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Wartime Lies
Obrazki ze Lwowa, powstańczej Warszawy i wsi mazowieckiej widziane oczami kilkuletniego narratora stawiają "Wojenne kłamstwa" w rzędzie arcydzieł gatunku, takich jak "Początek" Andrzeja Szczypiorskiego czy "Malowany ptak" Jerzego Kosińskiego, z którym krytyka często porównuje książkę Begleya.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
199 people are currently reading
2260 people want to read
About the author
Louis Begley
44 books86 followersLouis Begley is an American novelist.
Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryi at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician. He is a survivor of the Holocaust due to the multiple purchases of Aryan papers by his mother and constant evasion of the Nazis. They survived by pretending to be Polish Catholic. The family left Poland in the fall of 1946 and settled in New York in March 1947. Begley studied English Literature at Harvard College (AB '54, summa cum laude), and published in the Harvard Advocate. Service in the United States Army followed. In 1956 Begley entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1959 (LL.B. magna cum laude).
Upon graduation from Law School, Begley joined the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate; became a partner in January 1968; became of counsel in January 2004; and retired in January 2007. From 1993 to 1995, Begley was also president of PEN American Center. He remains a member of PEN's board of directors, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His wife of 30 years, Anka Muhlstein, was honoured by the French Academy for her work on La Salle, and received critical acclaim for her book A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine.
His first novel, Wartime Lies, was written in 1989. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first work of fiction in 1991. The French version, Une éducation polonaise, won the Prix Médicis International in 1992. He has also won several German literature prizes, including the Jeanette Schocken Prize in 1995 and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2000.
His novel About Schmidt was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jack Nicholson.
Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryi at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician. He is a survivor of the Holocaust due to the multiple purchases of Aryan papers by his mother and constant evasion of the Nazis. They survived by pretending to be Polish Catholic. The family left Poland in the fall of 1946 and settled in New York in March 1947. Begley studied English Literature at Harvard College (AB '54, summa cum laude), and published in the Harvard Advocate. Service in the United States Army followed. In 1956 Begley entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1959 (LL.B. magna cum laude).
Upon graduation from Law School, Begley joined the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate; became a partner in January 1968; became of counsel in January 2004; and retired in January 2007. From 1993 to 1995, Begley was also president of PEN American Center. He remains a member of PEN's board of directors, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His wife of 30 years, Anka Muhlstein, was honoured by the French Academy for her work on La Salle, and received critical acclaim for her book A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine.
His first novel, Wartime Lies, was written in 1989. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first work of fiction in 1991. The French version, Une éducation polonaise, won the Prix Médicis International in 1992. He has also won several German literature prizes, including the Jeanette Schocken Prize in 1995 and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2000.
His novel About Schmidt was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jack Nicholson.
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February 9, 2024
در اولین برخوردم با اسم کتاب، دروغ های زمان جنگ، تصورم این بود که این دروغ ها حتماااا در راستای فریب افکار عمومی از طرف دشمن و دولت و... بوده ( تاثیر جغرافیا و توهم توطئه برحسب تجربه و... 😁)و به همین دلیل انتظار ی کتاب فوقالعاده جذاب رو داشتم، اما...
دروغ های زمان جنگ، روایت نیمه واقعی زندگی ی پسر بچه یهودی و خاله ی جوانش در لهستانه که با گرفتن هویتی تقلبی و فریب دیگران، برای حفظ زندگیشون و در امان موندن از خطرهای مختلف، سختی های زیادی رو تحمل میکنند ... خط سیر و نوع داستان پردازی، نه خیلی هیجان انگیز و ملموس ه و نه خیلی کم مایه، متوسطه و گاهی کسل کننده!
شخصیت پردازی، توصیف اتفاقات و فضاسازی های کتاب هم به قدری سطحیه که اونطوری که باید حس و تصویر رو منتقل نمیکنه..
⭐️۳ زیاده و ⭐️۲ کم، ⭐️۲.۵ خیرشو ببینه😎
دروغ های زمان جنگ، روایت نیمه واقعی زندگی ی پسر بچه یهودی و خاله ی جوانش در لهستانه که با گرفتن هویتی تقلبی و فریب دیگران، برای حفظ زندگیشون و در امان موندن از خطرهای مختلف، سختی های زیادی رو تحمل میکنند ... خط سیر و نوع داستان پردازی، نه خیلی هیجان انگیز و ملموس ه و نه خیلی کم مایه، متوسطه و گاهی کسل کننده!
شخصیت پردازی، توصیف اتفاقات و فضاسازی های کتاب هم به قدری سطحیه که اونطوری که باید حس و تصویر رو منتقل نمیکنه..
⭐️۳ زیاده و ⭐️۲ کم، ⭐️۲.۵ خیرشو ببینه😎
August 14, 2019
The toll of a boyhood spent during the Nazi occupation of Poland - hiding and lying - is the crux of this short and powerful novel.
March 3, 2009
This incredibly well-written novel is not the typical - if you'll forgive calling a Holocaust survival story 'typical' - story of a survivor of WWII. The perspective is that of a Jewish boy in Poland who never sees a concentration camp, but lives a different kind of trauma in hiding his Jewish identity throughout the war. The novel addresses many complexities, but for me ultimately raised questions of "honorable" choice: is there more honor in surviving a war, and in this case escaping the worst atrocity, one way versus another? How does the unsentimental practicality inherent in a survivor's generation impact a child? What does it mean to be a survivor on the fringe of a community already on the periphery? Highly recommended - also a quick read.
September 26, 2017
There is something about Slavic natives who learned French before learning English that gives them a wonderful facility with the language. I am thinking of Kafka and Nabokov, but Louis Begley fits the pattern nicely.
As a first novel, this is an admirable achievement. Its reputation is as of a thinly fictionalized retelling of Begley's own experience surviving the Holocaust in Poland. Judged as a memoir, it's a harrowing, at times overwhelming account of a heartbreaking childhood. As fiction, I think, it's even a bit more profound. The title refers to the lifesaving falsities that the victims of the Holocaust were coerced into telling, from the false identities and forged papers to the narrator's feigned conversion and first communion in the Catholic church. Begley's prose shifts between layers of narrative, as in The Man Who Was Late, and the text breaks away to comment on the primary story from a more contemplative vantage, presumably one very like Begley's own experience as an older man attempting to put his childhood past down on paper from a future remove.
The "wartime lies," then, refer to both the necessary deceptions of the protagonist and to the act itself of creating autobiographical fiction. The meta-narrative refers often to Dante's Inferno, lingering long (as Dante himself does) in Malebolge, the Eighth Circle of Hell reserved for the second-greatest sin of telling lies. Dante's metonymous protagonist struggles the hardest to emerge from the ditch of the hypocrites, indicating Dante's belief that this is his own greatest sin---a fitting bit of self-recognition for the flawed, human author of an account gleefully sitting in judgment of the characters he has placed in a literary damnation of his own devise. Begley the real author, like Begley the child protagonist and Begley's spectral form as the ponderous omniscient narrator, is a Jew and so uncommitted to the reality of Dante's afterlife. That ghostly voice cannot, or does not, speak to us living sinners from the grim beyond; the only authority that speaker assumes is over the metaphysics of the little world created in this work of literature. What are the rules of moral obligation, to oneself and to others and to the truth, of that alone he may speak.
The rest, as a fellow once said, is silence.
As a first novel, this is an admirable achievement. Its reputation is as of a thinly fictionalized retelling of Begley's own experience surviving the Holocaust in Poland. Judged as a memoir, it's a harrowing, at times overwhelming account of a heartbreaking childhood. As fiction, I think, it's even a bit more profound. The title refers to the lifesaving falsities that the victims of the Holocaust were coerced into telling, from the false identities and forged papers to the narrator's feigned conversion and first communion in the Catholic church. Begley's prose shifts between layers of narrative, as in The Man Who Was Late, and the text breaks away to comment on the primary story from a more contemplative vantage, presumably one very like Begley's own experience as an older man attempting to put his childhood past down on paper from a future remove.
The "wartime lies," then, refer to both the necessary deceptions of the protagonist and to the act itself of creating autobiographical fiction. The meta-narrative refers often to Dante's Inferno, lingering long (as Dante himself does) in Malebolge, the Eighth Circle of Hell reserved for the second-greatest sin of telling lies. Dante's metonymous protagonist struggles the hardest to emerge from the ditch of the hypocrites, indicating Dante's belief that this is his own greatest sin---a fitting bit of self-recognition for the flawed, human author of an account gleefully sitting in judgment of the characters he has placed in a literary damnation of his own devise. Begley the real author, like Begley the child protagonist and Begley's spectral form as the ponderous omniscient narrator, is a Jew and so uncommitted to the reality of Dante's afterlife. That ghostly voice cannot, or does not, speak to us living sinners from the grim beyond; the only authority that speaker assumes is over the metaphysics of the little world created in this work of literature. What are the rules of moral obligation, to oneself and to others and to the truth, of that alone he may speak.
The rest, as a fellow once said, is silence.
May 12, 2021
Meine bleibende Dankbarkeit für dieses Buch!
In meiner Studentenbude in Halle hatte ich Wanzen in den Wänden, die richtigen, die beißen und Blut saugen.
Meine damalige Freundin hat gegoogelt, was man machen soll, ich habe in Begleys Buch nachgeschlagen, weil ich mich daran erinnert habe, dass es darum auch geht in diesem Roman über die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Juden.
Begleys Methode hat gegen das Internet gewonnen: Bei Licht schlafen war erfolgreicher als die Paste von amazon. Ich verleihe das Prädikat "zeitlos" und gut.
In meiner Studentenbude in Halle hatte ich Wanzen in den Wänden, die richtigen, die beißen und Blut saugen.
Meine damalige Freundin hat gegoogelt, was man machen soll, ich habe in Begleys Buch nachgeschlagen, weil ich mich daran erinnert habe, dass es darum auch geht in diesem Roman über die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Juden.
Begleys Methode hat gegen das Internet gewonnen: Bei Licht schlafen war erfolgreicher als die Paste von amazon. Ich verleihe das Prädikat "zeitlos" und gut.
February 19, 2024
“Wartime Lies”, by Louis Begley (1991), won a bunch of awards, and I now see why. This semi-autobiographical and unflinching Holocaust survival story from a child’s point of view, was so riveting that I pretty much read it in one sitting.
I wish we could shake our head at “man’s inhumanity to man” and think: Oh well, that was 80 years ago, it’s different now. Sadly, it is not.
I wish we could shake our head at “man’s inhumanity to man” and think: Oh well, that was 80 years ago, it’s different now. Sadly, it is not.
