Three Good Things: Dour Edition
1) On Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz's recent memoir Dossier K:
What all of this adds up to is very loosely a memoir, but it might be better described as an energetic and thoughtful introduction (or companion) to Kertesz’s other books. Kertesz, for his part, seems to intend “Dossier K.” as a kind of catchall interview that will save him not simply from having to sit for more interviews, but also from having the complexity of his life’s experiences and ideas reduced by others to sound bites. You hear echoes of this concern toward the end of “Dossier K.,” in his comments on the social realities of being a Holocaust survivor:
“It is painful to carry the brand of surviving for some unaccountable reason. You remained here so you could spread the Auschwitz myth; you remained here as a sort of freak. You are invited to attend anniversaries; your irresolute face is video-recorded, your faltering voice, you hardly notice that you’ve become a kitsch supporting character in a fraudulent narrative, and you sell for peanuts your own story, which bit by bit you yourself understand least of all.”
For more, see the New York Times . . .
2) Prescient as ever, George Orwell in a letter from 1944: