Flight Without End

by Joseph Roth

From the celebrated author of The Radetzky March comes the tragic story of a WWI officer caught in the tumult of a world on the verge of modernity.   As an Austro-Hungarian officer on the Eastern Front of World War I, Franz Tunda was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia. Dreaming of a return to his life in Vienna, he escapes from prison—only to get caught up in the Russian Revolution, fall in love, and fight for the Bolshevik cause.   Upon finally returning to Europe, Tunda finds that the old order is gone and the Europe he once knew has changed utterly. Disillusioned and without a land to call home, Joseph Roth’s tragic hero is a masterful expression of the archetypal modern man taken up by the currents of history.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, German Literature, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Literature

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Joseph Roth, journalist and novelist, was born and grew up in Brody, a small town near Lemberg in East Galicia, part of the easternmost reaches of what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire and is now Ukraine. Roth was born into a Jewish family. He died in Paris after living there in exile.

http://www.josephroth.de/

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

IN UN MONDO IN CUI NON ERA DI CASA



Questo è il romanzo che viene considerato il più autobiografico nella sua produzione, come se Joseph Roth potesse dire “Oui, Franz Tunda c’est moi!”.
Citazione parafrasata a parte, sarebbe bello che fosse così, perché Franz Tunda è il mio eroe (uno dei miei eroi).
Roth è considerato il cantore della finis Austriae, di una grande civiltà in piena dissoluzione (=decadenza). E in queste pagine molti trovano anticipazioni dell’orrore che di lì a qualche anno si abbatté sulla Germania e il resto del mondo con Hitler e il nazismo.

Senza niente negare o contraddire, a me sembra che in queste poche pagine più che di una fine, si parli di un caos, di un ribollire indecifrabile: certo, gli anni della Repubblica di Weimar, i roaring Twenties, ma soprattutto, secondo me, è l’evento nuovo e in gran parte incomprensibile che colpisce e complica il tutto, la rivoluzione bolscevica, un tumulto che spazza via, e non si sa cosa produrrà.



Tunda, il protagonista, intraprende una fuga senza fine non tanto perché non riconosce il mondo dove sta tornando, quello che ha lasciato, perché non si sente più a casa: non si sentiva a casa neppure prima di partire, d’altronde.
È nel mondo che non si sente a casa. Nella vita.
Come nella canzone di Nick Cave, ‘Cassiel’s Song’, giustamente citata da qualcuno a questo proposito:
C'è un luogo che non faceva per te / Dove il tempo stesso era folle e troppo forte / Dove la vita ti è saltata addosso ridendo e ti ha colpito la testa e ti ha fatto male…

Tunda è estraneo, è straniero. A quel mondo.
E alla vita?
Sì, anche alla vita se le regole che la racchiudono sono quelle descritte in queste pagine: non mi sarei affatto meravigliato se in conclusione il protagonista giungesse a fine violenta, suicidio o morte più o meno accidentale.


Helmut Lohner/Franz Tunda nel tv movie omonimo del 1985, regia di Michael Kehlmann.

Franz non riesce a reinserirsi in quel mondo semplicemente perché non può: non solo perché ormai non esiste più, ma perché non si sarebbe inserito anche se fosse rimasto, e non fosse mai partito, mai dato per disperso e creduto morto. Tunda non appartiene a quel mondo, non lo capisce: ma non appartiene neppure al mondo nuovo, non capisce bene neppure questo. Vuole sempre altro, è sempre alla ricerca.
E in fondo, come potrebbe capire, condividere, ed esercitare l’umana pratica di spiegare Marte a un marziano? Arte che come si vede da queste pagine, viene da lontano e, ahimé, va lontano. Infatti, dura ancora: chi ha voglia di ascoltare? Tutti parlano e spiegano tutto, mondo vita e infinito. Viviamo nel mondo dei saggi.


Reginald Gray: Interno con Catherine.

Apparentemente svogliato, abulico, inerte (ma non quando incontra una donzella! Oh, no, le grazie femminili lo coinvolgono da est a ovest, e ovunque lascia un buon ricordo, un segno - Le donne che incontriamo stimolano più la nostra fantasia che non il nostro cuore), Tunda percorre l’Europa dalla Siberia a Parigi, andata e possibile ritorno, chissà, il finale è quanto di più aperto si possa immaginare.

Come giustamente sottolineato da qualcuno, la fuga di Tunda fa pensare a:
Questa è la storia di un uomo che cade da un palazzo di 50 piani. Mano a mano che cadendo passa da un piano all'altro, il tizio per farsi coraggio si ripete: "Fino a qui, tutto bene. Fino a qui, tutto bene. Fino a qui, tutto bene." Il problema però non è la caduta, è l'atterraggio. (L’odio, film scritto e diretto da Mathieu Kassovitz).
Una fuga che è una caduta.

Quasi un secolo dopo la pubblicazione di questo libro, non siamo ancora atterrati.

It’s a place where you did not belong, Where time itself was mad and far too strong, Where life leapt up laughing and hit you head on And hurt you…

[Sana · Rating 2 out of 5]

بنظرم داستان کتاب کمی تکراری بود و تااخر هم نخوندم.
بهترین کتاب این نویسنده ایوب هست خیلی کتاب پرمفهومیه.

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been a perplexing and highly gratifying read.

This novel has thrown me off-balance. Not that I did not find familiar elements from Roth’s writings. Many of those I can recall from his Hotel Savoy. True, the title itself, Flight Without End, already releases these themes: transient existences, lives on the border, rootlessness, yearning, all of them with a tint of hopelessness and alienation. Or from Weights and Measurest: the determinant role of conditions and settings in the existence of the individual, the hidden but preponderant hand of fate in the life of any specific human. I was also familiar with the fine ironic tone and and the flavour of a fairy tale encountered in The Tale of the 1002nd Night: A Novel, and with the social and political criticism of the The Radetzky March.

But there was something additional this time: the bizarre role of the narrator and his claims.

For the subtitle of this novel, Bericht, or Report, announces the claims with which it begins.