December 16, 2007
It is essential to always remember what human beings have done and can do to each other. Cruelty and a lust for violence may or may not be innate, but in a time of fear, in a culture of survival, compassion is the rarest of human traits. These are important lessons, but they can overwhelm you if you immerse yourself in them for too long.
Which is why Wartime Lies, like The Painted Bird, is a gripping, harrowing book that I will never read again.
One more thing to consider is the contrast between this book and Suite Francaise. Was there a natural contrast between the experiences of the Poles and the French in the wake of the German invasions? Undoubtedly, yes. Yet Wartime Lies, as The Painted Bird before it, was much more savage. Of course Suite Francaise was never completed, so I suppose the argument is futile.
Which is why Wartime Lies, like The Painted Bird, is a gripping, harrowing book that I will never read again.
One more thing to consider is the contrast between this book and Suite Francaise. Was there a natural contrast between the experiences of the Poles and the French in the wake of the German invasions? Undoubtedly, yes. Yet Wartime Lies, as The Painted Bird before it, was much more savage. Of course Suite Francaise was never completed, so I suppose the argument is futile.
September 20, 2020
Because the narrator is a nine-year-old boy, the prose is simple and spare; the narrative straightforward. Neither the prose nor the narrative is childish. Though his awareness is limited, he is aware, and understands that his survival depends upon his remaining so.
The plot is riveting. The coda, heartbreaking in more ways than one.
Recommended.
The plot is riveting. The coda, heartbreaking in more ways than one.
Recommended.
November 2, 2022
It sounded interesting when I came across it. I have previously read a couple of books about Poland, and the treatment of the Jewish people in the country during WWII, but not many, and this would round out my WWII reading. The narrator is Maciek, a child when German occupation of Poland began, the other main character is Tanya, his aunt. His aunt obtains fake papers for them, and fights tooth and nail to keep Maciek and herself a step ahead of the Nazis and their Polish collaborators. The lies are the narrator's - he's learned to lie when he was a child and is both uneasy about his facility with them and his inability to stop. The book was interesting, I loved Tanya and her I will do whatever it takes attitude, but I also liked Maciek - I kept wondering when an innocent (or arrogant) action of his would give the game away and the two would end up on the next train to Auschwitz, but it didn't happen. I got the impression that the author was way too hard on Maciek*, and I didn't understand that until I found out later that this is semi-autobiographical and that he himself is Maciek. And now I hope he's easier on himself in real life than he was to the version in the book.
*Of course, I might be mistaken, and it might just be a sympathetic commentary on the toll of war on survivors, but I felt like the emphasis on lies felt harsher towards Maciek than towards Tanya, who often told the same lies.
*Of course, I might be mistaken, and it might just be a sympathetic commentary on the toll of war on survivors, but I felt like the emphasis on lies felt harsher towards Maciek than towards Tanya, who often told the same lies.
November 24, 2023
Hallo Leute,
Kann dieses Buch, das ich random spontan am Campus in an der Uni Wien gekauft habe weil mich irgendwas gecatcht hat, absolut empfehlen.
Leider macht das Lesen keinen Spass, sondern lässt einen eher fassungslos zurück. Man hat natürlich viele Dokus und Filme über den Holocaust gesehen, aber das Buch hat trotzdem geschockt.
Brauche auf jeden Fall ein bisschen um mich davon zu erholen.
Richtig geil geschriebene Character und tolle Art diesen Horror zu erzählen.
Das waren auf jeden Fall sad vibes und keine schönen Nächte.
In diesem Sinne haut rein :)
Kann dieses Buch, das ich random spontan am Campus in an der Uni Wien gekauft habe weil mich irgendwas gecatcht hat, absolut empfehlen.
Leider macht das Lesen keinen Spass, sondern lässt einen eher fassungslos zurück. Man hat natürlich viele Dokus und Filme über den Holocaust gesehen, aber das Buch hat trotzdem geschockt.
Brauche auf jeden Fall ein bisschen um mich davon zu erholen.
Richtig geil geschriebene Character und tolle Art diesen Horror zu erzählen.
Das waren auf jeden Fall sad vibes und keine schönen Nächte.
In diesem Sinne haut rein :)
July 17, 2009
Love, love, love this book. This was the first Begley that I read, and I do like him so much, but this is hands down the best one. Amazingly, not a single attribution in the whole thing. Quick, heartbreaking, and so vividly written that I can still remember so many scenes as if I saw them in a movie, and I read it years ago.
The protagonist's aunt - apparently he's never said one way or another the degree to which this is autobio, but there's a lot of speculation that it's pretty close - is an absolutely stunning character. I loved how she manages to escape from the Warsaw eviction, which is truly harrowing.
Begley is another of these spare, cut-to-the-bone writers that I love. Can't recommend this book enough. Sadly, Kubrick had optioned this - brilliant pairing or filmmaker and writer - but because of Schindler's List being shot very close to the same time, he decided not to make the film. It's too bad. It would have been amazing.
The protagonist's aunt - apparently he's never said one way or another the degree to which this is autobio, but there's a lot of speculation that it's pretty close - is an absolutely stunning character. I loved how she manages to escape from the Warsaw eviction, which is truly harrowing.
Begley is another of these spare, cut-to-the-bone writers that I love. Can't recommend this book enough. Sadly, Kubrick had optioned this - brilliant pairing or filmmaker and writer - but because of Schindler's List being shot very close to the same time, he decided not to make the film. It's too bad. It would have been amazing.
