Fatelessness--A Central Theme
Kertész, himself an Auschwitz survivor articulates what seems to be a recurrent theme in his writing:
Sometimes I feel the wattage of the old bulb is simply too dim to cast anything like the light needed to elucidate a passage. This is one of those times. Obviously I need more context or more sleep--it's hard to say which would be likely to be of more help in this case.
from Liquidation
Imre Kertész
"Man, when reduced to nothing, or in other words a survivor, is not tragic but comic, because he has no fate. On the other hand, he lives with an awareness of tragic fate. This is a paradox . . . which manifests itself in him, the writer simply as a problem of style. A striking notion I have to say, " he adds with the smile of approbation that he was clearly in the habit of awarding the more polished essays at the university. "In his classification, survivors represent a separate species. . . . just like an animal species. In his view we are all survivors; that is what determines our perverse and degenerate mental world. Auschwitz. Then the forty years that we have put behind us since."
Sometimes I feel the wattage of the old bulb is simply too dim to cast anything like the light needed to elucidate a passage. This is one of those times. Obviously I need more context or more sleep--it's hard to say which would be likely to be of more help in this case.
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