Joseph Roth writes that he is giving us an account of the life of his friend Franz Tunda, and that it is all based on Tunda’s narration and notes. That nothing is literarily composed (dichten) and that it is the result of observation.

And so it seems at the beginning. There is certainly an air of detachment from the third person narrator, but soon Roth’s subtle and humorous irony is noticeable. The factual and impersonal sentences are interspersed by acute perceptions with a tint of personal judgment. A painting is not a photograph. And so he delivers the story of an uprooted man, an Austrian First Lieutenant who is captured by the Russians and sent to prison in Siberia from where he escapes. We follow him in his itinerary of survival, through the white and red Russia, through Crimea, through Azerbaijan. We are exploring the borders: political, topographic, ideological, social... until we reach Vienna again.

Once back home I felt at first a change of tone. The narration becomes more personal and Tunda’s diaries are explicitly quoted, and these are followed by some letters, until Joseph Roth himself appears, no longer as an anonymous narrator who keeps at a distance, but in his persona, naming specific times and places, and the fiction with which this novel began, the ‘report’, seems to be taken up again. That shift in the resonance and the intonation that disconcerted my reading is modulated back and fully resolved. The novel, in its format and plot, finishes its circle.

Even if the conclusion is that Franz Tunda has not found his place in that circle. He is left outside that circle: He had no profession, no love, no joy, no hopes, no pride and no trace of Selfishness. There was no one in the world as superfluous as him. (my translation - Er hatte keinen Beruf, keine Liebe, keine Lust, keine Hoffnung, keinen Ehrgeiz und nicht einmal Egoismus. So überflüssig wie er war niemand in der Welt.).

And it is inevitable that not in the fictional Joseph Roth, but in the fictionalized Franz Tunda we do recognize the real Joseph Roth. As a citizen of the multicultural, sophisticated, hegemonic Austro-Hungarian empire who lived through WW1 and through the demise of his homeland, he knew about the dissolution of borders and the faculty that limitations have in creating identities. One can also guess Roth’s own literary interests in his including a copy of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain from 1924 in the setting of the novel. Or in his mentioning of Proust in this work of 1927, when the Frenchman’s last volume was published in that same year.

Joseph Roth has been identified with the Neue Sachlichkeit or 'New Objectivity', a German art movement, which in my mind I associate more with a pictorial rather than a literary output. Roth apparently rejected this association. Artists always reject being pigeonholed. But may be we ought to understand that it is the artists themselves who create their own categories by finding new and idiosyncratic modes of expression. So it is not that they are being pigeonholed but that they create the pigeonholes. And indeed in the German wiki this novel is used as an example of this literary Neue Sachlichkeit.

And this makes perfect sense to me. There it was all the time, the characteristic of Roth’s writing that so appeals to me but that not until this work, had I identified it so clearly. His mode consciously avoids cheap sentimentality and false profundity. Powerful writing does not need to drown the reader with a rigmarole of adjectives that just float away with their pointlessness or stick to your skin like sickly sugar. And yet some of his sentences or observations could either slice your heart or make you look down into a beckoning void.

For he delivers to us the portrait of a man who avoids props and any other sort of social accoutrement, and fleeing his framework endlessly, ends on his own as a single object.

But can we say that there is no subject giving us this view?

Please, I will have some more Joseph Roth to read.

[Emmanuel Kostakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roth’s Flight Without End is less a novel than a fevered lament for a civilization that blew its own brains out in the trenches of World War I. Through the drifting figure of Franz Tunda—ex-officer, exile, reluctant revolutionary—Roth captures the social disintegration and psychological vertigo of a Europe staggering through the ruins of its empires.

Tunda is not a hero, nor even an antihero. He is a man suspended in a vacuum, stripped of history, ideology, even desire. He wanders “like a dead man among ghosts, or a ghost among the dead,” exiled not just from countries but from meaning itself.

From the Siberian steppe to the cafés of Vienna, he is confronted not with choices, but with a void. “He had long since ceased to believe in causes... He no longer knew what he had once fought for, or against.” The war, it seems, has not ended—it has merely changed costume. What remains is moral drift, political disillusionment, and a spiritual homelessness no passport can fix.

Even love fails to anchor him. When he encounters his old fiancée in Vienna, now married and bourgeois, the reunion is sterile, as though two people from entirely different epochs had stumbled into the same room. “She belonged to another world… and he no longer believed in the return of anything.”

What Roth exposes with surgical precision is the psychological rot beneath the social wreckage. Europe, he shows, is not rebuilding—it’s repressing. There’s an anxious rush to return to “normal,” but Roth doesn’t buy it. “People had died for ideas… But the ideas had disappeared, and the dead remained.” The institutions may be standing, but the soul has evacuated.

And that’s the true terror of Flight Without End—not chaos, but inertia. Not ideological conflict, but the total evacuation of belief. This is modernity not as progress, but as drift. Tunda doesn’t make choices because there are none to make. Identity, nationality, purpose—all have been rendered obsolete by the sheer absurdity of survival. This is Europe haunted by its own rhetoric—liberty, progress, homeland—all now exposed as bankrupt currencies in a borderless, indifferent world.

A prophetic, haunting work that reminds us: after catastrophe, it’s not always the ruins that trouble us most—but the eerie silence that follows.

4.7/5

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is part of my WWI project: to read a work of fiction by authors of the various countries involved. But I didn't want this to be different countries but the same trench. Rather, I wanted to look at the War obliquely: at home in an American suburb - They Came Like Swallows - where the contemporaneous flu comes; at the return of a Canadian-Indian sniper - Three Day Road.

In this novel, Joseph Roth tarries in the War no longer than the first sentence: Franz Tunda, first lieutenant in the Austrian Army, became a Russian prisoner of war in August, 1916. We follow Tunda from there in the voice of a fictional Joseph Roth, who assures us, "I have invented nothing, made up nothing."

The plotting early is slight, jejune. Characters move from A to B with little explanation or seeming purpose. But then something odd happened, to me, the reader. I came upon this quote, which I duly added as a status update:

Monsieur Edmond de V. spoke to me, with friendly eyes but with a disdainful mouth, so that I did not know which feature to trust.