July 15, 2017
A well written story told from the viewpoint of a young Jewish boy and his aunt escaping the Nazi's in Poland.
December 28, 2019
Fast-paced, well-written story of the horrors of war and destruction of Jewish life in Poland where you had to survive by your wits. Most interesting for me was life in a Polish village near the end of the book. Recommended
April 7, 2017
Quite a dull read I'm afraid!
June 16, 2022
A pretty slow read that in the end was just okay. Towards the end of the novel, it felt like the writer was just trying to wrap up the storyline as quickly as possible. The last chapter felt very much out of place and awkward.
October 21, 2014
“Quem sofre busca comunicar seu sofrimento – seja maltratando, seja provocando a piedade – a fim de diminuí-lo, e assim realmente o diminui. Aquele que está completamente por baixo, que ninguém lamenta, que não tem o poder de maltratar ninguém (se não tem filho ou criatura que o ame), seu sofrimento permanece nele e o envenena. É algo imperioso como a gravidade. Como livrar-se disso? Como livrar-se do que é como a gravidade?”
Esse trecho de “A gravidade e a graça” de Simone Weil está desenvolvido plenamente nesta triste e bem contada história, protagonizada pelo menino Maciek, e sua família e a Polônia durante a segunda Guerra Mundial.
Foi uma época de loucura e raiva coletiva com cargas monstruosas e constantes de ódio disseminado. Como todos nós hoje já estamos informados, insistentemente apenas informados.
Como se livrar do sofrimento vivido na infância por aquele menino judeu, loiro de olhos azuis, e sem nenhum traço denunciador de sua origem? Ele precisou tomar emprestado várias identidades; chegando ao ponto de não saber exatamente qual era a sua verdadeira? Ele não conseguiu outra forma senão, agora adulto, escrevendo este livro. A história exibe também a impossibilidade de haver uma comunhão pacífica e perene entre as diferentes religiões concebidas homem. Principalmente aquela que divide os judeus e os cristãos. Setenta anos depois, temos notícias hoje, ontem, de atividades antissemitas na velha Europa (França, Bélgica e Alemanha). Após a dissidência original jamais haverá a possibilidade de perdão aos judeus pelos católicos, e vice-versa como exaustivamente mostra George Steiner em seus ensaios.
A minha infância, como a dele, foi original, eu a perdi também, e posso assegurar que de alguma maneira os sentimentos que deveria viver na infância, ficaram guardados para serem exibidos e, (por que não?) vividos bem mais tarde, não em forma de livro, mas pelo riso e por alguma leveza. O riso ficou guardado interiormente e se soltou mais tarde em outras ocasiões, até impróprias para a minha idade.
Outro menino, Tião, nascido em uma família que vivia no “Lixão” no ‘Jardim Gramacho’ em Duque de Caxias, baixada fluminense, só tomou conhecimento deste fato depois de crescido, até então o menino se divertia como qualquer outro, aquele monturo era a sua Disneylândia, não sabia o significado daqueles urubus que conviviam com ele, muito menos daquela faina com restos, plásticos e detritos que separava. Escolhia o que talvez possuísse utilidade e pudesse render alguma grana para a sobrevivência.
E são essas histórias que você lerá neste livro. A infância de um menino que viveu em uma época de ódio absoluto e vingança exterminante de uns contra os outros. E ele se livrou do sofrimento contando para nós, os outros que fomos espectadores dessa dor imensa e sobre- humana. Não há mais a ser escrito. Há sim o que ser lido e depois ficará como uma tatuagem mental daquela realidade em cada um de nós. Indescritível. “Este mundo visível é apenas uma imagem do invisível.”
Esse trecho de “A gravidade e a graça” de Simone Weil está desenvolvido plenamente nesta triste e bem contada história, protagonizada pelo menino Maciek, e sua família e a Polônia durante a segunda Guerra Mundial.
Foi uma época de loucura e raiva coletiva com cargas monstruosas e constantes de ódio disseminado. Como todos nós hoje já estamos informados, insistentemente apenas informados.
Como se livrar do sofrimento vivido na infância por aquele menino judeu, loiro de olhos azuis, e sem nenhum traço denunciador de sua origem? Ele precisou tomar emprestado várias identidades; chegando ao ponto de não saber exatamente qual era a sua verdadeira? Ele não conseguiu outra forma senão, agora adulto, escrevendo este livro. A história exibe também a impossibilidade de haver uma comunhão pacífica e perene entre as diferentes religiões concebidas homem. Principalmente aquela que divide os judeus e os cristãos. Setenta anos depois, temos notícias hoje, ontem, de atividades antissemitas na velha Europa (França, Bélgica e Alemanha). Após a dissidência original jamais haverá a possibilidade de perdão aos judeus pelos católicos, e vice-versa como exaustivamente mostra George Steiner em seus ensaios.
A minha infância, como a dele, foi original, eu a perdi também, e posso assegurar que de alguma maneira os sentimentos que deveria viver na infância, ficaram guardados para serem exibidos e, (por que não?) vividos bem mais tarde, não em forma de livro, mas pelo riso e por alguma leveza. O riso ficou guardado interiormente e se soltou mais tarde em outras ocasiões, até impróprias para a minha idade.
