεις μαζί του στον εσωτερικό του κόσμο, να μελετήσεις, να πάρεις μια γεύση σχετικά με το τι νιώθει ένας άνθρωπος που έχει περάσει από Άουσβιτς και Μπούχενβαλντ,(αν σε ενδιαφέρει το θέμα αυτό), ένας άνθρωπος γεννημένος ήδη από το 1929 και έφτασε δεκαετία του '80 για να ζήσει επιτέλους σε ένα ελεύθερο, μη ολοκληρωτικό καθεστώς, ένας τέτοιος άνθρωπος έχει πάααααααααααρα πολλά να σου πει, πάαααααααρα πολλά να σου μάθει. Κάνε αυτό το ταξίδι μαζί του, λοιπόν!
July 28, 2022
Als formbewusster Prosakomponist ohne größere Aussichten auf Veröffentlichung im sozialistischen Ungarn hat Imre Kertesz viele Jahre nur für sich geschrieben, oft unter schwierigsten Bedingungen.
Die Umstände, die 90% aller Talente grundsätzlich sabotiert hätten, wäre es nicht eine Art persönlicher Überlebensarbeit gewesen, sowie eigene Ansprüche führten nicht nur zu einem extrem langsamen Arbeitstempo, bzw. einer regelrechten Eruption nach dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs. Publikationen, die Kritiker wie Dubravka Ugresic (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), als umfangreiche Fußnoten zum einzigen Buch abqualifizierte.
Diesen Kritikpunkt erfüllt diese Montage von Ausschnitten einer umfangreichen Befragung mehr denn je, andererseits liefert die Reaktion auf einen Haufen als Müll empfundenen Würdigungen des ersten ungarischen Nobelpreisträgers zahlreiche Einblicke in dessen Umgang mit der eigenen Vita im Hauptwerk Roman eines Schicksalslosen wie dem grauenhaft verrätselten Anschlussroman Fiasko, der das Leben des KZ-Heimkehrers in einem Absurdistan beschreibt und zwar so, dass das Werk die kommunistische Zensur passieren konnte.
Auch zum eigentlichen Meisterwerk Die englische Flagge, das den Aberwitz der stalinistischen Jahre brillant und ohne Verrätselung beim Namen nennen kann, gibt es ein paar frische Fakten. Von daher war ich bei der Lektüre hin und hergerissen zwischen dem Gefühl, dass ich mir viel unnütze Quälerei und allerlei fassungsloses Erstauenen erspart hätte, wäre der Nachklapp mein erster Kertesz gewesen. Andererseits hätte mir das Problembewusstsein gefehlt, um zahlreiche Antworten entsprechend zu würdigen.
Unfreiwillig aktuell erschien mir Ks Selbstverständnis: »legale« Kunst, also eine, die in einer harmonischen Beziehung zu ihrer gesellschaftlichen Umwelt zustande kommt, wäre für mich nicht vorstellbar gewesen und ist es nicht.
Bei allerlei Autoren, die um 2005 auf ihr Überleben im Kommunismus und den Aberwitz des Systems und der alltäglichen Heuchelei zurück blicken, stellt sich bei mir eine Art Wir-sind-längst-wieder-so-weit-Gefühl ein, auch wenn Tag und Nach von allen Seiten Toleranz gepredigt wird, tatsächlich nicht mehr als Privilegien für die Schoßkinder der aktuell gültigen Ideologie. Wer veröffentlicht werden will, muss halt die gerade geforderten literarischen Feuchttücher mit klar quotierten und entsprechend positiv konnotierten Personal aus dem aktuellen Adel liefern und damit rechnen, dafür bezahlt und genauso schnell weggeworfen zu werden.
Auch wenn Bücher wie Fiasko oder Liquidation für später Geborene unheimlich hohe Einstiegshürden bieten, im Gegensatz zur englischen Flagge oder Roman eines Schicksallosen, der sich schnell und zuverlässig gegen allerlei rührseligen Holocaust-Kitsch behauptet, hat Kertesz Werk eine Substanz, die auf eine bleibende Leistung hindeutet. Auch wenn er nie ein Massenliebling sein wird, er war halt ein Schatz des deutschen Feuilletons, zumindest einige Zeit lang, was zu neidischen Bonmots von nicht so sehr hofierten Erscheinungen wie Frau Ugresic geführt hat, deren feministischer Ansatz sich zudem am Donjuanismus des Einbuchautors rieb, der seinen späten Ruhm auf Literaturtagungen auch in den Nächten weidlich auskostete.
Bis Seite 180 war Dossier K. bei mir auf Fünfsternekurs, nicht nur wegen der Auflösung von allerlei alten Rätseln und Aufklärung von allerlei offen gebliebenen Familienangelegenheiten. Auch die Schnittstellen im eigenen Werk zu Musik und Weltliteratur boten allerlei Erhellendes, das übers Galeerentagebuch hinaus geht. Interessant fand ich auch die Passagen über den Begriff Holocaust als Verharmlosungwerkzeug, das den Zugang auf die Ausrottung der europäischen Juden eher verstellt als erhellt.
Doch für die letzten 10 Jahre, sprich seine irgendwie noch gelebte Gegenwart hat K nicht mehr viel zu bieten, weil es sich eben auch um sein aktuelles Privatleben handelt, bzw. er taktvoll genug ist, sich mit eventueller Kritik am Schreibwohnsitz Berlin zurück zu halten. Mehr als ein paar erhellende Fakten zum Krisenroman Liquidation, das die Option durchspielt, K. hätte wie Primo Levi oder Jean Améry den in Auschwitz verlorenen Sinn nicht mehr wieder gefunden, sondern den verpassten Mord an sich mit eigener Hand vollzogen, bieten die letzten 20% nicht mehr. Und natürlich die Motivation für Dossier K., die eigene Wahrheit gegen das Konjunkturgeschwätz zu setzen, das der erste ungarische Nobelpreisträger im verhassten Kulturbetrieb des Heimatlandes ausgelöst hat.