The incongruity observed by Tunda woke me up since it was palpably not only physical. It was meant to strike a dissonant chord. Who or what to trust, indeed.

This dichotomy continued in a wonderful chapter - XXIV - when the peripatetic Tunda arrives in Paris.

He had expected a clear blue morning sky in Paris. But the morning in Paris is drawn with a soft pencil.

Tunda walks into a shop where a young woman asked him what he wanted in a tone that was unfeeling, almost aggressive and yet kind. A servant at his hotel was both ironic and courteous.

But Roth was just warming up. The duality, it became clear, was not reserved to individuals. What was Europe in 1926?

A French diplomat, stationed in Berlin, had lived in Germany for years and cordially hated it. Tunda heard them all: they spoke of a community of European culture. And so he asked them to tell him what constituted this culture:

'Religion!' said the President, who never went to church.

'Morality,' said the lady, whose irregular associations were common knowledge.

'Art,' said the diplomat, who had never looked at a picture since his schooldays.

And then the lesson:

'You want,' said Tunda, 'to uphold a European community, but you must first establish it. For this community does not exist, otherwise it would already know how to maintain itself. All in all, it seems to me very doubtful whether anyone can establish anything at all. ... Before that happens, it will probably have succumbed to another war.'

'That is exactly what we are seeking to prevent,' several persons said simultaneously.

'And wasn't that what you wanted in 1914, too?'

Tunda learned that "revolutions were not waged against the 'bourgeoisie' but against bakers, against waiters, against small greengrocers, insignificant butchers and defenceless hotel servants." He befriends the French President, but courtesy mixes with disdain when Tunda is out of money.

They were no longer as free with each other as they had been. Perhaps, after this, the old man would have trusted Tunda with one of his secrets, but he would no longer trust him with one of his daughters.

And so it is 1926. We are between wars. But we are always between wars. Before he entered WWI Tunda was engaged. He kept his fiancée's picture in a coat pocket against his heart. But he was gone a long time. He sees her again finally as they pass outside a wealthy man's house:

She returned his gaze. She looked at him, a little ruefully, a little flattered, as women look into a mirror they pass in a restaurant or on the stairs, happy to confirm their beauty and at the same time despising the cheapness of the glass which is incapable of reproducing it. Irene saw Tunda and did not recognize him. There was a wall in the depths of her gaze, a wall between retina and soul, a wall in her cool, grey, unwilling eyes.

Joseph Roth invented nothing, he made up nothing.

[KamRun · Rating 2 out of 5]

کتاب فرار بی‌فرجام رمانی است که تجربه‌ها و تأملات انسانی، سیاسی و اجتماعی نویسنده را بازتاب می‌دهد. این کتاب که در سال 1927 منتشر شد، به شکلی قدرتمند و شاعرانه به سرنوشت انسان‌های تبعیدی، بحران هویت، و تلاطم‌های اروپا پس از جنگ جهانی اول می‌پردازد. داستان رمان حول محور شخصیتی به نام فرانس توندا می‌چرخد که افسر ارتش اتریش-مجارستان است و در جریان جنگ اسیر می‌شود

تحلیل عناصر کلیدی رمان

1. تم‌ها (موضوعات)

تبعید و بی‌خانمانی: شخصیت اصلی پس از جنگ به دنبال بازگشت به زندگی عادی است، اما حس بیگانگی و ناتوانی در یافتن مکانی که به آن تعلق داشته باشد، او را به سرگردانی می‌کشاند. این تم به بحران‌های اجتماعی و سیاسی اروپا در دوره پس از جنگ اشاره دارد

بحران هویت: فرانز توئندلر به عنوان نمادی از انسان مدرن، با احساس گم‌گشتگی و بحران معنوی روبرو است. این بحران ناشی از فروپاشی امپراتوری‌ها و فقدان ساختارهای سنتی جامعه است

پوچی جنگ: جنگ جهانی اول در رمان به عنوان رویدادی ویرانگر نمایش داده می‌شود که نه تنها زندگی شخصیت‌ها، بلکه بنیان‌های اخلاقی و اجتماعی را نیز نابود کرده است.

جستجوی معنا: شخصیت اصلی در سفری که بیشتر درونی است، تلاش می‌کند معنای زندگی را در جهانی متلاطم بیابد، اما این جستجو غالباً با ناکامی مواجه می‌شود.


2. شخصیت‌پردازی

فرانز توئندلر، شخصیتی پیچیده و چندبعدی است که نماینده‌ی نسل گمشده پس از جنگ است. او فردی است که از گذشته‌ی خود گریزان است، اما نمی‌تواند آینده‌ای مشخص برای خود بیافریند. رفتارهای او گاه بی‌هدف به نظر می‌رسد، اما این بی‌هدفی، دقیقاً بازتابی از سردرگمی عصر اوست

3. فضاسازی

رمان با توصیف مکان‌هایی از روسیه تا وین، به گونه‌ای هنرمندانه فضای بعد از جنگ اروپا را به تصویر می‌کشد. این فضا، پر از ویرانی، آشفتگی و نوعی خلأ معنوی است که زندگی شخصیت‌ها را احاطه کرده است

4. سبک نوشتار:

یوزف روت با نثری شاعرانه و سرشار از تصویرسازی‌های قوی، داستانی تلخ و تأمل‌برانگیز خلق کرده است. سبک او تأثیری عمیق بر خواننده می‌گذارد و فضای غم‌انگیز و مالیخولیایی دوران پس از جنگ را به خوبی منتقل می‌کند

5. پایان باز

پایان داستان، همان‌گونه که از عنوان رمان پیداست، گشوده و بدون نتیجه‌گیری قطعی است. این پایان‌بندی، سرگردانی شخصیت و همچنین بی‌ثباتی دنیای پس از جنگ را بازتاب می‌دهد

[Argos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerçek bir olaydan esinlenerek yazılan Sonsuz Kaçış, okuduğum en zayıf J. Roth romanı. Arkadaşı Üsteğmen Franz Tunda’nın I. Dünya Savaşında Rusya’da esir düştükten sonraki yaşadıkları anlatılıyor. Kitabın başında gerçek olduğu ve ekleme yapılmadığı vurgulandığı için bu abartılı maceralı hayat ilginç geldi. Ancak Roth nedense biraz aceleyle yazmış gibi, olaylar arasında büyük boşluklar var ve eksiklik hissi yaratıyor. Çok daha iyi yazabilecek bir kalem olduğu için böyle düşünüyorum. Yurtsuzluk, aidiyetsizlik, parasızlık Tunda’nın baş belaları. Okunabilir ama J. Roth’un külliyatını tamamlamak isteyenlere öneririm.

[Hendrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Er hatte keinen Beruf, keine Liebe, keine Lust, keine Hoffnung, keinen Ehrgeiz und nicht einmal Egoismus.
So überflüssig wie er war niemand in der Welt."

Die Geschichte von Franz Tunda, einem österreichischen Oberleutnant, der im 1.Wk. in russische Kriegsgefangenschaft gerät. Nach seiner Flucht beginnt eine Odyssee durch halb Europa. Heimat- und ziellos zieht er umher. Das Portrait eines Menschen, der nicht mehr zurückfindet, weil es nichts mehr gibt, wohin er zurückkehren kann.
Joeseph Roth hat in diesem Roman, viele Eindrücke seiner Russlandreise verarbeitet. Einige Kapitel sind schon sehr nah an die Texte seiner Reportagen angelehnt, siehe hier: Reisen in die Ukraine und nach Russland .

In Kapitel XXII findet sich diese "schöne" Zeile über Berlin:
"Diese Stadt hat den Mut gehabt, in einem häßlichen Stil erbaut zu sein, und das gibt ihr den Mut zur weiteren Häßlichkeit."

[Boshra Rahmaty · Rating 3 out of 5]

ای بابا خودمون کم غصه داریم باید غصه آقای توندا رو هم بخوریم.😮‍💨

[dely · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book till nearly three quarters of it. But then the story went on too fast and the end arrived all in a sudden.
This is the story of Franz Tunda, a lieutenant of the Austrian army, that goes to fight in Russia, is captured but manages to flee. He stays for a while by an escape companion, but then decides to go back to Austria to his wife. During his homecoming he is caputred by Bolsheviks and he decides to stay with them and help fighting the revolution. After a few more years, though he had another wife in Russia, he goes back to Austria and then to Germany to his brother. Here he comes to know that his Austrian wife has remarried and lives in Paris, therefore he decides to go to France.

We could think that he loves his wife and wants to find her again, but it isn't so. Franz Tunda feels nowhere at home (from here also the title of the book) and he doesn't love anyone. He didn't feel at home in Austria or in Russia, neither in Germany or France. So he moves from one country to the other looking for something he will never find because not even him did know what he was looking for. He lived everything as it was, without passion, love, anger or pain. He just did what had to be done in the situation he was living: in Russia he had to fight so he did it; in Germany by his brother he was introduced in the elite society, and he behaved as he had to.

Surely Roth wanted to point out the identity crisis of people who fought during WWI. After the war everything was different, they were different people and surely they had also other ideals. After some years in Russia Franz Tunda felt that he had to leave, and the same happened while he was living with his brother. In Russia he had a hard and poor life, in Germany he was introduced to the elite society of his brother, but Tunda, though he was able to get used to every kind of life, felt that none of them suited him. He always felt a kind of inappropriateness. So he thought that finding his Austrian wife he could understand again where his place was and what he was looking for, but this didn't happen because he didn't know it either.
Roth also wanted to point out the vanity and emptiness of high society, and he does it very well.

Roth's prose is wonderful and I really loved his descriptions and how detailed his musings about Tunda's emotions and behavior were. Unfortunately, as said, the end arrived unexpected and it also can be considered an open ending, something I don't like a lot.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Fuga senza fine”: il titolo riassume efficacemente il romanzo. Franz Tunda, amico, compagno d’armi e di idee di Joseph Roth (così scrive lo scrittore all’inizio del romanzo), è un uomo del suo tempo, un soldato austriaco che partecipa alla prima guerra mondiale, fatto prigioniero dai russi. Da questo momento la sua esistenza diviene una corsa senza fermate attraverso gli eventi turbinosi del suo tempo. Egli è come un sassolino sulla strada della Storia, che lo trascina nel suo vorticoso andare: la prigionia, la rivoluzione russa, poi a Baku, sul mar Nero, poi di nuovo nella vecchia Europa, in Germania, in una non identificata città sul Reno, poi a Parigi…ad inseguire il nulla, perché Tunda “non aveva nessuna professione, nessun amore, nessun desiderio, nessuna speranza, nessuna ambizione e nemmeno egoismo. Superfluo come lui non c’era nessuno al mondo”.
Uno straniero al mondo e a sè stesso: non solo nessun sentimento lo lega ad un altro essere umano --l’unica donna cui ha sempre pensato, Irene, la fidanzata di prima della guerra, è un fantasma nella sua mente, da rincorrere e ricercare senza alcun risultato-; nulla lo lega al mondo marcio in cui vive, un mondo basato sul possesso di denaro , un mondo in cui “la povertà era mancanza di virilità, sinonimo di debolezza, follia, viltà e anche un vizio”.
“La morale del nostro tempo, qualunque cosa si dica, è quella della riuscita. Cinque bancarotte più o meno dolose vanno benissimo, purchè alla quinta segua un periodo di prosperità. Il buon successo cancella tutto”: queste sono parole scritte da Musil, contemporaneo di J. Roth. Ambedue interpreti acuti di una modernità che oggi si è radicata profondamente nel nostro mondo da divenire stile di vita.

[Babette Ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein junger Mann kommt fast als Kind noch in den 1. Weltkrieg, gerät schnell in Gefangenschaft, kann fliehen und überlebt bei einem Einzelgänger in der Taiga. Als er 1919 erfährt, dass der Krieg zu Ende ist, will er nach Hause zurückkehren, aber es gelingt ihm zunächst nicht, er verbringt noch einige Jahre in der Sowjetunion. Als er endlich Österreich, dann Deutschland und später Paris erreichte, entfaltete das Buch einen ungeheuren sprachlichen Sog und malte ein präzises Bild eines Menschen, der sich im Leben nicht mehr zurechtfindet.