Outro menino, Tião, nascido em uma família que vivia no “Lixão” no ‘Jardim Gramacho’ em Duque de Caxias, baixada fluminense, só tomou conhecimento deste fato depois de crescido, até então o menino se divertia como qualquer outro, aquele monturo era a sua Disneylândia, não sabia o significado daqueles urubus que conviviam com ele, muito menos daquela faina com restos, plásticos e detritos que separava. Escolhia o que talvez possuísse utilidade e pudesse render alguma grana para a sobrevivência.
E são essas histórias que você lerá neste livro. A infância de um menino que viveu em uma época de ódio absoluto e vingança exterminante de uns contra os outros. E ele se livrou do sofrimento contando para nós, os outros que fomos espectadores dessa dor imensa e sobre- humana. Não há mais a ser escrito. Há sim o que ser lido e depois ficará como uma tatuagem mental daquela realidade em cada um de nós. Indescritível. “Este mundo visível é apenas uma imagem do invisível.”
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September 25, 2023Wartime Lies
By Louis Begley
Wartime Lies is not the typical "Holocaust" book. Other than showing us the horror, it doesn't seem to have a clear moral point about the event. It doesn't give us a prescription on how to live a better life. Louis Begley, the author, on whose life the story is based, did not become a Nazi Hunter or an inspirational speaker post-1945. Instead it has a more muddled impact, perhaps more troubling and saddening. It tells us that you can be both saved and lost at the same time and that those who say we should “never forget” might not consider that some survivors yearn to.
The writing is beautiful and has an understated tone. Acts of rape and murder are described in a bare matter of fact way. There is a particular scene where the surviving civilians of the Warsaw Uprising are death-marched to eastern bound trains. There's no fuss in Begley’s descriptions, no reflections on the callous acts, which might serve as a cushion to help us bear the scenes of attractive women being pulled from the crowd by groups of Ukrainian auxiliaries.
The presence of these non-German perpetrators, who are joined by “Aryan” Poles, gave the feeling that the hands that dealt the Holocaust were European, and that Nazism had both forced upon and let loose a murderous hatred from other Europeans. With such hatred among German and non-German alike, escape was not a destination but a constant endeavor. As a Jew you could break out of a ghetto or a camp, but as Tania and Maciek discover, the only way to truly escape was not to be a Jew at all.
By Louis Begley
Wartime Lies is not the typical "Holocaust" book. Other than showing us the horror, it doesn't seem to have a clear moral point about the event. It doesn't give us a prescription on how to live a better life. Louis Begley, the author, on whose life the story is based, did not become a Nazi Hunter or an inspirational speaker post-1945. Instead it has a more muddled impact, perhaps more troubling and saddening. It tells us that you can be both saved and lost at the same time and that those who say we should “never forget” might not consider that some survivors yearn to.
The writing is beautiful and has an understated tone. Acts of rape and murder are described in a bare matter of fact way. There is a particular scene where the surviving civilians of the Warsaw Uprising are death-marched to eastern bound trains. There's no fuss in Begley’s descriptions, no reflections on the callous acts, which might serve as a cushion to help us bear the scenes of attractive women being pulled from the crowd by groups of Ukrainian auxiliaries.
The presence of these non-German perpetrators, who are joined by “Aryan” Poles, gave the feeling that the hands that dealt the Holocaust were European, and that Nazism had both forced upon and let loose a murderous hatred from other Europeans. With such hatred among German and non-German alike, escape was not a destination but a constant endeavor. As a Jew you could break out of a ghetto or a camp, but as Tania and Maciek discover, the only way to truly escape was not to be a Jew at all.
August 18, 2021
This definitely is unlike most other WWII/Holocaust fiction, as our main character is a young boy that manages to hide out in Poland throughout the war. While the story was interesting, there was some unnecessary and disturbing sexual content that made me feel uncomfortable. I'll detail those in the spoiler section.
January 24, 2025
Maciek ist neun Jahre alt, als er und seine Tante in Polen während des zweiten Weltkriegs gezwungen sind, neue Identitäten anzunehmen, um ihre jüdische Herkunft zu verschleiern. Nicht nur geben sie sich als Katholiken aus, sie entwickeln auch immer komplexere Geschichten, die ihre Tarnung sichern sollen. Sobald der Verdacht aufkommt, dass jemand ihrem Geheimnis auf die Spur kommen könnte, verlassen sie ihren Aufenthaltsort und beginnen woanders von vorn. Diese ständige Täuschung zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch ihre Leben während des Krieges und prägt Macieks Leben für immer.
«Das Lügen war mir so sehr zur Gewohnheit geworden, daß ich zwanghaft log, ob ich wollte oder nicht, und ich glaubte auch nicht mehr, daß Tanja oder ich selbst mir Schwäche, Dummheit oder Fehler verzeihen könnten.» Ein falsches Wort war keine Kleinigkeit – es bedeutete Lebensgefahr. Aber was bleibt von einem Menschen übrig, der nie sich selbst sein kann? Der ständig auf der Hut ist, immer wachsam, immer in Angst? Was macht das mit einem Menschen? Louis Begley setzt sich in seinem Debütroman eindringlich mit diesen Fragen auseinander und lässt uns die zerstörerische Kraft von Angst und Täuschung durch Macieks Augen miterleben.
