The Journey
by H.G. Adler
translated by Peter Filkins
Category: Ficton
This novel was written by a German Jew who survived the Holocaust despite being in several camps. It's fictional, based loosely on the author's experience. But, it's written in a kind of stream of consciousness style and so is not as heavy as the topic would indicate.
I can't say that I enjoyed the book. I like a straightforward story and I don't like it when authors get too artsy and poetic. Fortunately the foreword and afterword gave me enough context to attempt to understand what was going on.
The thing that I found most interesting was a notion that either the author is encouraging to pop into the reader's head or just popped into mine due to the foreword, which is the question of how many of those imprisoned never really believed that this was happening to them. The characters in the novel skirt around the whole concept that they are prisoners. And I can absolutely imagine that if one is taken from one's comfortable life and put into a harsh new one, that the mind could reject reality and attempt to fashion something more palatable, something that allows for the possibility of hope.
I also wonder what this reads like in the original German.
translated by Peter Filkins
Category: Ficton
This novel was written by a German Jew who survived the Holocaust despite being in several camps. It's fictional, based loosely on the author's experience. But, it's written in a kind of stream of consciousness style and so is not as heavy as the topic would indicate.
I can't say that I enjoyed the book. I like a straightforward story and I don't like it when authors get too artsy and poetic. Fortunately the foreword and afterword gave me enough context to attempt to understand what was going on.
The thing that I found most interesting was a notion that either the author is encouraging to pop into the reader's head or just popped into mine due to the foreword, which is the question of how many of those imprisoned never really believed that this was happening to them. The characters in the novel skirt around the whole concept that they are prisoners. And I can absolutely imagine that if one is taken from one's comfortable life and put into a harsh new one, that the mind could reject reality and attempt to fashion something more palatable, something that allows for the possibility of hope.
I also wonder what this reads like in the original German.