Am Beginn hatte mich der kurze Roman noch nicht gepackt und meine Erwartungen waren deshalb nicht sehr hoch, aber spätestens als der Protagonist bei seinem Bruder am Rhein auftaucht, war ich von den so passenden sprachlichen Bildern absolut begeistert. Wie ein Alien betrachtet Franz Tunda das Leben in Mitteleuropa und sieht so viele absurde Dinge, die wie sinnentleerte Rituale den Alltag bestimmen. Immer wieder versucht er, an sein altes Leben anzuknüpfen, findet Hilfe, aber keinen Sinn.

Am meisten liebte ich die leicht ironisch, bildreiche, aber kurze und präzise Sprache, die in einem Satz viele Gedanken unterbrachte, wie z. B.:

„Dann kamen Sie in eine braun getäfelte Halle, in der man Hirschgeweihe vermisste und in der eine Beethovenmaske das Jagdgerät vertrat.“
„Hochmoderne von pazifistisch umgestellten Kanonenfabriken aus Kriegsmaterial erzeugte Glocken riefen die Welt zum Gebet.“
„Würdige Greise führten Hunde spazieren und Greisinnen.“

Viele tiefgründigere Abschnitte sind zu lang, um sie hier wiederzugeben, aber umso lesenswerter. Eine große Leseempfehlung, gerade jetzt, wo man die Welt auch völlig verändert vorfindet und erstaunt betrachtet.

[Roberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disconnected

Cosa può succedere a un uomo quando vengono a mancare punti di riferimento, quando ciò in cui crede smette di avere senso, quando i valori ritenuti fondamentali vengono meno?

Può smarrirsi, può lasciarsi trasportare dagli eventi, può fuggire di situazione in situazione, può avere problemi di integrazione con luoghi e persone, può essere ossessionato da quello che è stato e che avrebbe potuto essere, vivendo con un costante senso di alienazione.

È ciò che succede a Franz Tunda, protagonista di "Fuga senza fine" e alter ego dell'autore, che vive nel periodo tra le due guerre, tra la rivoluzione russa e la crisi dell'impero asburgico e della borghesia intellettuale europea.

Questo approccio alle cose, libero e non superficiale, lo rende di fatto non incisivo, incapace di desiderare; alla fine, superfluo.

“Un uomo giovane e forte, dai molti talenti, che nel cuore della capitale del mondo non sapeva cosa dovesse fare. Non aveva nessuna professione, nessun amore, nessun desiderio, nessuna speranza, nessuna ambizione e nemmeno egoismo. Superfluo come lui non c'era nessuno al mondo”.

Mi ha ricordato altri libri sugli inetti e sul male di vivere, scritti nel medesimo periodo. Forse per rafforzare l'immagine di questa carenza di obiettivi e di ideali, il libro è scritto in modo abbastanza distaccato, asciutto, senza entusiasmo, quasi indifferente.

Precise le descrizioni, dettagliata e acuta l'analisi dei personaggi, una prosa raffinata e scorrevole, riflessioni a tratti folgoranti.

Cupo, decadente, riflessivo, senza guizzi come può esserlo inevitabilmente chi non vede prospettive positive.
E infatti Roth le prospettive non riusciva più a vederle, visto che negli ultimi anni della sua vita precipitò in una profonda solitudine annebbiata dall'alcool.

"Di tutte le lacrime che s’ingoiano le più care sono quelle piante su se stessi"

[Matina Kyriazopoulou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Όσο πιο πολύ διαβάζω Ροτ, τόσο περισσότερο τον λατρεύω - Τσβάιχ η πρωτοκαθεδρία σου κινδυνεύει!
Σε αυτό το μη ολοκληρωμένο αλλά εξαιρετικά δυνατό έργο του, μέσα από τις περιπέτειες και το "ταξίδι ζωής" του αξιωματικού και (πλασματικού) φίλου του αφηγητή Φρανκ Τούντα ο Ροτ μας μεταδίδει τη νοσταλγία και την οδύνη του μεταπολεμικού ξεριζωμού.

"Δεν είχα κανένα επάγγελμα, ούτε αγάπη, ούτε χαρά, ούτε ελπίδα, ούτε φιλοδοξία ούτε εγώ." Αυστριακός στρατιώτης που συμμετείχε στον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο, αιχμάλωτος των Ρώσων και ουσιαστικά ενεργός-αμέτοχος στις αυγές της ρωσικής επανάστασης ο Τούντα πολεμά μόνο χάρη του έρωτα για μια επαναστάτρια κι όταν αυτός χάνεται, μαζί με την ψευδαίσθηση της οικογενειακής ευτυχίας στο πλευρό μιας άλλης γυναίκας, ο ήρωάς μας τα παρατά όλα και επιστρέφει στη δύση, στον οικογενειακό ιστό, στην μοναξιά των ερειπίων μιας αυτοκρατορίας που ηττήθηκε και κατέρρευσε -αγαπημένο μοτίβο (και καημός) του ίδιου του Ροτ που επανέρχεται στο έργο του- με σκοπό την επανένωση με την χαμένη αγάπη και την ανοικοδόμηση μιας νέας πατρίδας. Ο Ροτ πλάθει ένα αντιφατικό και ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέροντα κεντρικό ήρωα, αναποφάσιστο, δίχως μακροπρόθεσμο στόχο για την ζωή του, που έχει μια και μόνο εμμονή, το να ξαναβρει την χαμένη αρραβωνιαστικιά του που άφησε στη Βιέννη φεύγοντας για το μέτωπο και η οποία νομίζοντάς τον νεκρό παντρεύτηκε κάποιον άλλο. Ακόμη κι αυτόν όμως τον στόχο αδυνατεί να τον "κυνηγήσει" συστηματικά.