FAZIT: Lieber erst wundern und über allerlei Seltsamkeiten im Gesamtwerk stolpern, die sich aus den Umständen und der eher an der Musik orientierten Kompositionsweise von Kertesz ergeben, der seinen Roman eines Schicksalslosen nach den Maßstäben der Zwölftonmusik aufgebaut haben will. Für mich war Dossier K. auch eher der Auftakt zu einem Wiederlesen der fünf anderen Bücher in meinem Besitz, vermutlich nicht in chronologischer Reihenfolge. Argumente noch was nachzukaufen hat der Rückblick des Autors allerdings nicht mal einem Komplettisten wie mir geliefert, dem sonst allzu oft der Mut zur Lücke abgeht.
Die Umstände, die 90% aller Talente grundsätzlich sabotiert hätten, wäre es nicht eine Art persönlicher Überlebensarbeit gewesen, sowie eigene Ansprüche führten nicht nur zu einem extrem langsamen Arbeitstempo, bzw. einer regelrechten Eruption nach dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs. Publikationen, die Kritiker wie Dubravka Ugresic (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), als umfangreiche Fußnoten zum einzigen Buch abqualifizierte.
Diesen Kritikpunkt erfüllt diese Montage von Ausschnitten einer umfangreichen Befragung mehr denn je, andererseits liefert die Reaktion auf einen Haufen als Müll empfundenen Würdigungen des ersten ungarischen Nobelpreisträgers zahlreiche Einblicke in dessen Umgang mit der eigenen Vita im Hauptwerk Roman eines Schicksalslosen wie dem grauenhaft verrätselten Anschlussroman Fiasko, der das Leben des KZ-Heimkehrers in einem Absurdistan beschreibt und zwar so, dass das Werk die kommunistische Zensur passieren konnte.
Auch zum eigentlichen Meisterwerk Die englische Flagge, das den Aberwitz der stalinistischen Jahre brillant und ohne Verrätselung beim Namen nennen kann, gibt es ein paar frische Fakten. Von daher war ich bei der Lektüre hin und hergerissen zwischen dem Gefühl, dass ich mir viel unnütze Quälerei und allerlei fassungsloses Erstauenen erspart hätte, wäre der Nachklapp mein erster Kertesz gewesen. Andererseits hätte mir das Problembewusstsein gefehlt, um zahlreiche Antworten entsprechend zu würdigen.
Unfreiwillig aktuell erschien mir Ks Selbstverständnis: »legale« Kunst, also eine, die in einer harmonischen Beziehung zu ihrer gesellschaftlichen Umwelt zustande kommt, wäre für mich nicht vorstellbar gewesen und ist es nicht.
Bei allerlei Autoren, die um 2005 auf ihr Überleben im Kommunismus und den Aberwitz des Systems und der alltäglichen Heuchelei zurück blicken, stellt sich bei mir eine Art Wir-sind-längst-wieder-so-weit-Gefühl ein, auch wenn Tag und Nach von allen Seiten Toleranz gepredigt wird, tatsächlich nicht mehr als Privilegien für die Schoßkinder der aktuell gültigen Ideologie. Wer veröffentlicht werden will, muss halt die gerade geforderten literarischen Feuchttücher mit klar quotierten und entsprechend positiv konnotierten Personal aus dem aktuellen Adel liefern und damit rechnen, dafür bezahlt und genauso schnell weggeworfen zu werden.
Auch wenn Bücher wie Fiasko oder Liquidation für später Geborene unheimlich hohe Einstiegshürden bieten, im Gegensatz zur englischen Flagge oder Roman eines Schicksallosen, der sich schnell und zuverlässig gegen allerlei rührseligen Holocaust-Kitsch behauptet, hat Kertesz Werk eine Substanz, die auf eine bleibende Leistung hindeutet. Auch wenn er nie ein Massenliebling sein wird, er war halt ein Schatz des deutschen Feuilletons, zumindest einige Zeit lang, was zu neidischen Bonmots von nicht so sehr hofierten Erscheinungen wie Frau Ugresic geführt hat, deren feministischer Ansatz sich zudem am Donjuanismus des Einbuchautors rieb, der seinen späten Ruhm auf Literaturtagungen auch in den Nächten weidlich auskostete.
Bis Seite 180 war Dossier K. bei mir auf Fünfsternekurs, nicht nur wegen der Auflösung von allerlei alten Rätseln und Aufklärung von allerlei offen gebliebenen Familienangelegenheiten. Auch die Schnittstellen im eigenen Werk zu Musik und Weltliteratur boten allerlei Erhellendes, das übers Galeerentagebuch hinaus geht. Interessant fand ich auch die Passagen über den Begriff Holocaust als Verharmlosungwerkzeug, das den Zugang auf die Ausrottung der europäischen Juden eher verstellt als erhellt.
Doch für die letzten 10 Jahre, sprich seine irgendwie noch gelebte Gegenwart hat K nicht mehr viel zu bieten, weil es sich eben auch um sein aktuelles Privatleben handelt, bzw. er taktvoll genug ist, sich mit eventueller Kritik am Schreibwohnsitz Berlin zurück zu halten. Mehr als ein paar erhellende Fakten zum Krisenroman Liquidation, das die Option durchspielt, K. hätte wie Primo Levi oder Jean Améry den in Auschwitz verlorenen Sinn nicht mehr wieder gefunden, sondern den verpassten Mord an sich mit eigener Hand vollzogen, bieten die letzten 20% nicht mehr. Und natürlich die Motivation für Dossier K., die eigene Wahrheit gegen das Konjunkturgeschwätz zu setzen, das der erste ungarische Nobelpreisträger im verhassten Kulturbetrieb des Heimatlandes ausgelöst hat.
