I have never been a friend of biographies and memoires: Mostly because I believe that nothing intimate and personal can be very reliable, and also since my interest in someone’s work does not equal to an interest in their private persona. The same goes for “Dossier K.”. Quite many of the topics and ideas were close to my own thoughts, especially when it came to contrasting fiction versus reality. In this case it would come down to the difference in approaching the actual and factual versus a fictitious Auschwitz, both literally and metaphorically. And that question could fill volumes all by itself. A welcome bonus was the author’s personal reading list. But besides getting into trivia on numerous occasions, the conversation repeatedly came down to the matter of the author explaining or interpreting his own work. And that just sends cold shivers down my spine. I imagine that this memoire would be of interest to readers with a particularly biographical approach to literature.
A wonderful examination of a Nobel laureate, "Dossier K" plumbs Imre Kertesz's past for an audience not familiar with the heretofore unknown Hungarian novelist. Focusing mostly on his experiences in the World War II death camps and under the Hungarian Communist regime, the book is in the form of an interview conducted by his editor Zoltan Hafner in 2003 and 2004. Upon receiving the tapes, he set to work to put them into a publishable form, and "Dossier K" is the result. As a portrait of the artist, it shows the circuitous route at which he arrived at his vocation, a vocation at which he didn't think he would be very successful, but which had to be served regardless. As the portrait of a man, it can best be summed up by his final words: "I see contradictions at every hand, but then I take delight in contradictions."If you want to get into the mind of an artist, "Dossier K" is a must read of the literature.
Do You like book Dossier K: A Memoir (2013)?
Očekivao sam drugačiju knjigu. Naime, mislio sam da je knjiga više okrenuta priči o Aušvicu i Holokaustu, ali je zapravo ovo bio osvrt na biografiju autora, gde se priča o Drugom svetskom ratu i logoru pojavljuje u etapama. Slažem se sa konstatacijom:"Više od životne lekcije, ovo je filozofsko razmišljanje o njiževnom stvaralaštvu, savremnicima, kulturi, istoriji, Holokaustu, i suštinskim životnim pitanjima." Knjiga mi je otvorila put ka nekim novim razmišljanjima, a i literaturi koja će biti bliža mojoj prvobitnoj zamisli teme ove knjige.
—Milan Trpkovic
The author, a Nobel Prize winner, interviews himself to try to achieve a better understanding of how events in his life shaped his writing. Although it is interesting, if you haven't read the novels he is dissecting (I haven't)it can be a rather fruitless exercise. The tales that are explicitly descibed certainly make me want to read the full stories. What I really took away from this book was the philosophical musings of a survivor of 2 dictatorships who can still look at life with a wry sense of humor, even joking about his thoughts of suicide. Still, I'd recommend reading his novels first before embarking on this journey.
—Bob Schnell