Ξένος για τον κόσμο και ξένος για τον ίδιο του τον εαυτό παραμένει ο Τούντα μέχρι την άφιξή του στο Παρίσι όπου συναντά φευγαλέα την αλλοτινή αγαπημένη του. Κι εκεί δυστυχώς -αυτή τη φορά με ενόχλησε/στεναχώρησε πολύ- το μυθιστόρημα " τελειώνει", τη μοίρα που του σχεδίαζε ο δημιουργός του μόνο να τη μαντέψουμε μπορούμε.

[Fernozix · Rating 1 out of 5]

حوصله سر بر ترین کتاب بود که فقط میخواستم تموم شه 🙄
پر از توصیفات زائد و بی سر و ته
~ Plotless

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more Roth I read the more I like him. This is a classic little tale of alienation and loss, ranging from the Siberian taiga to the boulevards of Paris, as our hero tries to find his place in the post WWI society. Essential reading.

[Sini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph Roth is vooral bekend van de ongehoorde prachtboeken "Job" en "De Radetzkymars", twee meesterwerken waarvan ik zeer heb genoten en die ik graag nog zal herlezen. Maar zijn andere romans zijn volgens veel kenners minder: zijn vroege werk had nog niet de strakke compositie van "De Radetzkymars", en het latere werk is door Roths alcoholisme ook nogal onsamenhangend, zo luidt het verhaal. Stilistisch wel helemaal prima, dat vroegere en latere werk, maar toch van een andere en mindere orde, aldus die kenners. Dat heb ik een tijd lang geloofd, gezagsgetrouw als ik ben. Maar ja, ik heb inmiddels toch een paar van die 'mindere' Roths gelezen, en ik geloof er inmiddels echt geen fluit meer van: die Roth is volgens mij ALTIJD geweldig, en ik ga nu gewoon alles van hem lezen.

Dat al een tijdje sluimerende besluit is definitief geworden nu ik 'Vlucht zonder einde' heb gelezen, een zogenaamd minder rijp jeugdwerk. Dat boek draait om de omzwervingen van de Oostenrijkse ex-soldaat Franz Tunda, die tijdens WO I in de Oekraïne verdwaalt, een jaar te laat ontdekt dat WO I is afgelopen, vervolgens zijns ondanks in de Russische revolutie terechtkomt, via allerlei geografische en vooral mentale omwegen toch weer 'thuis' komt, om dan te merken dat er voor hem geen thuis meer is en dat hij als ex-soldaat de meest overbodige van alle mensen is geworden. Een totale dooltocht dus, van vervreemding en vergeefsheid doordrenkt en uitmondend in volstrekte thuisloosheid. Roth vertelt dit verhaal vaker, in allerlei varianten: het verhaal van de totale leegte NA WO I, een oorlog die voor Joseph Roth en zijn personages niet alleen een gruwel op zich was, maar ook de ontmanteling van alles van waarde in de wereld. En dat verhaal vertelt Roth naar mijn smaak prachtig, ook in 'Vlucht zonder einde'.

Sommige lezers (o.a. de eerder genoemde 'kenners') zullen dat niet met mij eens zijn, vanwege de nogal eigenaardige compositie van het boek: het verhaal dobbert immers nogal doelloos en onsamenhangend van lotgeval naar lotgeval, en zit op sommige punten ogenschijnlijk wat slordig in elkaar. Maar ik zit daar niet mee: het leven van de hoofdpersoon is immers ook zonder doel en samenhang, dus daar past een weinig strak gecomponeerde romanvorm eigenlijk prima bij. Of Roth daar ook met opzet voor heeft gekozen weet ik niet, maar ik kan mij best voorstellen van wel. Bovendien wordt naar mijn idee elk debat over de al dan niet deugende plot en compositie helemaal zinloos door de werkelijk briljante stijl van Roth. Want elke zin en elke alinea is zo ongehoord briljant geschreven, en zo verbluffend prachtig en ontroerend, dat het mij gewoon geen zak kan schelen of de compositie deugt. Roths stijl bedwelmt mij totaal, en al het andere doet er voor mij niet toe, ook de compositie niet.

Die stijl is een nauwelijks te beschrijven en volgens mij ook tamelijk unieke mengeling van treurigheid, melancholie, ironie en deernis. Alsof de verteller met een droevige glimlach kijkt naar het gesukkel van de tragische thuisloze Franz Tunda, en daarbij voelt en wil overbrengen dat dit ook zijn gesukkel is en dat van ons. Een stijl ook vol sentiment, en medegevoel, maar door zijn ironie en beheersing toch zonder sentimentaliteit en pathetiek. En werkelijk ongelofelijk helder, kernachtig en precies: in twee zinnen heeft Roth je helemaal ondergedompeld in een bepaalde stemming en sfeer, en die sfeer is dan de samenvatting van een leven. Zo zegt Tunda, normaal toch niet een voorbeeld van welsprekendheid, ineens dit: "Je zit zo dicht op de dingen dat alles langs je heen gaat. Zoals u zich er niet om bekommert hoeveel knopen er aan uw vest zitten. Je dwaalt door de dag zoals je door een bos dwaalt. Je ontmoet mensen en verliest ze weer, zoals bomen hun bladeren verliezen". Dit is PRECIES de ontheemdheid die Tunda voelt, gevat in een paar ongelofelijk kernachtige en daardoor niet te parafraseren zinnen. Even kernachtig en precies als een latere observatie, nu van buitenaf: "Hij keek als iemand die heel wat pijn op de koop toeneemt om ervaringen op te doen. Hij zag er zo wijs uit dat je bijna kon denken dat hij goedaardig was. Maar in werkelijkheid leek hij al die mate van wijsheid te bezitten die iemand onverschillig maakt". En zo gaat Roth maar door, met de ene weemoedige, ironische en ongelofelijk precieze zin na de andere. Zinnen die steeds een droevige glimlach oproepen over Tunda en de uit zijn voegen geraakte wereld om hem heen. Zinnen die je niet kunt parafraseren zonder betekenisverlies: ik zelf kan ze alleen maar lezen, nog eens lezen, zorgvuldig proeven, met een soort droevige bewondering omdat ze in al hun droeve ironie zo ongelofelijk raak zijn en omdat geen enkel woord vervangbaar lijkt door een ander woord.