FAZIT: Lieber erst wundern und über allerlei Seltsamkeiten im Gesamtwerk stolpern, die sich aus den Umständen und der eher an der Musik orientierten Kompositionsweise von Kertesz ergeben, der seinen Roman eines Schicksalslosen nach den Maßstäben der Zwölftonmusik aufgebaut haben will. Für mich war Dossier K. auch eher der Auftakt zu einem Wiederlesen der fünf anderen Bücher in meinem Besitz, vermutlich nicht in chronologischer Reihenfolge. Argumente noch was nachzukaufen hat der Rückblick des Autors allerdings nicht mal einem Komplettisten wie mir geliefert, dem sonst allzu oft der Mut zur Lücke abgeht.
September 11, 2021
A very important book from a writer so clever, so humble that one would like to call him "normal", a writer who does his best to avoid pathetic and kitch thinking and writing... In this book he discusses many things - from his childhood to literature that he admires, from politics to philosophy - the text is important and wonderful and clever, witty and ironic at times, but for me his best conclusion was: Since we are all mortal we should dare to speak and live the truth.
I really love his fantastic novel Fatelessness , a sort of memoir in which he describes his Holocaust experience. The style of that novel, in which he makes strange what is actually familiar, is a superb example of what the Russian formalists would call "Defamiliarization" (Russian ostranenie). For everyone who thinks about the Holocaust, but even more about the good and the bad in life, about morality and about what makes us human, about what it means to think, but really think and not just recapitulate the already known - Kertesz is a perfect, perfect author.
I really love his fantastic novel Fatelessness , a sort of memoir in which he describes his Holocaust experience. The style of that novel, in which he makes strange what is actually familiar, is a superb example of what the Russian formalists would call "Defamiliarization" (Russian ostranenie). For everyone who thinks about the Holocaust, but even more about the good and the bad in life, about morality and about what makes us human, about what it means to think, but really think and not just recapitulate the already known - Kertesz is a perfect, perfect author.
August 1, 2017
I have never been a friend of biographies and memoires: Mostly because I believe that nothing intimate and personal can be very reliable, and also since my interest in someone’s work does not equal to an interest in their private persona. The same goes for “Dossier K.”. Quite many of the topics and ideas were close to my own thoughts, especially when it came to contrasting fiction versus reality. In this case it would come down to the difference in approaching the actual and factual versus a fictitious Auschwitz, both literally and metaphorically. And that question could fill volumes all by itself. A welcome bonus was the author’s personal reading list. But besides getting into trivia on numerous occasions, the conversation repeatedly came down to the matter of the author explaining or interpreting his own work. And that just sends cold shivers down my spine. I imagine that this memoire would be of interest to readers with a particularly biographical approach to literature.
April 9, 2019
Konačno sam se natjerala da završim ovu knjigu,danas sam opet mislila krenuti iz početka. Preteška za moj ukus,prepuna asocijacija,filozofski teza,ali brilijantan stil pisanja. Ipak sam ja preobičan čitalac za ovakva remek djela. Vjerovatno će trebati vremena da i ja sazrijem,pa ću opet probati se družiti sa ovom knjigom.
July 20, 2013
I have an interest in Hungarian history, especially between the end of WWI and WWII, so I picked up this autobiography -- in the form of a sometimes contentious self-interview (Kertesz often gets irritated the with the superficiality of his questioner, who is, of course, himself). Kertesz had the misfortune as a 14-year-old Jew in summer 1944 doing mandatory summer work at a Shell refinery in Budapest to be caught up in an action to round up Budapest Jews. He was for a time in Auswitz, then in Buchenwald. At one point as the end of the war ended, he collapsed into unconsciousness, near death; some unknown rescuers carried him to a hospital within Buchenwald and others marked him in camp records as dead.
He survived the absurdity of industrialized murder to find himself in another absurdity: A totalitarian society that discouraged heterodoxy and punished dissent. He laid low -- his wife supported his reading and writing as a waitress -- and read widely and thought some deep thoughts. As his self interview shows, some of his thoughts are profound, others controversial. They address big questions about the nature of life, reality, and existence.
His observations, reflections, and memories of his ordeals are found in some remarkable books (including a trilogy, Fatelessness, Fiasco, and Kaddish for an Unborn Child)for which he received the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature.
This unconventional autobiography is a stimulating introduction to the mind and life of Imre Kertesz and the world in which he found himself.
He survived the absurdity of industrialized murder to find himself in another absurdity: A totalitarian society that discouraged heterodoxy and punished dissent. He laid low -- his wife supported his reading and writing as a waitress -- and read widely and thought some deep thoughts. As his self interview shows, some of his thoughts are profound, others controversial. They address big questions about the nature of life, reality, and existence.
His observations, reflections, and memories of his ordeals are found in some remarkable books (including a trilogy, Fatelessness, Fiasco, and Kaddish for an Unborn Child)for which he received the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature.
This unconventional autobiography is a stimulating introduction to the mind and life of Imre Kertesz and the world in which he found himself.
October 5, 2019
Quite an original and at times disorienting work by Kertesz, which takes the form of an interview he conducts within himself, albeit with the interviewer taking roughly the position of what Kertesz seems to indicate to be the shallow, simplistic media. Reason for him to write this, apparently, was the sudden boom in attention he received after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and particularly so in his own country, where he suddenly had to fulfill some sort of role as ambassador for his country, something he clearly shows no interest in doing (just as, incidently, he showed no interest in giving the New York Times a cheap shot quotation at the state of Hungary under Orban in an interview shortly before he died).
