Fateless

Rating:
Summary: Biographical novel.
Review: A harsh and realistic account of the holocaust through the eyes of a 15 year old boy.
What makes this story particularly impressive, is the innocence of the adolescent - and his family - who obeys all the orders of the police and discovers slowly what is really going on.
The home coming is also gripping.
Why fateless? Because if there would have been an interchange of babies at his birth, his destiny would have been totally different.
But the author is also harsh for himself and his family: 'we went, we did undergo our fate'. They didn't realize like he says 'that we are ourselves our fate'.
This novel is to be put on the same level as other impressive novels about the holocaust as these by Primo Levi or Jorge Semprun.

Rating:
Summary: Understanding
Review: After so many books and discussions with people who were alive at the time of WWII, reading Fateless I finally understood how such things could have come to happen, and how so many people have the power to endure their lifes during and after unmensurable deprivations.
From the perspective of a young boy living his everyday life, surviving the on going realities without pitying himself, the book describes the holocaust in a dettached sort of way - but that is exactly what brings the reader to a much deeper level of understanding. The reader is left watching an inocent child going through an horrendous reality without being aware there could be some better world. He does what he needs to do. As so many people in today's world do.

Rating:
Summary: the ultimate book on holocaust
Review: As many other people, I bought the book because it earned the Nobel. I then discovered an amazing story. To be honest, I have been much more moved by the book than by visiting Buchenwald. The horror can be better understood through individual stories rather than mute places, pictures or statistics. Much has been said in other reviews. But for me the most incredible episode doesn't happen in the concentration camp, but when the author is back in Budapest and the bus controller asks for his ticket. The ultimate irony. In short, a "must read".

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, but don't read the English version yet
Review: Due to my close personal ties to the author, I am unable to provide an objective review of this book. However, readers should be warned that the English translation of Kertesz's book does not live up to the standards worthy of a Nobel Prize. The poor translation is one of the reasons why Kertesz has remained obscure in the world of English literature. Anyone truly interested should refer to the original language (Hungarian), or to the German version (Kertesz is fluent in German and was able to proofread the translation). The Swedish version was translated by a close friend and is also true to the original text (if I am correct, this is the version reviewed by the Nobel committee). I do not have any information about any of the other languages. For those locked into English, do not despair: a new translation will be released hopefully within the next year.

Rating:
Summary: Ok, I suppose, but hardly justifies a Nobel Prize. . . .
Review: Fateless is the story of a 13-year-old Jewish boy who is deported to a series of German concentration camps including Aushwitz, Buchenwald, and Zeitz. The protagonist George Koves survives all three, eventually returning to Budapest a year later. The by-now-familiar story of the concentration camps is notable for the limits of its vision. We see all three camps through the eyes of a young adolescent who, at least at first, has no idea what is going on. He, initially, believes he has been deported to continue the factory work he has been doing in Hungary, and seems more confused than terrified. Yes, he suffers privations and abuses, witnesses atrocities, but he takes them all in stride, so that one of the chief emotions he explores is boredom. Despite what one might think, even in a concentration camp, one can become bored, he points out.
Likewise, despite the ostensibly compelling subject matter, this novel can be surprisingly boring. Koves is in no way remarkable as a character, and he sheds very little new light on the concentration camp experience. Frankly I don't see what distinguishes this novel from any number of published accounts such as, say, Ellie Wiesel's Night (which I found far more moving). The notes on the back cover make much of Koves' readjustment to home following the war, but those episodes take up only a single, short chapter. There, it is true, the boy engages in some reflections that are mildly interesting as he processes his alienation from those who stayed behind. They all want to know the details of the horrors, the "hell" of the concentration camps. But he refuses to compare the camps to hell because he's never been there. People only use that term, he realizes, because they lack the imagination to see the camps in any other way.
That's an interesting observation, but hardly worth the 191 pages of fairly densely packed prose. To those who might observe that the boredom of the novel replicates the boredom of the camps, well, so it may, but I don't consider that a spectacular literary achievement.
Obviously, the Holocaust experience is complex and moving in and of itself, but I simply don't see how this account sheds any new light on it. I am the child of Hungarian Holocaust survivors and even so I didn't find this novel compelling and am at a loss to say how this contributed to Kertész winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. I came to it with genuine enthusiasm, hoping to enter into the universe that swallowed my parents and their family in 1940s Budapest. But, frankly, I was disappointed. Perhaps, with my background, I cannot view the novel objectively, yet to me, it simply does not stand out as literature, either of the Holocaust or otherwise.
One is tempted to ascribe the awarding of the Nobel Prize in this case to politics. They hadn't yet awarded anything to a Hungarian Jew. I have also found that people tend to rave about any depiction of the Holocaust. Schindler's List, for example, has got to be one of the most overrated films ever made. I don't know if it's guilt or simply the lack of first- (or second-) hand exposure to such tragedy, but those who weren't directly affected by these events are easily won over by artistic treatments.
Then again, something may have been lost in translation (never having learned Hungarian, I had to read it in English). Also, of course, the prize may have more to do with Kertész's complete oeuvre. Yet, after reaping so few rewards from this novel, I do not think I am likely to explore any of the rest of his works very soon.

