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A "lonely cog" in the torturous machinery of the State
Detective Story
By Imre Kertész
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
Alfred A. Knopf. 130 pp. $21.
Reviewed by Toby Lichtig
A teenage survivor of Auschwitz, the Hungarian novelist Imre Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002 - something of a surprise choice at the time, sparking comments about political motivations, with Hungary about to enter the European Union. Since then, his standing in the Anglophone world has increased considerably. Tim Wilkinson produced an excellent new translation of Kertész's most feted novel, Fatelessness (1975), in 2005, which was subsequently made into a film; Wilkinson has also recently brought us Kaddish for an Unborn Child (originally published in Hungary in 1990), Liquidation (first published in 2003), and now Detective Story (first published in 1997) - a novella that, despite its slightness, will do little to dim Kertész's star. Kertész's characters have a Beckettian attitude toward struggle in the face of the inevitable void: a tragicomic assimilation within their degradation, a defiant refusal to give up (the "I can't go on. I'll go on" of Beckett's The Unnamable). They often live under the shadow of totalitarian regimes (Nazi Germany, communist Hungary) and force us to interrogate the nature of human volition. In Detective Story, the themes are similar, but not the angle of approach: our protagonist is - on the face of things - an aggressor rather than a victim, on trial for crimes against humanity. The setting is an unnamed Latin American country in the aftermath of a dictatorship. The text before us is the confession of Mr. Antonio Martens - a former torturer for the sinister state "Corps" - which has been entrusted to his defense counsel. How much, we are asked to judge, can "a lowly cog in a big machine," like Martens, "make sense of his fate?" "The horror story," the counsel avers, "was written not by Martens alone but by reality, too." Martens narrates in a hardboiled tone, ably captured by Wilkinson: "I was already starting to get a bit fed up with murderers, burglars, and whores." He leaves the police to join the Corps, suddenly a "new boy" prone to "stuttering and cliches." He is brainwashed ("not enough, though") and assigned two colleagues: the psychopathic and anti-Semitic Rodriguez ("anyone who wants something else is Jewish"), now on death row, and their wily boss, Diaz ("Those in power first, then the law"), who has vanished since the last regime change. They are assigned to the case of the Salinases: a wealthy father and son - bourgeois, liberal, complacent. Salinas Sr. feels protected by his money ("We're not the kind of people they take away"), while his son, Enrique, wants to do something positive, to lash out against the hated State. "You're living among mere concepts," his father scoffs. Part of Detective Story comprises Enrique's angst-filled diary - replete with desires, disgust and half-baked nihilism - seized and later purchased from the police archives by Martens. Why? "I acquired it simply because I felt it couldn't possibly end up anywhere else; it had to be with me." Martens' act was partly sympathetic, tinged with guilt, but mostly curiosity: "the people working for the Corps are only human," he reminds us. Indeed, Martens is a remarkably neutral character, in some ways almost a blank slate. But his recent vulnerability has given him a penchant for penetrating honesty: "I understand nothing about what makes the mind tick, my own least of all." It has also lent him an articulacy. As his counsel comments at the start, "He evinced a surprising flair for writing, intellectual grade, as indeed does anyone, in my experience, who for once in his life steels himself to face up to his fate." Kertész demonstrates how tyrannical regimes strip us of our drive to comprehend our fate. (In Fatelessness, the victim-protagonist actually feels that he is experiencing someone else's fate.) Referring to his torture practices, Martens speaks of a sort of despotic amnesia: "There was a time beforehand when I understood, and now I have understood again. During one's action, though, one forgets." When it comes to his own victimhood, following regime change, Martens feels equally powerless: "It is always me whom they catch - people like me." Like Camus' Meursault, with whom he has many affinities, Martens seems happy enough to open himself to "the gentle indifference of the world." Detective Story is a moving if minor addition to the literature of violence, guilt and will. Despite its appealingly meditative nature, it is philosophically undemanding. It has a compelling story, with a very clever twist built in to exculpate Martens' victims. Kertész, supported by Wilkinson, writes with characteristic lucidity, grace and grim-gay humor. He is now approaching 80; another translated novella, The Pathseeker, is due out in April. One hopes that we have one or two more substantial new works to look forward to.
