⇒ Libro Gratis Transit New York Review Books Classics Anna Seghers Margot Bettauer Dembo Peter Conrad Heinrich Boll Books

Transit New York Review Books Classics Anna Seghers Margot Bettauer Dembo Peter Conrad Heinrich Boll Books

Download As PDF : Transit New York Review Books Classics Anna Seghers Margot Bettauer Dembo Peter Conrad Heinrich Boll Books

Transit New York Review Books Classics Anna Seghers Margot Bettauer Dembo Peter Conrad Heinrich Boll Books

From the first paragraph it puts you inside the mind of a man--the narrator--who is fleeing the Nazi advance into France in 1939. He gets to Marseille, where he has to decide whether he wants to try to leave on one of the last ships. Marseille is claustrophobic. It offers only boredom, muted terror, and the frenetic but likely senseless activity of convincing bureaucrats to issue visas and tickets to leave. We wait with the narrator in one dismal café or other where the mistral blows endlessly outside and you can't get a drink unless it's an "alcohol day."

Like Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca, the narrator is in love with a woman married to another man, but Marseille is no Hollywood movie set. Thoughts and feelings become unstable, then warp under the strain. The decision to leave Europe behind forever is not easy. A family where all except the grandmother have been granted visas refuse to leave even though the grandmother is certain to die within a few months and then all the others will all be interned. Marie, with whom the narrator has fallen in love, hesitates again and again because she refuses to accept that her husband the novelist Weidel is dead. The narrator too is confused. He says he doesn't want to leave, then puts all his energy and cunning into trying to get a transit visa.

We know little about the nameless narrator. He escaped first from a German concentration camp and then from a French work camp, but he does not seem ideological or especially political. He seems to be an ordinary person who just hates Nazis: "their murderous commands and objectionable insistence on obedience, their disgusting boasts." For this reason it's not possible to read Transit and think: "well, that wouldn't have happened to me back then" or "that can never happen to me." This is one of Seghers' major achievements.

One of the most moving moments is when the narrator reads Weidel's unpublished novel. It's the first novel the narrator has ever finished, and the beauty of the prose makes him feel that German is once more his language--the language of his childhood and youth, before the Nazis commandeered and disfigured it. This may not be what most people think of when they think of Nazi crimes, but for the narrator it is a very real, deeply personal loss. Perhaps Anna Seghers hoped her novel would reclaim and renew the German language for its first readers in the same way. Beautifully translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo, this English language version has the same simplicity and strength of feeling as Seghers' original prose.


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Transit New York Review Books Classics Anna Seghers Margot Bettauer Dembo Peter Conrad Heinrich Boll Books Reviews

Awesome thanks
Great book
"Transit" provides a rare picture of everyday life in the early WWII era, the life of those waiting and hoping to migrate out of Europe and away from war. Through an unusual love story the reader experiences the complications, anxiety, heartbreak and daily challenges of those in transit. The narrative from the perspective of one man makes the story easy to read and enjoyable even though the character himself isn't always particularly likeable.
"Transit"'s protagonist has been in double exile/triple imprisonment. He is an anti-Nazi, German political refugee who has escaped two prison camps to fall into a wider confinement in the city of Marseilles awaiting an uncertain next destination. Amplifying the effect of this limbo is the man's assumption of another's identity. Every action he takes, every relationship he has, is done in another man's name and with another's man's resume.

Author Anna Seghers, herself a WWII refugee, has written the definitive story of displacement. The plight of the people continuously lining up for visas, waiting for ship departures and living off war and political rumor is palpable to the extreme, making the novel intensely uncomfortable at times. This is all in contrast to the rather clear evoking of wartime Marseilles, with its neighborhoods, harbor, cafes, shops etc. The characters in the story--all refugees or temporary residents--are like ghosts floating through the ancient and very solid city.

Thought-provoking and worth reading if for no other reason than to experience the feeling of total disconnection and uncertainty that are the lot of refugees of any period. It certainly provides some insight into what is happening today on Lampedusa or in Northern Syria or several regions of Asia. Things we should know about and react to.
AcaDec selection for the coming school year, never heard about WWII through this perspective, great read!
This is one of those rare books about WWII that is written before the war is over. Neither the author nor the protagonists know who will ultimately win. Is it better to be imprisoned by the Germans or the Free French? Will Hitler take Marseille? Which is worse for one's visa prospects -- having fought for Franco or having lost one's identification papers in a concentration camp? Does escaping from the Germans make you friend or foe? America is still neutral. South America is still free of Nazis. How long will that last? All of which adds to this wonderful story about humans, indeed an entire continent, in limbo.
I read this in preparation for helping a group of students thoroughly understand it, but early-on I knew many of them were going to give up before chapter three! There are many characters that you have to keep up on, and the multiple voices in the text are problematical, even for me, a
more-than-forty-years veteran of the classroom teaching English and American literature. In studying Seghers' background and her history did
shed light on why her characters are so conflicted, but even that information didn't help many of the students (high school). A solid knowledge of
WWII and a background in psychology and sociology would help!
From the first paragraph it puts you inside the mind of a man--the narrator--who is fleeing the Nazi advance into France in 1939. He gets to Marseille, where he has to decide whether he wants to try to leave on one of the last ships. Marseille is claustrophobic. It offers only boredom, muted terror, and the frenetic but likely senseless activity of convincing bureaucrats to issue visas and tickets to leave. We wait with the narrator in one dismal café or other where the mistral blows endlessly outside and you can't get a drink unless it's an "alcohol day."

Like Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca, the narrator is in love with a woman married to another man, but Marseille is no Hollywood movie set. Thoughts and feelings become unstable, then warp under the strain. The decision to leave Europe behind forever is not easy. A family where all except the grandmother have been granted visas refuse to leave even though the grandmother is certain to die within a few months and then all the others will all be interned. Marie, with whom the narrator has fallen in love, hesitates again and again because she refuses to accept that her husband the novelist Weidel is dead. The narrator too is confused. He says he doesn't want to leave, then puts all his energy and cunning into trying to get a transit visa.

We know little about the nameless narrator. He escaped first from a German concentration camp and then from a French work camp, but he does not seem ideological or especially political. He seems to be an ordinary person who just hates Nazis "their murderous commands and objectionable insistence on obedience, their disgusting boasts." For this reason it's not possible to read Transit and think "well, that wouldn't have happened to me back then" or "that can never happen to me." This is one of Seghers' major achievements.

One of the most moving moments is when the narrator reads Weidel's unpublished novel. It's the first novel the narrator has ever finished, and the beauty of the prose makes him feel that German is once more his language--the language of his childhood and youth, before the Nazis commandeered and disfigured it. This may not be what most people think of when they think of Nazi crimes, but for the narrator it is a very real, deeply personal loss. Perhaps Anna Seghers hoped her novel would reclaim and renew the German language for its first readers in the same way. Beautifully translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo, this English language version has the same simplicity and strength of feeling as Seghers' original prose.