Rating:
Summary: Ok, I suppose, but hardly justifies a Nobel Prize. . . .
Review: Fateless is the story of a 13-year-old Jewish boy who is deported to a series of German concentration camps including Aushwitz, Buchenwald, and Zeitz. The protagonist George Koves survives all three, eventually returning to Budapest a year later. The by-now-familiar story of the concentration camps is notable for the limits of its vision. We see all three camps through the eyes of a young adolescent who, at least at first, has no idea what is going on. He, initially, believes he has been deported to continue the factory work he has been doing in Hungary, and seems more confused than terrified. Yes, he suffers privations and abuses, witnesses atrocities, but he takes them all in stride, so that one of the chief emotions he explores is boredom. Despite what one might think, even in a concentration camp, one can become bored, he points out.
Likewise, despite the ostensibly compelling subject matter, this novel can be surprisingly boring. Koves is in no way remarkable as a character, and he sheds very little new light on the concentration camp experience. Frankly I don't see what distinguishes this novel from any number of published accounts such as, say, Ellie Wiesel's Night (which I found far more moving). The notes on the back cover make much of Koves' readjustment to home following the war, but those episodes take up only a single, short chapter. There, it is true, the boy engages in some reflections that are mildly interesting as he processes his alienation from those who stayed behind. They all want to know the details of the horrors, the "hell" of the concentration camps. But he refuses to compare the camps to hell because he's never been there. People only use that term, he realizes, because they lack the imagination to see the camps in any other way.
That's an interesting observation, but hardly worth the 191 pages of fairly densely packed prose. To those who might observe that the boredom of the novel replicates the boredom of the camps, well, so it may, but I don't consider that a spectacular literary achievement.
Obviously, the Holocaust experience is complex and moving in and of itself, but I simply don't see how this account sheds any new light on it. I am the child of Hungarian Holocaust survivors and even so I didn't find this novel compelling and am at a loss to say how this contributed to Kertész winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. I came to it with genuine enthusiasm, hoping to enter into the universe that swallowed my parents and their family in 1940s Budapest. But, frankly, I was disappointed. Perhaps, with my background, I cannot view the novel objectively, yet to me, it simply does not stand out as literature, either of the Holocaust or otherwise.
One is tempted to ascribe the awarding of the Nobel Prize in this case to politics. They hadn't yet awarded anything to a Hungarian Jew. I have also found that people tend to rave about any depiction of the Holocaust. Schindler's List, for example, has got to be one of the most overrated films ever made. I don't know if it's guilt or simply the lack of first- (or second-) hand exposure to such tragedy, but those who weren't directly affected by these events are easily won over by artistic treatments.
Then again, something may have been lost in translation (never having learned Hungarian, I had to read it in English). Also, of course, the prize may have more to do with Kertész's complete oeuvre. Yet, after reaping so few rewards from this novel, I do not think I am likely to explore any of the rest of his works very soon.

Rating:
Summary: Fateless is a Must Read
Review: I admit to knowing nothing about this book until reading that Kertesz won the Nobel prize for writing it. I am probably one of the least informed people to read this book, and just having finished an MBA curriculum, I wanted to read something that actually looked interesting. Before I began this book, about all I knew about it was that it was a first-hand accounting of the Holocaust. I really didn't know what to expect, but once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. Fatelss is the fascinating story of a 15 year old Hungarian Jewish boy's journey through the Nazi concentration camps. It is told in the first person, and Kertesz makes the most mundane detail seem vivid and worthy of all the reader's thought and attention.

The story is told through the eyes of a 15 year old. He enters the camps not knowing what to expect, and he has no idea that an organized extermination is taking place. He never seems to take too much personally, but instead simply treats each new situation as something to be dealt with and survived. His journey through the camps becomes part of his childhood that he does not want to forget, because doing so would mean forgetting part of his life. It is as if he is thinking that other people get to remember their childhoods, so why can't I.