It is this kind of black-and-white thinking, this kind of sentimentalisation of the war, perhaps, that Kertesz resists and fights in this book. He tells of his distaste for a film like Schindler's List, and instead gives us an alternative canon. Particularly interesting is his evaluation of Jean Améry, who claims that what was lost to Jews in the war was what in German is called Weltvertrauen, a trust in the world. Améry, claims Kertesz, had his Weltvertrauen beaten out of him by the Gestapo, and went on to survive Auschwitz "in vain", for "decades later he carried out the sentence on himself by committing suicide."
It might be because Kertesz himself was so young during the war, that his books focus not so much on the war itself but on how to put a broken man back together afterwards. His philosophy is concerned with action and consequence. Of parenthood he writes:
Kertesz sees life not as a gift but as a book borrowed from the library that, in a sense, becomes overdue long before we even escape from our childhood.
But there is also a large extent to which Kertesz cannot give universal answers for how to deal with life after a trauma such as this, for the simple fact that he processed his war experience precisely through writing his books. Of writing he claims that "the form is able to transform [the material] and turn it into pleasure". Of writing he claims that it is "heightened life", something I understand but always feel opposite in a way: to me, writing is the opposite of doing, or being. It is to stop being in order to analyze said being. Perhaps, for someone like Kertesz, to stop being was quite simply a relief.
Worth quoting at length is Kertesz on the term "holocaust", for which he has little time:
Holocaust, the word, to Kertesz, is a shorthand to disguise a very real tragedy, and as shorthand it has become filled with commonplaces that overshadow all the real pain. It is opening up this word and all it contains in a humane way, somehow, to rehumanize it, which Kertesz deems impossible yet still tried his hand at during his life.
It is this kind of black-and-white thinking, this kind of sentimentalisation of the war, perhaps, that Kertesz resists and fights in this book. He tells of his distaste for a film like Schindler's List, and instead gives us an alternative canon. Particularly interesting is his evaluation of Jean Améry, who claims that what was lost to Jews in the war was what in German is called Weltvertrauen, a trust in the world. Améry, claims Kertesz, had his Weltvertrauen beaten out of him by the Gestapo, and went on to survive Auschwitz "in vain", for "decades later he carried out the sentence on himself by committing suicide."
It might be because Kertesz himself was so young during the war, that his books focus not so much on the war itself but on how to put a broken man back together afterwards. His philosophy is concerned with action and consequence. Of parenthood he writes:
A person will always bear a grudge against his or her parents. [...] Beyond any specific individual motivations, perhaps because although it is true that the parents were responsible for bringing one into the world, they also set you up for death.
Kertesz sees life not as a gift but as a book borrowed from the library that, in a sense, becomes overdue long before we even escape from our childhood.
But there is also a large extent to which Kertesz cannot give universal answers for how to deal with life after a trauma such as this, for the simple fact that he processed his war experience precisely through writing his books. Of writing he claims that "the form is able to transform [the material] and turn it into pleasure". Of writing he claims that it is "heightened life", something I understand but always feel opposite in a way: to me, writing is the opposite of doing, or being. It is to stop being in order to analyze said being. Perhaps, for someone like Kertesz, to stop being was quite simply a relief.
Worth quoting at length is Kertesz on the term "holocaust", for which he has little time:
People don't care to call what actually happened by its proper name - "The Destruction of Europe's Jews", as Raul Hilberg entitled his great work - but instead they have found a word whose true meaning they admittedly don't understand, but they have established this ritual and, by now, ossified and immovable place for it among our notions and they defend it like watch dogs. They bark at anyone who approaches to adjust anything about it. I never called Fatelessness a Holocaust novel like others do, because what they call "the Holocaust" cannot be put into a novel. I wrote about a state, and although it's true the novel attempts to shape the unspeakable ordeal of the death camps into a human experience, it was nevertheless concerned primarily with the ethical consequences of subsistence and survival. That was why I picked the title Fatelessness.
The unfortunate term 'holocaust' (usually with a capital 'H') arises from this unconscious demand to justify a death that is sine causa - to give some meaning back to what seemed incomprehensible. [...] And given its derivation, the word actually only relates to those who were incinerated: the dead, but not the survivors.
Holocaust, the word, to Kertesz, is a shorthand to disguise a very real tragedy, and as shorthand it has become filled with commonplaces that overshadow all the real pain. It is opening up this word and all it contains in a humane way, somehow, to rehumanize it, which Kertesz deems impossible yet still tried his hand at during his life.
August 23, 2017
Only for true fans of Imre Kertész, this book mostly focuses on his interpretations of his life’s work. There are a few interesting stories here and there, as well as a lot of philosophical thinking, but if you are not familiar with his novels (or the historical situation in Hungary after WWII), it can be pretty uninteresting. On the other hand, there are many brilliant excerpts from his famous books, so it might just inspire you to read those.
January 18, 2018
İyi bir otobiyografik söyleşi... Bilhassa totaliter rejimlerde aydın olmak ve yazarak direnmekle ilgili vurguları kaydadeğer...
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May 21, 2015Očekivao sam drugačiju knjigu. Naime, mislio sam da je knjiga više okrenuta priči o Aušvicu i Holokaustu, ali je zapravo ovo bio osvrt na biografiju autora, gde se priča o Drugom svetskom ratu i logoru pojavljuje u etapama.
Slažem se sa konstatacijom:"Više od životne lekcije, ovo je filozofsko razmišljanje o njiževnom stvaralaštvu, savremnicima, kulturi, istoriji, Holokaustu, i suštinskim životnim pitanjima."
Knjiga mi je otvorila put ka nekim novim razmišljanjima, a i literaturi koja će biti bliža mojoj prvobitnoj zamisli teme ove knjige.
Slažem se sa konstatacijom:"Više od životne lekcije, ovo je filozofsko razmišljanje o njiževnom stvaralaštvu, savremnicima, kulturi, istoriji, Holokaustu, i suštinskim životnim pitanjima."