Interessanterweise erschien dieser Roman erstmals 1991 und war Begleys literarisches Debüt; ein Debüt, das er mit 58 Jahren veröffentlichte. Bis dahin hatte er eine erfolgreiche Karriere als Anwalt in einer renommierten Kanzlei in New York hinter sich. Erst im späten Leben entschloss er sich, seine Erfahrungen und Reflexionen in literarischer Form zu verarbeiten. Zum Glück, denn dieses Buch hallt lange nach und gehört zu jenen Werken, die einem in Erinnerung bleiben.
«Das Lügen war mir so sehr zur Gewohnheit geworden, daß ich zwanghaft log, ob ich wollte oder nicht, und ich glaubte auch nicht mehr, daß Tanja oder ich selbst mir Schwäche, Dummheit oder Fehler verzeihen könnten.» Ein falsches Wort war keine Kleinigkeit – es bedeutete Lebensgefahr. Aber was bleibt von einem Menschen übrig, der nie sich selbst sein kann? Der ständig auf der Hut ist, immer wachsam, immer in Angst? Was macht das mit einem Menschen? Louis Begley setzt sich in seinem Debütroman eindringlich mit diesen Fragen auseinander und lässt uns die zerstörerische Kraft von Angst und Täuschung durch Macieks Augen miterleben.
Interessanterweise erschien dieser Roman erstmals 1991 und war Begleys literarisches Debüt; ein Debüt, das er mit 58 Jahren veröffentlichte. Bis dahin hatte er eine erfolgreiche Karriere als Anwalt in einer renommierten Kanzlei in New York hinter sich. Erst im späten Leben entschloss er sich, seine Erfahrungen und Reflexionen in literarischer Form zu verarbeiten. Zum Glück, denn dieses Buch hallt lange nach und gehört zu jenen Werken, die einem in Erinnerung bleiben.
December 31, 2022
This is only barely a novel. Mostly, it's merely a very baren account of one wartime experience (how much of it fictional and how much not I wouldn't presume to judge) without almost any artistic flourish, stylistic layers or complex critical explorations that would make this actually read as fiction.
And the only 3 actually notable stylistic elements don't work.
Firstly, the random Dante interludes - on top of being totally random - do not fit the perspective and style of the rest of the narrarive.
Then again, said perspective and narrative style are in themselves inconsistent as well as utterly unengaging and uninteresting because the story is supposedly centred on a 9-year old boy, yet we neither get an actual 9-year-old's perspective, nor do we get an older man's critical examination of his young self's experience. Instead, we get some bouncing around, inbetween, "doesn't feel like Begley thought this through"-ness.
And finally, that very last issue also completely ruins the ending, which would contain the only interesting concept in this book, which however comes *so* out of nowhere, has no build up whatsoever throughout the rest of the narrative and is *so* told instead of shown, that it just doesn't work. Instead it just feels slapped on.
I truly wish someone took this ending and actually wrote a book that leads up to and portrays this message in an indepth manner. This, however, is not that book. And I seriously don't know how to test this in a literature rather than history exam...
And the only 3 actually notable stylistic elements don't work.
Firstly, the random Dante interludes - on top of being totally random - do not fit the perspective and style of the rest of the narrarive.
Then again, said perspective and narrative style are in themselves inconsistent as well as utterly unengaging and uninteresting because the story is supposedly centred on a 9-year old boy, yet we neither get an actual 9-year-old's perspective, nor do we get an older man's critical examination of his young self's experience. Instead, we get some bouncing around, inbetween, "doesn't feel like Begley thought this through"-ness.
And finally, that very last issue also completely ruins the ending, which would contain the only interesting concept in this book, which however comes *so* out of nowhere, has no build up whatsoever throughout the rest of the narrative and is *so* told instead of shown, that it just doesn't work. Instead it just feels slapped on.
I truly wish someone took this ending and actually wrote a book that leads up to and portrays this message in an indepth manner. This, however, is not that book. And I seriously don't know how to test this in a literature rather than history exam...
April 28, 2020
This is a novel about a young Polish Jewish boy, Maciek, and his experiences during WW2. He and his aunt survive the War by almost continually moving around: a succession of temporary lodgings, false papers, new cover stories, endless wartime lies. It's based on Begley's own experiences during the war, although as he says in the afterword it's a novel because his own memories are too episodic to form a cohesive narrative and fictionalising characters made it less painful for him.
I haven't read a story like this before. It was powerful and it vividly conveys the intense fear they lived with for many years. There are a few occasions when he touches on Nazi - and Polish - atrocities but for the most part it's about living on the run, forging cover stories, endlessly lying.
It's quite a cold recollection of what happened. People around him often die suddenly but it's always relayed in a very flat manner. I guess if you live through something like that, becoming detached is how you survive but at times I had to re-read paragraphs thinking "wait, did that just happen?" because they are minimised so much. Perhaps I have become accustomed to the more sentimentalised WW2 fiction that is the norm now, when people feel desperate or broken or angry. These were emotions that Maciek and his aunt could not afford to feel at the time if they were to survive.
I haven't read a story like this before. It was powerful and it vividly conveys the intense fear they lived with for many years. There are a few occasions when he touches on Nazi - and Polish - atrocities but for the most part it's about living on the run, forging cover stories, endlessly lying.
It's quite a cold recollection of what happened. People around him often die suddenly but it's always relayed in a very flat manner. I guess if you live through something like that, becoming detached is how you survive but at times I had to re-read paragraphs thinking "wait, did that just happen?" because they are minimised so much. Perhaps I have become accustomed to the more sentimentalised WW2 fiction that is the norm now, when people feel desperate or broken or angry. These were emotions that Maciek and his aunt could not afford to feel at the time if they were to survive.