Toby Lichtig is an assistant editor at the Times Literary Supplement.
Reviewed by Toby Lichtig
A teenage survivor of Auschwitz, the Hungarian novelist Imre Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002 - something of a surprise choice at the time, sparking comments about political motivations, with Hungary about to enter the European Union. Since then, his standing in the Anglophone world has increased considerably. Tim Wilkinson produced an excellent new translation of Kertész's most feted novel, Fatelessness (1975), in 2005, which was subsequently made into a film; Wilkinson has also recently brought us Kaddish for an Unborn Child (originally published in Hungary in 1990), Liquidation (first published in 2003), and now Detective Story (first published in 1997) - a novella that, despite its slightness, will do little to dim Kertész's star. Kertész's characters have a Beckettian attitude toward struggle in the face of the inevitable void: a tragicomic assimilation within their degradation, a defiant refusal to give up (the "I can't go on. I'll go on" of Beckett's The Unnamable). They often live under the shadow of totalitarian regimes (Nazi Germany, communist Hungary) and force us to interrogate the nature of human volition. In Detective Story, the themes are similar, but not the angle of approach: our protagonist is - on the face of things - an aggressor rather than a victim, on trial for crimes against humanity. The setting is an unnamed Latin American country in the aftermath of a dictatorship. The text before us is the confession of Mr. Antonio Martens - a former torturer for the sinister state "Corps" - which has been entrusted to his defense counsel. How much, we are asked to judge, can "a lowly cog in a big machine," like Martens, "make sense of his fate?" "The horror story," the counsel avers, "was written not by Martens alone but by reality, too." Martens narrates in a hardboiled tone, ably captured by Wilkinson: "I was already starting to get a bit fed up with murderers, burglars, and whores." He leaves the police to join the Corps, suddenly a "new boy" prone to "stuttering and cliches." He is brainwashed ("not enough, though") and assigned two colleagues: the psychopathic and anti-Semitic Rodriguez ("anyone who wants something else is Jewish"), now on death row, and their wily boss, Diaz ("Those in power first, then the law"), who has vanished since the last regime change. They are assigned to the case of the Salinases: a wealthy father and son - bourgeois, liberal, complacent. Salinas Sr. feels protected by his money ("We're not the kind of people they take away"), while his son, Enrique, wants to do something positive, to lash out against the hated State. "You're living among mere concepts," his father scoffs. Part of Detective Story comprises Enrique's angst-filled diary - replete with desires, disgust and half-baked nihilism - seized and later purchased from the police archives by Martens. Why? "I acquired it simply because I felt it couldn't possibly end up anywhere else; it had to be with me." Martens' act was partly sympathetic, tinged with guilt, but mostly curiosity: "the people working for the Corps are only human," he reminds us. Indeed, Martens is a remarkably neutral character, in some ways almost a blank slate. But his recent vulnerability has given him a penchant for penetrating honesty: "I understand nothing about what makes the mind tick, my own least of all." It has also lent him an articulacy. As his counsel comments at the start, "He evinced a surprising flair for writing, intellectual grade, as indeed does anyone, in my experience, who for once in his life steels himself to face up to his fate." Kertész demonstrates how tyrannical regimes strip us of our drive to comprehend our fate. (In Fatelessness, the victim-protagonist actually feels that he is experiencing someone else's fate.) Referring to his torture practices, Martens speaks of a sort of despotic amnesia: "There was a time beforehand when I understood, and now I have understood again. During one's action, though, one forgets." When it comes to his own victimhood, following regime change, Martens feels equally powerless: "It is always me whom they catch - people like me." Like Camus' Meursault, with whom he has many affinities, Martens seems happy enough to open himself to "the gentle indifference of the world." Detective Story is a moving if minor addition to the literature of violence, guilt and will. Despite its appealingly meditative nature, it is philosophically undemanding. It has a compelling story, with a very clever twist built in to exculpate Martens' victims. Kertész, supported by Wilkinson, writes with characteristic lucidity, grace and grim-gay humor. He is now approaching 80; another translated novella, The Pathseeker, is due out in April. One hopes that we have one or two more substantial new works to look forward to.
Toby Lichtig is an assistant editor at the Times Literary Supplement.