After returning from the camps after being liberated, Kertesz recalls a conversation with a relative who keeps talking about 'the fate of the Jews'. I think this conversation is the main point of the book. Kertesz feels that if fate is a reality, then life is not worth living, because of the implied predetermination. Kertesz rejects any notion of 'fate', preferring to live each day, even in the camps, as though tomorrow will bring a new day to be lived.

Kertesz presents an amazing perspective of life as a Jew and life in the Holocaust. This book will capture you from the very beginning. You will put yourself in the main character's shoes and ponder how you would have handled every situation, however, you will be doing it from the perspective of someone who knows the historical outcome and circumstance of the Holocaust. You will not be experiencing it as the story is told, through the eyes of a youngster who is experiencing a historical event that has not yet been defined or named. My opinion is that everyone should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh, Amazing, and Deeply Touching
Review: I expected this book to be a tad boring, and just another account of a concentration camp prisoner. Boy, was I in for a treat!

First of all, the main character is a 15 year old boy. That in itself is shocking. Imagine looking at life in a concentration camp from a young boy's perspective.

Just picture this: the day the boy is being released, his major concern is if he's going to get his bowl of soup or not.

I've read Dostoevski's Memoirs from the House of the Dead, and also Solzhenitsyn's A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but this one is quite different and worth the time.

Do not miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh, Amazing, and Deeply Touching
Review: I expected this book to be a tad boring, and just another account of a concentration camp prisoner. Boy, was I in for a treat!

First of all, the main character is a 15 year old boy. That in itself is shocking. Imagine looking at life in a concentration camp from a young boy's perspective.

Just picture this: the day the boy is being released, his major concern is if he's going to get his bowl of soup or not.

I've read Dostoevski's Memoirs from the House of the Dead, and also Solzhenitsyn's A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but this one is quite different and worth the time.

Do not miss it.

Rating:
Summary: I don't get it
Review: I first heard of this book some two years ago, and has considered reading it ever since, but have never gotten to it. Now with the award there seemed to be no way of coming up with excuses for delaying it further. Reviewing it, however, I have never had the intention of doing. It is obvious that the most discussed book by the most recent Nobel Laureate is going to get its fair share of reviews without my assistance, and I would never dream of burdening already exhausted Amazon.com customers with yet another one if I didn't feel I had something original to contribute. So, needless to say, I think I do.

Let me, before I begin, just note that I will ignore the issue of translation. I read the Swedish edition, which is supposed to be quite true to the original. It is the one considered by the Nobel Committee, and if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for me.

Fateless, or Step by Step, as another edition was called (both titles make good sense once you get to the end of it) is a semi-autobiographical novel about a fourteen year old boy who gets deported to a concentration camp. It is nowadays quite common to equate "concentration camp" with "Auschwitz" and this is indeed what has been done on the back flap of at least one edition. The main character, however, spends a mere three days in Auschwitz, and these days he considers rather pleasant. From that point and onwards he bides his time in Buchenwald and Zeitz.

The book starts off good, and the scenes with the naïve boy who wonders why everybody's so upset about his father being deported and feels awkward about his family members crying, are brilliant. But their strength lies solely in the reader's expectation of the brutal awakening that the boy in question will experience after himself having been deported, and, the trouble is, it never comes. The whole book is written in an extremely detached manner, and the protagonist doesn't seem to care much about the horrors of the camps, if he even mentions them, so why should we? I have to vehemently disagree with previous reviewers' use of adjectives such as strong, harsh, powerful etc. to describe this book. I have waded through a decent amount of literary depictions of the Holocaust, most written by survivors, and every single time I have cried my eyes out. This did not happen here. In fact, by the end of the book I was frankly bored. One reviewer mentioned the style being reminiscent of Camus, and I can see why, as the protagonist clearly shares a number of traits with the catatonic anti-hero of The Stranger. Furthermore, the similarity between their reactions to the death of a close family member is uncanny. But whereas Camus brilliantly used Meursault's indifferent and dispassionate reactions to illuminate the meaninglessness of existence, Kertész merely fails to provide us with a believable story. I left the book thinking that maybe concentration camp life wasn't so bad after all.

I realize that I may be missing something here, and some reviewers' suggestions that the author's objective was really to get the dullness or normalness of everyday life in the camps across, rather than to give a believable account, is perhaps indicative of what. But I won't pretend as if I think the emperor is all dressed up just because other people think he is.

While waiting for someone to explain what the fuss is all about, I will take the opportunity to recommend Art Spiegelman's "Maus," in my opinion one of the strongest, and best, first person depictions of the Holocaust there is, although the medium may not be for everyone (it's a graphical novel). I especially encourage the reviewers who were shocked by this book to have a look at it. You're in for the ride of your life.