July 18, 2021
Wartime Lies
This is a powerful book. Very profound. Beautiful in many ways, but not as you’d think of “beautiful”…and I can’t really explain what I’m trying to say. I feel I don’t have the eloquence to do this book justice in a review. It’s a terribly painful story from beginning to end. Very realistic, so real and heartbreaking. So real, because much of it is based on the reality of the author’s life. The deep psychological damage done to those, especially the Jewish folks, who suffered through the war is huge!! One does not just “get over it.” It is pain upon pain, betrayal over and over again, starvation, deprivation, and atrocities abounding day after day in one form or another. From something terribly disgusting you have to eat, to babies being murdered in cruel ways~the total disregard for your fellowman, and always being pushed to your utmost limit!! My heart broke for this young boy and his family. Aunt Tania is a remarkable woman. Her quick thinking, determination and devotion saved them over and over again. My tears especially flowed over Grandfather. However, each pain is equally heartbreaking when the human spirit and soul are being crushed. It is all individual as to what tragedy affects the worst. I had to stop reading at times~hard to bear. Yet, I’m reminded, I am only reading this not living it. I’m glad I read this book.
pamarella
PRCS
This is a powerful book. Very profound. Beautiful in many ways, but not as you’d think of “beautiful”…and I can’t really explain what I’m trying to say. I feel I don’t have the eloquence to do this book justice in a review. It’s a terribly painful story from beginning to end. Very realistic, so real and heartbreaking. So real, because much of it is based on the reality of the author’s life. The deep psychological damage done to those, especially the Jewish folks, who suffered through the war is huge!! One does not just “get over it.” It is pain upon pain, betrayal over and over again, starvation, deprivation, and atrocities abounding day after day in one form or another. From something terribly disgusting you have to eat, to babies being murdered in cruel ways~the total disregard for your fellowman, and always being pushed to your utmost limit!! My heart broke for this young boy and his family. Aunt Tania is a remarkable woman. Her quick thinking, determination and devotion saved them over and over again. My tears especially flowed over Grandfather. However, each pain is equally heartbreaking when the human spirit and soul are being crushed. It is all individual as to what tragedy affects the worst. I had to stop reading at times~hard to bear. Yet, I’m reminded, I am only reading this not living it. I’m glad I read this book.
pamarella
PRCS
August 21, 2024
I had long been curious about this novel -- given that Kubrick came very close to adapting it. But since I'm now presently on a mission to read all the PEN/Hemingway winners and I've also become obsessed with the collapse of the Weimar Republic, now seemed the right time to read it. And I'm telling you. I HAVEN'T read a Holocaust novel quite like this. What Louis Begley excels at is presenting the cadences of living as they are, even as the Nazis encroach upon Poland. He gives us the minute details of love, pretending, and eluding shared by a boy and his aunt, planting little bombs of detail that make us realize, "Well, fuck me, this poor kid is going to be horribly scarred by all this, isn't he?" So this novel serves as an extremely subtle and damning portrait of how authoritarianism disrupts the joys of life. That if one gets into the habit of lying, one's soul may be permanently maimed. Honestly, I was spellbound through large chunks of this. Begley does little things like changing "SS" to "German" as the boy Maciek continues to narrate. And it's not so much the banality of evil here at work (although there is that in the evil way that the SS officers shoot Jews in the streets), but the tainting of necessary innocence. This is a powerful novel with a lot buried beneath the surface. And I think I'm going to have to check out Begley's Schmidt trilogy.
August 3, 2019
A different perspective on the Jewish experience in Poland from the POV of a man who was born in 1933 and lived through invasion, occupation and the Holocaust. It's fiction but clearly draws upon the author's real life experiences.
The early pre-war years of affluence, culture and family are in marked contrast to what happens to the boy, his immediate family and friends, following Hitler's march into Poland in 1939. With an aunt fiercely determined to survive and the necessary skills and contacts to follow it through, the boy hides his Jewish identity, only possible because of his Aryan appearance, and lives to bear witness.
What this duplicity costs the child and the man he becomes is explored through telling his story, no judgements, no self-pity, no thirst for revenge.
It's short but has a lasting impact: what would you have done under the circumstances? Many Poles helped the boy and his family, at great risk to their own safety, though police and other collaborators enabled the Germans in their aim to wipe out all Jews.
The boy's aunt is a formidable character, with a life force that was never extinguished, willing to do whatever necessary. They were lucky, assimilated, wealthy, educated, resourceful. Definitely worth reading, with an interesting depiction of a world that was lost when the Nazis trampled over Poland.
The early pre-war years of affluence, culture and family are in marked contrast to what happens to the boy, his immediate family and friends, following Hitler's march into Poland in 1939. With an aunt fiercely determined to survive and the necessary skills and contacts to follow it through, the boy hides his Jewish identity, only possible because of his Aryan appearance, and lives to bear witness.
What this duplicity costs the child and the man he becomes is explored through telling his story, no judgements, no self-pity, no thirst for revenge.
It's short but has a lasting impact: what would you have done under the circumstances? Many Poles helped the boy and his family, at great risk to their own safety, though police and other collaborators enabled the Germans in their aim to wipe out all Jews.
