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A review by francisicus_rex
Liquidation. Imre Kertsz by Imre Kertész, Imre Kertész
3.0
This book started off promising for me. It is impossible to say the language of this book is of a register I had been lacking in some of the recent fiction I had been reading. But what first presented itself as appealing, it soon lost its flavor for me.
I wanted to like the book. I just moved to Hungary two weeks ago and was excited to partake in the country's celebrated author and only recipient of the Noble Prize for Literature. I found myself dissatisfied at many points as I read, however, and I wish I could give it a higher rating (I fluctuated between 2 or 3 stars).
Overall, there was a forcefullness that became harder and harder to swallow. The lofty nature of the propositions offered to me, the continually digressing mixed with philosophizing became too chaotic. I am accustomed to non-linear story telling, but this time around it failed me. The jumps between settings and which character was speaking and sometimes speech dictated in quotations, sometimes as part of the prose--it was so sudden and subtle that I found myself more lost than I should have been. I don't believe it was the author's intention, so much, either.
The fact that this is a translated work is readily apparent to me. At many points throughout the work, the syntax felt...off is I guess the only word for it. Additionally, there were some moments where the word choice just did not ring true. From what I have learned from Hungarian so far, it seems so far at odds with English structures that I am certain I am lacking a great deal of the beauty of the book in this translated form.
When the book became more straightforward, I enjoyed it. It's also not to say there weren't some good lines among the philosophizing that made me think. Yet, in the end, I simply do not feel attached to the characters (Kingbitter was such a whiny prick, in my opinion) and the statements I believe the author was trying to make. It very much alienated me as it reinforced how I would never be able to understand Auschwitz from the perspective of someone who is connected to it through family or religious ties. I already understood that I would never be able to understand, even before I read this. The book just made me feel even further away. For this reason, I do not think I will read Fateless(ness), his other and most famous work, simply because it also centers around the encounters there and I fear I will have similar issues with this author's style.
I wanted to like the book. I just moved to Hungary two weeks ago and was excited to partake in the country's celebrated author and only recipient of the Noble Prize for Literature. I found myself dissatisfied at many points as I read, however, and I wish I could give it a higher rating (I fluctuated between 2 or 3 stars).
Overall, there was a forcefullness that became harder and harder to swallow. The lofty nature of the propositions offered to me, the continually digressing mixed with philosophizing became too chaotic. I am accustomed to non-linear story telling, but this time around it failed me. The jumps between settings and which character was speaking and sometimes speech dictated in quotations, sometimes as part of the prose--it was so sudden and subtle that I found myself more lost than I should have been. I don't believe it was the author's intention, so much, either.
The fact that this is a translated work is readily apparent to me. At many points throughout the work, the syntax felt...off is I guess the only word for it. Additionally, there were some moments where the word choice just did not ring true. From what I have learned from Hungarian so far, it seems so far at odds with English structures that I am certain I am lacking a great deal of the beauty of the book in this translated form.
When the book became more straightforward, I enjoyed it. It's also not to say there weren't some good lines among the philosophizing that made me think. Yet, in the end, I simply do not feel attached to the characters (Kingbitter was such a whiny prick, in my opinion) and the statements I believe the author was trying to make. It very much alienated me as it reinforced how I would never be able to understand Auschwitz from the perspective of someone who is connected to it through family or religious ties. I already understood that I would never be able to understand, even before I read this. The book just made me feel even further away. For this reason, I do not think I will read Fateless(ness), his other and most famous work, simply because it also centers around the encounters there and I fear I will have similar issues with this author's style.