Knjiga mi je otvorila put ka nekim novim razmišljanjima, a i literaturi koja će biti bliža mojoj prvobitnoj zamisli teme ove knjige.
April 2, 2020
Simply profound.
April 9, 2020
¿Qué es este libro?
Cansado de preguntas repetitivas y lugares comunes, el escritor Imre Kertész se propuso entrevistarse a sí mismo. Este libro es el producto de esa entrevista. Por lo que podríamos considerar que el libro contiene una falsa entrevista, aunque, bien pensado, pocas entrevistas más reales he leído nunca.
¿Pero una entrevista requiere de, como mínimo, dos personas: entrevistado y entrevistador, no?
Aquí hay un entrevistado y un entrevistador…
Pero solo una de esas personas existe.
O bien ninguna de las dos.
¿Cómo?
Entrevistado y entrevistador son la misma persona: el autor. Aunque quizá Kertész no sea ninguno de ellos.
Perdona, pero no me queda claro.
Sí, yo tampoco lo tengo claro. ¿Y si lo leyéramos como una novela?
¿Me preguntas a mí?
Bueno, en cierta manera me estaba preguntando a mí mismo…
Entonces: ¿Y si lo leyéramos como una novela?
Entonces todo estaría mucho más claro, ¿no? Se presentaría de manera menos errática: entrevistado y entrevistador son meras creaciones del autor.
¿De Imre Kertész?
No vayas por ahí.
De acuerdo. Decías que entrevistado y entrevistador eran meras creaciones del autor…
Sí, y a través del diálogo se recorre la vida de un escritor llamado Imre Kertész, el cual sospecho que nunca existió, pese a compartir nombre y coordenadas vitales con el escritor llamado Imre Kertesz.
¿Cúal es la diferencia si, como dices, comparten nombre y coordenadas vitales?
Pues que el Kertész personaje es un Kertész histórico distorsionado; más hijo de la creación que de la memoria. En Dossier K se expresa este juego de mejor manera: «yo me escondo cómodamente entre la ficción y los hechos llamados realidad».
Aunque la gran pregunta es a quién hace referencia ese yo, ¿no?
Totalmente, a veces, daba la sensación de que el yo-personaje era la respuesta, mientras que el yo-autor se encontraba en esa encrucijada donde se cruzaban la pregunta y la respuesta. En ese breve instante cuando la pregunta acaba de ser formulada, pero todavía no ha recibido respuesta.
Porque no toda pregunta puede ser respondida…
O más bien: no a toda pregunta lógica le corresponde una respuesta lógica.
¿A qué te refieres?
Observemos la vida del Kertész personaje (y la del Kertész autor): en 1944 fue deportado a Auschwitz y luego fue enviado a Buchenwald, pero no falleció allí y en 1945 fue liberado. ¿Para qué todo este sufrimiento? ¿por qué sobrevivió? No hay respuesta a esas preguntas.
Bueno, los Nazis, la solución final, pretendían…
¿Entonces admites que la barbarie, la violencia sistematizada, entra dentro del paradigma de las “respuestas lógicas”?
Soy incapaz de admitir tal cosa.
Eso mismo hace el propio Kertész-personaje, de hecho todo el relato construido en esta entrevista presenta un personaje que da la espalda a todos los porqués y paraqués. No sabe por qué sobrevivió de la misma manera que tampoco sabe por qué, un día, decidió ser escritor. Él mismo dice: «cuando decidí escribir una novela, también decidí, de paso, tener talento». Todo está envuelto por la infinita opacidad de la vida.
¿Opacidad o insignificancia?
¿Un entrevistador lector de Cioran? Cioran era un bromista, algo cascarrabias, pero un bromista al fin y al cabo. Este libro contiene mucha más angustia y mucho menos sentido del humor.
No hay que olvidar que es un libro sobre el Holocausto, ¿no?
¡Para nada! Es un libro en el que uno de los personajes ha pisado Auschwitz y Buchenwald, pero no es un libro sobre el Holocausto.
Volviendo a lo que decías sobre que el Kertész-personaje da la espalda a todos los porqués y para qués, ¿qué postura adopta el Kertész-autor?
¿Cómo quieres que yo lo sepa? No tengo ni la más remota idea.
Pero has leído el libro.
Sí, ¿pero en qué parte del libro está el autor?
Esto me recuerda a una pregunta que se hace Lobo Antunes sobre el acto de escribir: «¿De qué parte mía viene este libro?»
En Dossier K puedes leer algo similar: «He de reconocer que las frases que aparecen bajo mis manos me pillan a veces desprevenido: saben más de lo que yo sé; me sorprenden con secretos que ignoro y no toleran las intromisiones: llevan una vida independiente y extraña que debo entender más que dominar…»
Pero si el escritor no es propietario de lo que escribe, ¿entonces quién lo es?
El lector, ¿quizá? O a lo mejor es otra pregunta sin respuesta. Vuelvo a una cita del libro: «Incluso quien ha de registrar su sueño por escrito debe obligarse a estar plenamente despierto.» Esa es la tarea del escritor, registrar el sueño.
Y a la vez estar soñando…
Sí, pero eso no quiere decir que el sueño nos pertenezca.
Creo que no has sido capaz de dejar bastante claro qué es este libro. Aún te volvería a hacer la primera pregunta: ¿Qué es este libro?
Pues yo, en cambio, creo que he arrojado cierta luz, porque te respondería exactamente lo mismo.
https://labibliotecaflotante.wordpres...
Cansado de preguntas repetitivas y lugares comunes, el escritor Imre Kertész se propuso entrevistarse a sí mismo. Este libro es el producto de esa entrevista. Por lo que podríamos considerar que el libro contiene una falsa entrevista, aunque, bien pensado, pocas entrevistas más reales he leído nunca.
¿Pero una entrevista requiere de, como mínimo, dos personas: entrevistado y entrevistador, no?
