by Imre Kertesz
|
| List Price: | $12.95 |
| Amazon Price: | $10.36 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $2.59 (20%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $5.00 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
Imre Kert?sz’s savagely lyrical and suspenseful new novel traces the continuing echoes the Holocaust and communism in the consciousness of contemporary Eastern Europe.
Ten years after the fall of communism, a writer named B. commits suicide, devastating his circle and deeply puzzling his friend Kingsbitter. For among B.’s effects, Kingsbitter finds a play that eerily predicts events after his death. Why did B.–who was born at Auschwitz and miraculously survived–take his life? As Kingsbitter searches for the answer –and for the novel he is convinced lies hidden among his friend’s papers–Liquidation becomes an inquest into the deeply compromised inner life of a generation. The result is moving, revelatory and haunting.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Valuable Addition to Holocaust Literature, 2006-04-14
This is the third book by Kertesz that I have read. "Fateless" was the best but "Kaddish to a Child not Born" was pretty good after I got used to the non-stop monologue format. "Liquidation" has a lot to offer as well but, frankly, I found the format a bit incoherant.
The novella is about an Aushwitz survivor who took his life. We see most things through the eyes of our narrator, another concentration-camp survivor. The deceased was a writer and the narrator is a literary person as well. The narrator becomes obsessed with the notion that an author would not take his life without completing his opus first. Thus he examines the available writings he can find and pursues his search for the elusive novel. It is in this context that the truth reveals itself. Truth is hard to find if life seems to be a lie. That is, essentially, the focus of the message in "Liquidation". Since the message builds on itself much better than I can do it justice, I will not attempt to further define what our narrator discovers. However, I will say that my observation of Holocaust literature is that those that try to define what happened and give it meaning generally reach the same end. The Holocaust defies definition because we look to define in relation to our concepts of reality. What the literary Holocaust survivor shares with us, often, is a glimpse of a totally different reality but their ability to explain generally exceeds our ability to comprehend. In "Liquidation" Kertesz expands his message by giving us a debate about that reality through the perspectives of seperate Holocaust survivors. The debate enhances our efforts to understand but leaves us wondering if we have heard the conclusion or the introduction.
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
 The world is a comedy to those that think, 2005-05-13
. . . a tragedy to those who feel. Horace Walpole.
Liquidation is the fourth in a series of books by Imre Kertesz, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002. Three, "Fateless", "Kaddish for a Child not Born", and "Liquidation" have been published in English. The fourth, "Fiasco" awaits translation. Although each is related to the other, the recurring characters and their life's story tends to change, the common thread in all is that monstrous thing known as Auschwitz. Kertesz himself is an Auschwitz survivor, and all his books have put Auschwitz, something that defies explanations or answers, on center stage.
Liquidation contains a story within a story. The protagonist, the aptly named Kingbitter, is a book editor in Budapest. It is the turn of the new century, 2000, and company that employs him is in serious economic trouble. The book opens with Kingbitter and his small circle of `friends' discussing "B". "B", an author, committed suicide in 1990 by means of an overdose of morphine, the morphine provided by his ex-wife. The friends are discussing "B" last known work, a play entitled "Liquidation". Oddly enough, the play, which discusses Kingbitter and that circle of friends, has foretold their personal course of events in the ten years since his suicide. Additionally, references in the play to a book supposedly written by "B" have caused Kingbitter to spend ten years in search of the manuscript. The manuscript is never found and doubts arise as to whether it ever existed.
Although Kingbitter is the principal `living' person in the book, the story does focus on "B" and his life and death. "B" was one of those few children born at Auschwitz. The story of his birth and survival is one of life's small miracles, a small drop of water in a sea of evil and death. As the story progresses, and as the play within the play progresses, Kertesz exposes us to "B", his ex-wife, his mistress, and Kingbitter and company. Each has their own take on "B's" life and each provides the reader with some insight into "B"s life. As one friend notes, "B" once said that "Man, when reduced to nothing, or in other words a survivor, is not tragic but comic, because he has no fate." Taking the quote from Walpole, above, as a reference, it is clear that "B" is one given to thought and not to feeling. In fact, I had the distinct imperssioin that feeling was an emotion that "B" avoided, perhaps understandably, at all costs. Ultimately, as with his other books, neither Kertesz nor his characters can answer the question that is Auschwitz and the meaning of survival. For "B", his survival has rendered him fateless as the fact of his surviving deprived fate of an intended victim.
