Harrowing, super-real, utterly frightening, simple humanity - Rated 
Some writers try to shock. At least it often seems that they embark upon a novel with that in mind. They create books set in times of conflict, amid war or pestilence, where the context is vivid, horrific or even repulsive. And often it is so well known that we engage with the setting, the context or scenario, rather than the plight of the characters. Or sometimes writers deliberately try to portray the unsavoury, often attempting to present sadistic brainlessness in a form that suggests anti-hero, ignoring the requirement that such a character needs at least some aspect of the heroic to deserve the name. These bite-sized pieces of nastiness are thus presented in a form that is easily digested in the end, the product usually attaining only triteness. Meanwhile others try to deliver blood and guts, their raison d'etre, as a means of eliciting revulsion and shock in the reader.
And then sometimes - rarely, in fact - we are presented with the truly shocking in a matter of fact way. Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich might fall into this category. The narrative just about never asks why anything happens; it just does and we, the readers, along with the subject of the story go along with whatever is demanded. We are invited to experience the unacceptable alongside and along with the characters, and in doing so we are invited to confront what we ourselves might have done in such circumstances. These books locate the reader within the experience, never merely tell us about it.
In Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz the writer elevates this form to another level. Not only are we presented with an inexplicable, an unrationalisable concentration camp experience of a fourteen-year-old Jewish boy, we are also presented with a character who apparently can neither feel nor express malice. As he wastes away, we are constantly confronted with an empathetic version of ourselves. Would we have reacted in this way? Would we have merely gone along with things, cooperatively, like this? Or would we have rebelled? Would we have had the guts to stand up? And what would have happened if we did? Could we have watched ourselves starve to death? And if we were to find ourselves required to do it, would we then react? Would we rebel? And if so to what purpose? And would we have survived?
Fatelessness is the story of Georg Koves, a Jewish boy from Budapest, who, one day, is diverted from his journey to work along with his mates. No-one bothers to tell the group what might be happening or where they might be going. Georg, however, goes carefully and cooperatively along with everything his directors ask. He makes train journeys, works in concentration camps, falls sick, recovers and survives, though perhaps his society does not. Names do not matter where he goes. Numbers identify, provide a pecking order of privilege that offers no more than survival into another day. But to be merely near one such survivor endows real kudos, if only by proximity of association.
Throughout Fatelessness one is confronted with a question. How might I have coped? Would I have done the same as this ultimately trusting, suffering lad? Would I have survived? And if I did, or even if I did not, would I have used the same or similar resources as this hero?
Fatelessness is a harrowing read, though it never sets out to shock. Life takes you where it goes, irrespective of whether it starts in a privileged family in New York or a ghettoed Jewish confine in 1940s Budapest. One makes of life what it presents, be it wealth, riches, starvation or death. And that's that. It's the detail along the way that makes the journey, however.
Takes your breath away - Rated
I have just finished reading this and I just feel blown away.
I began reading this with the expectation that it would be worthy but unpleasant in its detail and subject matter, but in fact what is really breathtakingly chilling about it is the emotionless way in which one step after another, the narrator Gyuri relates the string of events that lead him to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz. There is something about the way in which Gyuri (a 14 year old boy) seeks to rationalise everthing that is happening to him, that really took my breath away. There is something too about the escalation of events up against the coolness of the description, which also made this impossible to put down, which I really wasn't expecting.
I have been to Auschwitz and read various testimonies, but the beauty of the Kertesz's prose in rendering Gyuri's efforts to explain the little details of everyday life (even down to seeking out the good things of concentration camp life)through to trying to rationalise his fate and that of other Jews will stay with me for a very long time. I can't recommend this book enough.
outstanding human story - Rated
A totally absorbing film.Anyone with an interest in the state of the human condition and the strength sometimes needed to make the best of the most dreadful of situations wo'nt regret watching.A movie that truly bears witness to the darkness that shrouded europe during the war and the uplifting message that comes with survival.The sound track matches the moods with perfection and compassion.....outstanding cast....simply unmissable
this is true perspective - Rated
After reading this I understood what fate means and also what fatelessness means. The book is so powerful. It sends you with a quiet explosion into the full-on experience of the passive unknowing helplessness - and acceptance - and appraisal from all positive and negative vantage points - of the minute grinding horror of a boy's transportation from home to Holocaust. This should be read for its timeless messages all around and within the human condition in what we call modern civilisation.
"...this beautiful concentration camp" - Rated
This story of 15 year old Gyuri, as seen through his own eyes, begins with his Jewish family in Budapest in 1944. At the beginning the protagonist is like any other boy on the threshold of manhood, embarrassed by displays of emotion, looking on distastefully at his father and stepmother’s affection for each other. Yet he too finds his emotions awakening and becomes attached to a girl living in the same apartment block. Although we as readers are privileged and know the import of the events that are unfolding, Guyuri talks matter-of-factly about the ominous signs in his home city: the mandatory wearing of the yellow star, his father’s shopping preparations as he is called to a ‘labour’ camp, and then his own subsequent journey from working at a refinery for the war effort to Auschwitz. He is told that by taking the train he will be given a worthy job and, like all adventurous and naive boys of his age, volunteers for this opportunity with enthusiasm. Briefly in Auschwitz, Guyuri is soon transferred to another concentration camp and it is here that both he and the reader are surprised by the acceptance of the slow, incremental degradation he observes in himself and in others. His experiences not only age his body into that of a decrepit old man but also engender a wisdom that many who live to 100 years may never attain. Guyuri realises that survival is only possible because people live their lives one step at a time: to live with the knowledge of what is to come would be an unbearable burden. Simply written, with some heartbreaking moments (“I would like to live a little longer in this beautiful concentration camp"), it is Guyuri’s astonishing, unique voice that makes this a hugely affecting and remarkable tale.
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