Aquí hay un entrevistado y un entrevistador…
Pero solo una de esas personas existe.
O bien ninguna de las dos.
¿Cómo?
Entrevistado y entrevistador son la misma persona: el autor. Aunque quizá Kertész no sea ninguno de ellos.
Perdona, pero no me queda claro.
Sí, yo tampoco lo tengo claro. ¿Y si lo leyéramos como una novela?
¿Me preguntas a mí?
Bueno, en cierta manera me estaba preguntando a mí mismo…
Entonces: ¿Y si lo leyéramos como una novela?
Entonces todo estaría mucho más claro, ¿no? Se presentaría de manera menos errática: entrevistado y entrevistador son meras creaciones del autor.
¿De Imre Kertész?
No vayas por ahí.
De acuerdo. Decías que entrevistado y entrevistador eran meras creaciones del autor…
Sí, y a través del diálogo se recorre la vida de un escritor llamado Imre Kertész, el cual sospecho que nunca existió, pese a compartir nombre y coordenadas vitales con el escritor llamado Imre Kertesz.
¿Cúal es la diferencia si, como dices, comparten nombre y coordenadas vitales?
Pues que el Kertész personaje es un Kertész histórico distorsionado; más hijo de la creación que de la memoria. En Dossier K se expresa este juego de mejor manera: «yo me escondo cómodamente entre la ficción y los hechos llamados realidad».
Aunque la gran pregunta es a quién hace referencia ese yo, ¿no?
Totalmente, a veces, daba la sensación de que el yo-personaje era la respuesta, mientras que el yo-autor se encontraba en esa encrucijada donde se cruzaban la pregunta y la respuesta. En ese breve instante cuando la pregunta acaba de ser formulada, pero todavía no ha recibido respuesta.
Porque no toda pregunta puede ser respondida…
O más bien: no a toda pregunta lógica le corresponde una respuesta lógica.
¿A qué te refieres?
Observemos la vida del Kertész personaje (y la del Kertész autor): en 1944 fue deportado a Auschwitz y luego fue enviado a Buchenwald, pero no falleció allí y en 1945 fue liberado. ¿Para qué todo este sufrimiento? ¿por qué sobrevivió? No hay respuesta a esas preguntas.
Bueno, los Nazis, la solución final, pretendían…
¿Entonces admites que la barbarie, la violencia sistematizada, entra dentro del paradigma de las “respuestas lógicas”?
Soy incapaz de admitir tal cosa.
Eso mismo hace el propio Kertész-personaje, de hecho todo el relato construido en esta entrevista presenta un personaje que da la espalda a todos los porqués y paraqués. No sabe por qué sobrevivió de la misma manera que tampoco sabe por qué, un día, decidió ser escritor. Él mismo dice: «cuando decidí escribir una novela, también decidí, de paso, tener talento». Todo está envuelto por la infinita opacidad de la vida.
¿Opacidad o insignificancia?
¿Un entrevistador lector de Cioran? Cioran era un bromista, algo cascarrabias, pero un bromista al fin y al cabo. Este libro contiene mucha más angustia y mucho menos sentido del humor.
No hay que olvidar que es un libro sobre el Holocausto, ¿no?
¡Para nada! Es un libro en el que uno de los personajes ha pisado Auschwitz y Buchenwald, pero no es un libro sobre el Holocausto.
Volviendo a lo que decías sobre que el Kertész-personaje da la espalda a todos los porqués y para qués, ¿qué postura adopta el Kertész-autor?
¿Cómo quieres que yo lo sepa? No tengo ni la más remota idea.
Pero has leído el libro.
Sí, ¿pero en qué parte del libro está el autor?
Esto me recuerda a una pregunta que se hace Lobo Antunes sobre el acto de escribir: «¿De qué parte mía viene este libro?»
En Dossier K puedes leer algo similar: «He de reconocer que las frases que aparecen bajo mis manos me pillan a veces desprevenido: saben más de lo que yo sé; me sorprenden con secretos que ignoro y no toleran las intromisiones: llevan una vida independiente y extraña que debo entender más que dominar…»
Pero si el escritor no es propietario de lo que escribe, ¿entonces quién lo es?
El lector, ¿quizá? O a lo mejor es otra pregunta sin respuesta. Vuelvo a una cita del libro: «Incluso quien ha de registrar su sueño por escrito debe obligarse a estar plenamente despierto.» Esa es la tarea del escritor, registrar el sueño.
Y a la vez estar soñando…
Sí, pero eso no quiere decir que el sueño nos pertenezca.
Creo que no has sido capaz de dejar bastante claro qué es este libro. Aún te volvería a hacer la primera pregunta: ¿Qué es este libro?
Pues yo, en cambio, creo que he arrojado cierta luz, porque te respondería exactamente lo mismo.
https://labibliotecaflotante.wordpres...
October 8, 2017
This memoir in the form of a self-interview is a clever way for Kertesz to "set the record straight" a few years after winning the Nobel Prize in 2002. His insistence in refusing to accept the categorization of Fatelessness, his most famous work, within the genres of autobiographical fiction or Holocaust literature still strikes me as somewhat disingenuous, but who better to lay out his theories than the author himself? Kertesz does so with a sense of humour, and quotes from a number of his works. This is the third work I read by him, and as with Primo Levi, I have a feeling that I will be reading many more of his novels in due course. It has certainly made me want to read Fiasco, the second in his so-called Holocaust trilogy, published in Hungarian in 1988 but not translated into English until 2011. I recommend Dossier K if you enjoy memoirs and/or have read Fatelessness.