The boy's aunt is a formidable character, with a life force that was never extinguished, willing to do whatever necessary. They were lucky, assimilated, wealthy, educated, resourceful. Definitely worth reading, with an interesting depiction of a world that was lost when the Nazis trampled over Poland.
July 15, 2022
This is a really haunting book. Loosely based on the author's own childhood experiences during WWII, Wartime Lies follows a young Polish Jewish boy from a wealthy family--the cossetted son of a doctor--who spends the war hiding as a Polish Catholic with his aunt.
As they drift through Poland, often unsure who to trust or what to believe or what to say, their lives are frequently mundane, interrupted by sudden moments of sheer terror, but that somehow makes the story even more tense and fascinating.
I'm often not a fan of historical fiction that flashes forward to the future, but the scenes that juxtapose the protagonist as an adult, profoundly scarred by his childhood experiences that have removed any sense of self or understanding of regular social interactions and relationships and fixated on Roman and Italian literature as a substitute for the solace he seeks, are really well done. The edition I read includes an interview with the author, which is very insightful.
As they drift through Poland, often unsure who to trust or what to believe or what to say, their lives are frequently mundane, interrupted by sudden moments of sheer terror, but that somehow makes the story even more tense and fascinating.
I'm often not a fan of historical fiction that flashes forward to the future, but the scenes that juxtapose the protagonist as an adult, profoundly scarred by his childhood experiences that have removed any sense of self or understanding of regular social interactions and relationships and fixated on Roman and Italian literature as a substitute for the solace he seeks, are really well done. The edition I read includes an interview with the author, which is very insightful.
November 6, 2017
Semi-autobiographical novel about a Polish-Jewish child and his aunt, and what they have to do in order to stay alive during WW2 in Poland. If you didn't know that these things actually happened, you would find it impossible to believe the story. No matter how often I read something about the Holocaust, the ability of men to treat others as less than, remains shocking. But this is written in a way makes it hard to put down.
Tender and suspenseful by turns, it helped me to know the narrator survives into manhood, though the author makes it clear that the adult is a different person because of his experience. The characters are well- rounded, with no stereotypes. No one is perfect, but is doing the best they can to survive.
Mine was the Kindle/audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, who was born in Poland and so has no trouble pronouncing the names.
Tender and suspenseful by turns, it helped me to know the narrator survives into manhood, though the author makes it clear that the adult is a different person because of his experience. The characters are well- rounded, with no stereotypes. No one is perfect, but is doing the best they can to survive.
Mine was the Kindle/audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, who was born in Poland and so has no trouble pronouncing the names.
February 7, 2021
A fascinating recounting of what a young Jewish Polish boy and his very savvy aunt and grandfather had to do to survive the Nazi occupation of Poland in WWII. Begley and his aunt had to move from town to town, choosing to seek to get by as "Aryan"--with forged papers and super pilot manners, always subject to blackmail and extortion. Begley--who was later a partner at New York's Debevoise Plimpton--writes beautifully and convincingly. I personally have had the privilege of living three years in Poland, which made the descriptions of Warsaw, Mokotow, and the countryside outside all the more real. A powerful because real--and not bathos-bathed--account of the horrors of race "cleansing", man's inhumanity to man, and the ability of those with their wits around them and a little luck to survive.
November 16, 2025
In some ways it seems a little churlish to give this book three stars, however I was simply not particularly taken with it.
The story is told from the perspective of a 9 year old Polish Jewish child who lives through the Nazi occupation. Keeping his identity hidden he and his aunt survive through the German invasion, the holocaust, the Warsaw Rising and as is touched on at the end of the book the new wave of hatred Poles unleashed on the returning Jews after the end of the war. The lies of the book being those they told to survive, about their background, names and pretending to be Christian.
The book itself is disjointed , perhaps this is deliberate as it is told from a childs persepctive but the effect is odd and it just doesn`t flow.
The story is told from the perspective of a 9 year old Polish Jewish child who lives through the Nazi occupation. Keeping his identity hidden he and his aunt survive through the German invasion, the holocaust, the Warsaw Rising and as is touched on at the end of the book the new wave of hatred Poles unleashed on the returning Jews after the end of the war. The lies of the book being those they told to survive, about their background, names and pretending to be Christian.
The book itself is disjointed , perhaps this is deliberate as it is told from a childs persepctive but the effect is odd and it just doesn`t flow.
January 11, 2022
This seemed like a short, quick read over some snowy winter days. Louis Begley looks at the events of the Holocaust in Poland through the eyes of the child Maciek. His journey, like that of his family, takes him from pre war comfort in the bonds of extended family - grandparents, father, aunt and helpers - to the survival driven care of his maternal aunt Tania. Over time, Maciek undergoes a complete change of identity necessitated by the need to live through a period of daily threat to one's existence. The story was short, but not quick for this reader due to the depth of understanding conveyed by the author for Maciek and those around him. Highly recommended.
August 12, 2023
This is an extraordinary book about the human condition. It deals with the holocaust obliquely, through the filter of memory, childhood and absence. It brings the thing home, through the window, in a single amazing paragraph of great impact. The child of the story is not an innocent but neither is he completely aware. The complete absence of judgement from the narrative only emphasizes the fragility of justice itself, in addition to the fragility of the central characters. The manner in which the narrative can shift from a scene of partial normality to one of shocking cruelty emphasizes the danger of the situation. It is a powerful work that reconstitutes the way one sees things.
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