Sprache:
Deutsch
Erscheinungsjahr:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Arcadia; internationale Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft
Angaben zur Quelle:
36,1 (2001) 46-57
Schlagwort(e):
Kertész, Imre,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
Kurzfassung:
Suggests that Kertész's novel, which has repelled some readers because of the protagonist's strange amorality and the lack of emotion with which he looks at the horrors of the Holocaust, can best be understood as a picaresque tale. In such a tale, the hero is a rogue (Schelm) characterized by naiveté and ignorance, by his readiness to accept the words, actions, and dictates of others, and by a distorted, dissociated, and innocuous view of events. The use of this genre enables Kertész to break through the conventions of Holocaust literature and, in his own words, "to say only the sayable and to be confident that the completed work will say more about the unsayable than if I tried to do so directly". At the end of Kertész's book, however, the protagonist is no longer naive but possesses a knowledge that estranges him no less from others. Compares Kertész's work with two other, but very different, picaresque novels on the Holocaust - Becker's "Jakob der Lügner" and Hilsenrath's "Der Nazi & der Friseur".
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