November 18, 2025
Relectura, creo, aunque totalmente olvidada. Y eso que hay fragmentos que me martilleaban por lo duros. El problema es que la continua referencia a libros que no he leído diluye la capacidad de concentración. Pero, desde luego, lo próximo va a ser Sin Destino, su reflexión más conocida sobre el Holocausto. Como muchos supervivientes carga con esa especie de culpa, de vergüenza ante los muertos. Magnífica la explicación de cómo ahora es consciente de ser judío, pero ello no le identifica con cualquier judío, como los cristianos, por el hecho de pertenecer a una cultura/religión concreta no hemos de identificarnos con Hitler. Y el paso del nazismo al stalinismo, con el desprecio consecuente a cualquier totalitarismo, a todo aquello que en nombre de la masa anula al individuo. Insisto, hay que irse a sus novelas.
February 3, 2021
From being taken to a concentration camp to being in a communist dictatorship, the writer really went through a lot of hardship in his life. I didn't read his work that's heavily mentioned in this book but I really agreed with so many thoughts and views of the world represented here.
October 14, 2017
"È bene che un romanzo contenga delle parole che continuano a vivere nel lettore come dei misteri ardenti." (p. 79)
May 13, 2018
Напишана како дијалог со самиот себеси... неверојатно четиво 🌸
January 23, 2019
Maravillosa autoentrevista. He descubierto a este autor y quiero seguir leyendo todo de él.
April 14, 2019
3.5/5 or 7/10
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August 29, 2020Čudno je čitati autorove stavove o svojim delima pre čitanja samih dela, ali sjajno je steći ovakav uvid u njegov životni put i razmišljanje pre čitanja samih dela.
December 13, 2021
Giving it a high 3. Now I want to read his other books!
December 4, 2023
« La littérature est un bouleversement complet, un coup irrémédiable porté au coeur, un courage et un encouragement élémentaires, et en même temps quelque chose comme une maladie mortelle ».
October 16, 2015
Autobiography is like a document: a mirror of the age on which people can "depend". In a novel, by contrast, it's not the facts that matter, but precisely what you add to the facts
The world of fiction is a sovereign world that comes to life in the author's head
In the novel I did have to invent Auschwitz and bring it to life
I look on my life as raw material for my novels: that’s just the way I am, and it frees me from any inhibitions
I could be gunned down anywhere, at any time
One is always happy to think back to one's childhood, however rotten and tough a period it may have been
I'm prone to mystic experiences, but dogmatic faith is totally alien to me
Religious feeling in my view is a human necessity
Art is nothing other than exaggeration and distortion
Where Auschwitz starts logic stops
Once one is in the trap of Auschwitz there is no choice
The secret of survival is collaboration
The virtuality of Auschwitz inheres in every dictatorship
The survivor is an exception; his existence—really the result of an industrial accident in the machinery of death
It is so hard to accept, to come to terms with the exceptional and anomalous existence that survival stands for
I may have written a novel but I have solved nothing
The riddle of the world has remained just as tormenting a thorn as it was before
As we must all die, we have the right—even a duty—to think boldly
I wouldn’t call dodging the ultimate questions optimism but plain cowardice
An optimist has to die just as much as a pessimist
Since Auschwitz it has become redundant to make any judgments about human nature
Truth is no longer universal
It is simpler to surrender ourselves to salvational ideas than stick to our own unique and irreproducible existence, to choose our own truth rather than the truth
It's a good thing for a novel to have certain words that live on in readers like a blazing secret
I have written my books, and that has obviously altered my memories
At all events I lived without any plants, taking each day as it came
Everything I did was by mistake; all in all, I lived in complete error
Writing as a way of life for me was linked with fatal love, on the one hand, and total idleness, on the other
Art always regards life as a celebration
To write a poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric
Auschwitz truly was a great school. What made me Jewish was the Holocaust
I didn’t have an identity, and I didn’t miss having one, either
The imagination is also a kind of reality
I had to recognize that the sentences that would appear under my hand would sometimes arrive unexpectedly
I needed time, more time, in fact a great deal more time
Talent is one of those words that is used, but no one knows what it means
Let's just accept that not every question has an answer
Lines like that truly drove me wild
Creation was born of passion and was reshaped anew as passion
"So life must be to be creative"
The word "chance" doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t explain anything. I could replace it with the word "inevitable"
Sartre: You talk in your own language but you write in a foreign language
Truth-telling artists generally prove to be bad artists
We need to have respect for man's fallibility and ignorance
There is nothing sorrier than a person who is right
I always wanted to die, and instead of that I always wrote a book—that would be an elegant cop-out
World exists only as long as I exist, and it only exists in the manner in which I can imagine it
Degas: A painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with which a criminal commits a crime
Life is either a demonstration or a collaboration
One day I would demonstrate by writing my novel, the next day collaborate by writing bilge
I sense hatred as an energy. The energy is blind. Its source is exactly the same vitality from which creative forces take nourishment
Hatred, if it well organized, creates a reality in the same way as even love might create a reality
God may be found readily in a dictatorship, whereas in democracy there is no longer any metaphysical excuse:
The individual in his own right struggles with his freedom
The truth is that with my work everything is connected with everything else
I always doubt every sentence I utter, but I have never for a moment doubted that I have to write what I happen to be writing
Not only people but societies are not born for happiness but strife
The intertwining broken threads of the story appeared to me in my imagination
No, I am sorry, but please don’t interrupt me!