Ik heb dus kortom zeer genoten van deze minder bekende roman van Roth, en ik ga ook allerlei andere minder bekende boeken van hem lezen. Zodra dat klaar is, herlees ik "De Radetzkymars". Zodra dat klaar is, lees ik alles weer opnieuw. Ja, volgens mij kan een mens zijn leven lang vooruit met Joseph Roth!

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A quell'ora il mio amico Franz Tunda, trentadue anni, sano e vivace, un uomo giovane, forte, dai molti talenti, era nella piazza davanti alla Madeleine, nel cuore della capitale del mondo, e non sapeva cosa dovesse fare. Non aveva nessuna professione, nessun amore, nessun desiderio, nessuna speranza, nessuna ambizione e nemmeno egoismo. Suferfluo come lui non c'era nessuno al mondo."

[Grazia · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Io cerco la Titina, Titina, Titina ..."🎵🎶 ***

Tunda esule di corpo e d'animo non trova un luogo in cui fermarsi. ...Siberia, Vienna, Berlino, Parigi...

" ... io cerco la Titina.." 🎶🎵

Tunda non trova neanche una donna su cui soffermarsi. ... Chimerica Irene, prima fidanzata, che con lui non avrebbe avuto probabilmente nulla a che fare, ma solo per il fatto che non l'ha avuta ne conosciuta, diventa il simbolo e la meta a cui tendere. Non a caso, quando si incrociano casualmente, i due manco si riconoscono.

"...chissà dove sarà !"🎵🎶

Dell'essere superflui e del non esserne consapevoli.

"Non aveva nessuna professione, nessun amore, nessun desiderio, nessuna speranza, nessuna ambizione e nemmeno egoismo. Superfluo come lui non c’era nessuno al mondo."

Tunda uomo senza meta, senza scopo e senza qualità.

Un romanzo che non mi ha entusiasmato.

[Tülay Şahin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hüzün bazı insanların ruhunda sevinçten cok coşku uyandırır. İnsanin yuttuğu gözyaşları icinde en güzelleri kendi yaptıklarına ağlarken döktüğü gözyaşlarıdır.s 22 Sonsuz Kaçış. Joseph Roth.
Oradan oraya , savaştan esarete, özgürlüğe savrulan bir adamin öyküsü Sonsuz Kaçış. I .Dunya Savaşı yıllarında üsteğmen olan Franz Tunda esir düşer. Eşir düştüğü kamptan kaçar ve Sibirya'ya gider .Burada Bolşevik Devrimi ile tanışır. Bolsevizmin savunucusu olur. Zamanla bu dünyanın kendisine uygun olmadığını gören Tunda , Baku'ye, Moskova'ya Paris'e ve en sonunda kendi ülkesi olan Avusturya'ya döner. Döndüğünde ülkesindeki değerlerin cok değiştiğini , savaştan sonra yeni bir toplum modelinin oluştuğunu gören Tunda, kendisini, inandığı değerleri sorgulamaya başlar. Viyana bıraktığı Viyana değildir. Bireyselciligin, bencilliğin ortasında bulunur kendini Tunda. Kendi icinde geçmişe yolculuk yapar . Bu yolculukta ona eşlik eden ceketinin cebinde fotoğrafını sakladığı nişanlısı Irene'dir .Savaş onları ayırmış iki insani cok baska hayatlara sürüklemiştir. Tunda gittiği yerde pek çok kadin tanımış ama Irene'yi unutmamıştır. Irene onun geçmişini , içsel sorgulamasını ortaya koyan bir simgedir. Aslinda Tunda hicbir yerde tutunamayan, köklerinden kopamayan, kendi toprağında da huzuru bulamayan günümüz modern insanın yansıması bence. Aidiyet, hissizlik, kendine ve topluma yabancılaşma üzerine guzel bir metin Sonsuz Kaçış. Özellikle 95. sayfada yer alan Avrupa Kültürü uzerine eleştiri var ki bayıldım o bölüme. Kitabın dili yalın ve akıcı ama konular biraz dağınık. Ceviri Ahmet Arpad çevirisi ve mükemmel. Okuyunuz efendim . Keyifli okumalar

[Myriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wat een schrijver!
Een onuitputtelijke pen, een adembenemend tempo, haarscherpe observaties van mensen in kleine en grote gebaren, meeslepende uiteenzettingen…. Iets over 'Vlucht zonder einde' zeggen is het tekort doen, een citaat aanhalen betekent noodgedwongen veel te veel niet citeren. Het enige wat je kan doen is lezen en meteen opnieuw beginnen. Vreemd dat dit meesterwerkje, gepubliceerd in 1927, pas nu voor het eerst in Nederlandse vertaling verschijnt.

'Het is vreemd en begrijpelijk dat Roth niet populairder is. Vreemd, omdat hij zo toegankelijk schrijft – soepel, aangrijpend, komisch. Begrijpelijk, omdat zijn werk zo intens verdrietig is. Weinig schrijvers kunnen zoveel ellende oproepen in zo weinig woorden, met zo’n treurig gevoel voor humor. Roth is een volstrekt unieke auteur, die hoogstens af en toe aan Tsjechov doet denken. Maar Roth is tegelijk lyrischer en harder.'
(Het Parool)

[Cathérine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wat een prachtige, mooie zinnen. Wat een schrijver!