Kertesz' writing is sparse and to the point. He does not provide the reader with emotional content. He provides text and a description of his characters, their actions, and their thoughts. As was the case in Fateless, any emotions to be gained from reading Liquidation will come from your own sense of the text. Kertesz does not provide you with an emotional road map.
Although Liquidation is one of a series, each book stands on its own and may be enjoyed on its own merits. However, for anyone interested in reading Kertesz, I suggest they start with Fateless. Although Kaddish comes next chronologically, I suggest reading Liquidation next. The only reason for this order is the assertion by some devotees of Kertesz that the book "Kaddish for a Child not Born" may represent the manuscript not found by Kingbitter in Liquidation. That may or may not be the case but it may enhance the reader's enjoyment if it is viewed as the lost manuscript of "B". The reader should also be aware that although each book is related to the other and there is an overlap in characters at times, this is not a trilogy. Kertesz shifts the story line around quite a bit. The Auschwitz survivor in Fateless, for example, was taken to the camps as a teenager, unlike "B" who was born there. The stories are connected by theme, not by plot line.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Bitter prose...., 2005-04-08
Kertesz writes same old book over and over again, from Fateless to Liquidation. And yet, we cannot get enough of it. Questions posed in those books poke at the mind with such fiercness that sheer struggle remains to hold on to ones sanity. It is the question of existance, of possibility of existance. And of the world that made that question possible.
How can one live a life where even his birth was an anomaly, something that never should have happened, luck, coincidence, life in the camp of death where Arbeit mach frei...Can he exist as a writer, and is his personal legacy in a from of literature strong enough to revoke effects of concentrational camps. Kertesz say "no", and leaves an emptiness for every reader to fill out himself. Love and sex, marriage and relationships hold no meaning in Kertesz's world of pain, world of morbid and twisted humanity which is, sadly, world that we live in.
What is a Jew, and what is the meaning of being Jew? Questions posed in a postmodern (yeay! everything is postmodern nowadays) way of author who had written a play that speaks of character of an author reading it...Yet, that is just a style practice...Final part of Kertesz's tetralogy doesen't close this chapter at all, it just prolongs a moment of necessary answer...A must read!
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
El delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido, 2004-12-31
In this novel, the central character answers the same crucial question posed in 'Kaddish for a child not born': why staying alive after Auschwitz?'
In 'Kaddish' the author decided to live in order to write: 'My pencil is my shovel'. The real rebellion for him was to stay alive.
The central character here commits suicide and orders that his literary creations be burned. The liquidation is complete.
'Why he did it?' is the question that the narrator of this book tries to find out.
The novel is an accumulation of liquidations. The narrator's family was a product of wars and dictatorships. After fascism and Auschwitz, as a lector in a publishing house he gets in trouble with the collectivist bureaucracy, where 'state subsidies are a disguised form of liquidation of literature'. Finally, his publishing house goes bankrupt.
The overall sentiment in 'Liquidation' is one of bitterness and nausea provoked by the poison of universal impotence.
Although the combination theatre/novel is highly original, I found that this book was more loosely built than 'Kaddish'.
But it is still a very worth-while read.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Is one allowed to live after Auschwitz?, 2004-12-07
The Hungarian writer B. commits suicide after the fall of communism. His editor, Keserü, tries to find out why he killed himself, for which he needs to trace the whereabouts of a manuscript by B. Meanwhile it becomes more and more clear that B. is a victim of Auschwitz: he was born in Auschwitz and the rest of his life is devoted to the question whether a man is alllowed to live after surviving Auschwitz. And in the background there is the play in which B. has described very precisely how the people near him will react after his death.
The title of the book "Liquidation" is very appropriately chosen: Auschwitz killed millions of Jews, B. makes the life of his wife Judith impossible, communism gets wiped out, the publishing house for which B. and Keserü work goes broke, B. commits suicide, after ending his life he causes a big crisis in Judith' second marriage and the manuscript of his novel is liquidated. A beautifully written book that leaves both the reader and Keserü empty-handed and with a lot of questions.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|