The greatest joy for me here, on this earth, was writing, language
I see contradictions at every hand, but then I take delight in contradictions
The world of fiction is a sovereign world that comes to life in the author's head
In the novel I did have to invent Auschwitz and bring it to life
I look on my life as raw material for my novels: that’s just the way I am, and it frees me from any inhibitions
I could be gunned down anywhere, at any time
One is always happy to think back to one's childhood, however rotten and tough a period it may have been
I'm prone to mystic experiences, but dogmatic faith is totally alien to me
Religious feeling in my view is a human necessity
Art is nothing other than exaggeration and distortion
Where Auschwitz starts logic stops
Once one is in the trap of Auschwitz there is no choice
The secret of survival is collaboration
The virtuality of Auschwitz inheres in every dictatorship
The survivor is an exception; his existence—really the result of an industrial accident in the machinery of death
It is so hard to accept, to come to terms with the exceptional and anomalous existence that survival stands for
I may have written a novel but I have solved nothing
The riddle of the world has remained just as tormenting a thorn as it was before
As we must all die, we have the right—even a duty—to think boldly
I wouldn’t call dodging the ultimate questions optimism but plain cowardice
An optimist has to die just as much as a pessimist
Since Auschwitz it has become redundant to make any judgments about human nature
Truth is no longer universal
It is simpler to surrender ourselves to salvational ideas than stick to our own unique and irreproducible existence, to choose our own truth rather than the truth
It's a good thing for a novel to have certain words that live on in readers like a blazing secret
I have written my books, and that has obviously altered my memories
At all events I lived without any plants, taking each day as it came
Everything I did was by mistake; all in all, I lived in complete error
Writing as a way of life for me was linked with fatal love, on the one hand, and total idleness, on the other
Art always regards life as a celebration
To write a poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric
Auschwitz truly was a great school. What made me Jewish was the Holocaust
I didn’t have an identity, and I didn’t miss having one, either
The imagination is also a kind of reality
I had to recognize that the sentences that would appear under my hand would sometimes arrive unexpectedly
I needed time, more time, in fact a great deal more time
Talent is one of those words that is used, but no one knows what it means
Let's just accept that not every question has an answer
Lines like that truly drove me wild
Creation was born of passion and was reshaped anew as passion
"So life must be to be creative"
The word "chance" doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t explain anything. I could replace it with the word "inevitable"
Sartre: You talk in your own language but you write in a foreign language
Truth-telling artists generally prove to be bad artists
We need to have respect for man's fallibility and ignorance
There is nothing sorrier than a person who is right
I always wanted to die, and instead of that I always wrote a book—that would be an elegant cop-out
World exists only as long as I exist, and it only exists in the manner in which I can imagine it
Degas: A painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with which a criminal commits a crime
Life is either a demonstration or a collaboration
One day I would demonstrate by writing my novel, the next day collaborate by writing bilge
I sense hatred as an energy. The energy is blind. Its source is exactly the same vitality from which creative forces take nourishment
Hatred, if it well organized, creates a reality in the same way as even love might create a reality
God may be found readily in a dictatorship, whereas in democracy there is no longer any metaphysical excuse:
The individual in his own right struggles with his freedom
The truth is that with my work everything is connected with everything else
I always doubt every sentence I utter, but I have never for a moment doubted that I have to write what I happen to be writing
Not only people but societies are not born for happiness but strife
The intertwining broken threads of the story appeared to me in my imagination
No, I am sorry, but please don’t interrupt me!
The greatest joy for me here, on this earth, was writing, language
I see contradictions at every hand, but then I take delight in contradictions
May 10, 2014
A wonderful examination of a Nobel laureate, "Dossier K" plumbs Imre Kertesz's past for an audience not familiar with the heretofore unknown Hungarian novelist. Focusing mostly on his experiences in the World War II death camps and under the Hungarian Communist regime, the book is in the form of an interview conducted by his editor Zoltan Hafner in 2003 and 2004. Upon receiving the tapes, he set to work to put them into a publishable form, and "Dossier K" is the result.
As a portrait of the artist, it shows the circuitous route at which he arrived at his vocation, a vocation at which he didn't think he would be very successful, but which had to be served regardless. As the portrait of a man, it can best be summed up by his final words: "I see contradictions at every hand, but then I take delight in contradictions."
If you want to get into the mind of an artist, "Dossier K" is a must read of the literature.
As a portrait of the artist, it shows the circuitous route at which he arrived at his vocation, a vocation at which he didn't think he would be very successful, but which had to be served regardless. As the portrait of a man, it can best be summed up by his final words: "I see contradictions at every hand, but then I take delight in contradictions."
If you want to get into the mind of an artist, "Dossier K" is a must read of the literature.
May 30, 2013
The author, a Nobel Prize winner, interviews himself to try to achieve a better understanding of how events in his life shaped his writing. Although it is interesting, if you haven't read the novels he is dissecting (I haven't)it can be a rather fruitless exercise. The tales that are explicitly descibed certainly make me want to read the full stories. What I really took away from this book was the philosophical musings of a survivor of 2 dictatorships who can still look at life with a wry sense of humor, even joking about his thoughts of suicide. Still, I'd recommend reading his novels first before embarking on this journey.
February 15, 2010
В световния ред сигурно действа някаква ужасна грешка, някаква диаболична ирония, която преживяваш като обикновен, нормален живот, и тази ужасна грешка представляват самата култура, идейната система, езикът и понятията, които скриват от теб, че вече отдавна си гладко работеща част от механизма на създадената за твоето унищожение машина. Тайната на оцеляването е колаборацията, но ако я признаеш, ще си навлечеш на главата такъв срам, че по-скоро ще я отхвърлиш, отколкото да се ангажираш с нея.
Животът е или протест, или колаборация.
Животът е или протест, или колаборация.
August 19, 2014
Zajímavé čtení - pokud jste předtím četli Člověka bez osudu, Fiasko a pokud možno i Kadiš za nenarozené dítě a Union Jack (česky tuším zatím nevyšlo), kniha se na ně hodně odvolává a bez kontextu to asi nebude ono.
November 28, 2014
Review published in Berfrois, May 2013: http://www.berfrois.com/2013/05/k-tho...
December 12, 2015
Izvendredan uvod u dela i filozofiju Imre Kertész-a. Pitko i čitko, što je u neku ruku prijatno iznenadjenje jer je tema sama po sebi teška.
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