[Samuele Petrangeli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho letto "Fuga senza fine" per la prima volta a vent'anni. E' stato amore fin dalla prima volta e rileggerlo ora, dopo più di un decennio, ha soltanto che confermato il sentimento. Però ha fatto nascere una domanda: "Fuga senza fine" è un romanzo profondamente legato al suo tempo, all'Europa degli anni '20, Roth dedica tanto spazio alla descrizione della società europea - francese, austriaca, tedesca - tanto quanto alla vita e fuga di Tunda, com'è possibile, allora, che quasi cent'anni dopo, "Fuga senza fine" ci appaia così attuale? Che sentiamo che ci stia dicendo qualcosa su di noi?
Secondo me, la risposta sta nella descrizione che dà il narratore di Tunda, verso la metà del racconto: "Se fosse indispensabile caratterizzarlo con un attributo qualsiasi, direi che la sua qualità più evidente era il desiderio di liberta. [...] Faceva il più delle cose secondo l'umore, talune per convinzione, e cioè: tuto per necessità. [...] In fondo era un europeo, un individualista, come dicono le persone colte. Aveva bisogno, per godere a pieno, di situazioni più complicate. Aveva bisogno di intricate menzogne, di falsi ideali, di salute apparente, di marcio persistente, di fantasmi imbellettati, dell'atmosfera dei cimiteri che hanno l'aspetto di sale da ballo o di fabbriche o di castelli o di scuole o di salotti. [...] Era un uomo moderno". Tunda, quindi, per me, rappresenta un po' il prototipo dell'uomo moderno, ovvero l'uomo novecentesco, caratterizzato da questa duplicità ambivalente di smarrimento e libertà, di superfluo e marginalità, e che percorre molta della narrativa e filmografia novecentesca.
Tunda, infatti, è una figura tragica. Egli infatti è due volte straniero: è straniero in Russia - dove si ambienta la prima parte della storia - poiché in fondo, il suo è un sangue europeo, moderno, che rifugge la quiete della Natura, ma dall'altra, è altrettanto straniero in Europa. Un'Europa che Roth ci descrive in dettaglio e nelle sue diverse città - cittadina X sul Reno, Berlino, fino al centro del mondo Parigi - ricorrendo costantemente a metafore cimiteriali, di corpi in putrefazioni, di tombe spalancate. Tunda, infatti, non riesce più a calarsi nuovamente in questa società in disfacimento, dominata dalle leggi ipocriti della borghesia e dal profitto.
"Fuga senza fine" è una spogliazione continua di Tunda e di quello in cui crede o a cui vorrebbe fingere di credere, come il suo amore per Irene, più per la sua immagine di amore che per la donna, fino a un finale mesto e inesorabile - forse con una delle frasi finali più struggenti (e perfette) di sempre.

[Arcesio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roth lleva al lector en viaje del oficial Frank Tunda hacia la divagación, la nostalgia y lucha contra el olvido del desarraigo de la postguerra. Recrea la indecisión y la falta de un objetivo de largo plazo en la vida del protagonista, plantea una obsesión por encontrar a la novia dejada en Viena a la espera del retorno de la suerte del prometido.

Tunda no se deja apasionar por los albores de la nueva revolución rusa y se empecina en retornar a occidente en función de la ilusión amorosa, la reconstrucción de su poco tejido familiar, la lucha contra la soledad y la recolección de las ruinas morales de un imperio invisibilizado por la el ocaso de la derrota y la decadencia (presente en todas las obras de Roth) y por la reconstrucción de una nueva Europa.

El estilo fino de Roth, pausado y preciso, está presente en la envolvente trama de la novela a través de la construcción de frases y párrafos, descripciones plagadas de síntesis, carga emocional del personaje, desencuentros con personajes secundarios, los capítulos cortos, posición política y advertencia tenue sobre un futuro desastroso que el autor no alcanzó a vivir.

Al final Tunda hace oda al desasosiego:
“No tenía profesión, ni amor, ni alegría, ni esperanza, ni ambición ni egoísmo siquiera.

Nadie en el mundo era tan superfluo como él “.

Calificación: 4.4/5

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ci vuole molto tempo prima che le persone trovino la loro faccia. Non sembrano nate col loro viso, con la loro fronte, col loro naso, coi loro occhi. Acqusitano tutto con l'andare del tempo, ed è una cosa lunga. Si deve aver pazienza finché non hanno cercato e messo insieme quel che va bene".

In questo romanzo, Joseph Roth, da non confondere con Philip Roth, racconta la storia vera del suo amico Franz Tunda, un uomo che ha perso sè stesso o che non si è mai trovato, un uomo che si sente straniero ovunque vada, un uomo che viaggia senza mai arrestarsi tra Baku, sul Mar Nero, Germania, la Piazza Rossa e Parigi,tra amori facili e impossibili, come quello per Irene, la donna che forse lo attende e che non si sa se ama o abbia mai amato.
Un uomo passivo, un uomo che sembra che tutto gli scivoli addosso, che nulla lo distrugga, lo tocchi, una storia in cui Roth mostra la disgregazione e l'alienazione da sè stessi.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: Jewish mc

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to connect to this book until around three-quarters in.

The book follows the story of Tunda (aka Frank Baranowicz), an Austrian soldier, who after WW1, finds himself in Russia. He is betrothed to the lovely Irene who waits for him back in Austria, only for him not to return.

Whilst in Russia, Tunda finds himself captivated by a female soldier, called Natasha, and they begin a relationship, Tunda having completely disregarded Irene and the fact that she is waiting for him back in Austria.

However, it’s not long before Tunda and Natasha drift apart as the differences between them grow bigger - no longer having the war in common.

Tunda then has his head turned by a Georgian girl called, Alja, who he marries. Tunda eventually leaves Alja all alone and travels back across Europe intending to reconnect with Irene.

He is able to reside with his brother in Germany whilst he investigates Irene’s whereabouts. He hears that she may have remarried, having finally given up on Tunda. He is told she may be in Paris.

Tunda travels to Paris, a picture of Irene attached to his breast. He hopes to confirm once and for all the rumours he has heard about Irene’s whereabouts.

Whilst in Paris, Tunda comes into contact with several characters including dignitaries. Just when he’s about to give up hope, and set off once more with another woman, he catches sight of Irene…

[Massimiliano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nonostante Roth sia uno scrittore che apprezzo molto, e il tipo di ambientazione sia quello che mi piace di più, questo testo mi ha lasciato poco o nulla.

[Aviendha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Franz Tunda bir asker olarak çıktığı yolda çeşitli ülkelerde ve mevkilerde hayatını sürdürmek zorunda kalıyor. Böylelikle okuyucu bu hayata tanıklık ederken siyasi, sosyal-ekonomik, kültürel gibi pek çok alanda bilgi sahibi oluyor. Ardında bıraktıkları, kayıpları, kazanımları satırlarda. Zweig tarzını seviyorsanız bu kitabı seversiniz. 3,5*