Fiasco
Imre Kertész’s “Fiasco” is a Kafkaesque narrative that depicts the Communist takeover of his native country in a hilarious yet melancholic way. After being drafted into the army and given the task of escorting military detainees, the main character chooses to pretend to be insane to get off duty. The story portrays life under the new government as an almost continuous continuation of what life was like in the German concentration camps, which was itself portrayed as a continuation of the oppressive patriarchal rule of miserable childhood. The book is a biting examination of the totalitarian experience, which is viewed as traumatizing not just the individual but the entire society.
About the Author
Kertész was fourteen when he was deported to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, survived, came home to Budapest and spent the communist decades writing in obscurity, translating from German to eat. Fatelessness took him thirteen years and was rejected on first submission; it describes a boy’s…
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