“Everywhere, in the grip of death, life goes on too.”

Book Review:

Review by Helen Ditouras  (DEC 16, 2010)

To be comfortable in the world of the Kafkaesque, one must slowly climb up the literary ladder, page after page, year after year. My journey began with the likes of V.C. Andrews during my tawdry youth, and then eventually reached its pinnacle with Tolstoy, and of course, Kafka. Aside from my literary snobbery (which is nothing short of a veneer – I still love me some Sidney Sheldon), having entered Kafka’s abyss of absurdity and horror makes Hans Keilson’s novel, Comedy in a Minor Key, not only recognizable, but entirely brilliant.

But I hate to take credit where it’s not deserved. I am not the lone genius who has pegged Keilson as a contemporary of Kafka – many literary critics have beat me to the punch, and rightfully so. Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key (published in 1947), is also followed by The Death of the Adversary, published in 1959, and shares some very distinct characteristics – both aesthetic and thematic, with the aforementioned tale. His minimalist prose are skillfully juxtaposed with themes of tragedy, which reflects his work as a psychiatrist post WWII, and his pioneering developments in the effects of war trauma on children. Trauma, as a reoccurring theme, resonates throughout his work.

Keilson’s Comedy ironically reveals the story of Nico – a Jewish perfume salesman hidden in the second-floor room of Wim and Marie, a benevolent Dutch couple, during Nazi-occupied Holland. In this room, Nico’s life is carefully preserved by the couple, who manage to go about their daily lives amidst the dread of exposure. Yet apart from the terror, all three characters lead lives that border on the painfully banal. Day after day, Nico anticipates the moment when Marie can deliver the daily paper upstairs. Both Wim and Marie too look forward to the clandestine conversations they share with Nico when the sun goes down. These small, but endearing rituals, keep the trio bound in camaraderie and secrecy, while Europe’s Jews are detained and annihilated. Yet despite the fact that Wim and Marie carefully tend to Nico each day, he eventually succumbs to a feverish illness which takes his life in the very room that promised sanctuary.

I refuse to spoil the novel by revealing the climax, so I will return to my musings of the Kafkaesque. Keilson deliberately avoids discussion of the occupation and its horrors in order to set the stage for the deep ironies that the novel comically uncovers. Nico is similar to Joseph K. – he is seemingly persecuted simply for existing. Both characters are confined in psychological isolation, and neither of them foresees an end. Moreover, the world in which Nico and Joseph K. live in escalates into mystery and unfathomable trepidation, with little respite. Like Joseph K., Nico endures the fear that comes to epitomize his entire existence.

Comedy in a Minor Key perfectly conveys the trauma that ordinary people experience during their life span. But more importantly, it also imparts the illogical dimensions of oppression that afflict people all over. That misery sometimes cannot be avoided at any cost is the philosophical conclusion that Keilson’s Comedy cleverly relates with pathos and farce. Keilson’s message reverberates clearly: pain and suffering is universal, and sometimes, the only way to communicate this anxiety is through humor. (Translated by Damion Searls.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 28 readers
PUBLISHER:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (July 20, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Helen Ditouras
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Hans Keilson
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Death of the Adversary

Bibliography:

• Life Goes On (1933)
• A Comedy in a Minor Key (1947; July 2010 in US)
• Death of the Adversary (1962; July 2010 in the US)

“I could not give him up; I needed him. His existence meant my destruction in the near future, that much was certain. But his sudden death, or some other event that would have robbed me of his threatening presence, would equally have destroyed me. Between us two, ties and obligations had come into being, perceptible only to those whose share in the things of this world lie in suffering. A strange and questionable share, perhaps; but who can break the community that secretly establishes itself between the persecutors and their victims?”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (OCT 22, 2010)

What is the relationship between persecutors and their victims? In The Death of the Adversary – poised on the brink of what soon will be one of the world’s most horrific tragedies – an unnamed narrator in an unnamed country reflects on an unnamed figure who will soon ascend to power. Although the figure (“B”) is never revealed, it soon becomes obvious that he is Hitler and that the narrator is of Jewish descent.

The narrator – who bemoans his own passivity – is blessed, or cursed, with high intelligence. Because he is unable to come to grips with evil for its own sake, he twists his logic to make sense out of the insensible; he knows B hates what the narrator represents, but he believes that the narrator desperately needs that hatred and, in fact, feeds on it…eliciting hatred in return. He goes further: in his “logical” mind, he believes that the adversary and his victims are in a state of symbiosis, feeding upon each other and because of their mutual need, neither adversary will eliminate the other. History, of course, has sadly shown how ludicrous this conclusion was.

Keilson uses a conceit in presenting these musings; his fictional (or autobiographical?) narrator has deposited a manuscript for safekeeping during the war years. Now, as he awaits word of the death of B, he rekindles his memory about the events of those pre-war years.

In haunting prose, he remembers his father’s words when he was only 10: “If B. should ever come to power, may God have mercy on us. Then things will really start to happen.” He recalls being ostracized from a group of non-Jewish children who seek to banish him from their games. He remembers the ending of a close friendship with another man who, it turns out, is enthralled by B. and his ideas. He recounts the two times when his path and his adversary’s intersected.

And, in one of the most devastating parts of the book, he recreates an evening at the apartment of a saleswomen he worked with whose brother and friends are revealed to be Nazi thugs, who desecrate a supposed Jewish cemetery to prove that even in death, Jews will not allowed to experience peace. As the young man describes in exhaustive detail how gravestones – even those of young children – were defaced, our narrator sits transfixed, unable to admit to his heritage or condemn these monstrous acts.

It bears acknowledging that Hans Keilson – now a centenarian – lives in an Amsterdam village, after the Nuremberg laws forced him to flee from his native Germany. He is a psychoanalyst who pioneered the treatment of war trauma in children. It is no surprise, then, that the book is underpinned by a deep psychoanalysis of the relationship of perpetrator and victim, and the victim’s sense of denial and self-delusion. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t. By removing the victim from his more primal emotions, there is a certain sterility that is not normally seen in Holocaust-themed books. The translator, Ivo Jarosy, appears to take a literal rather than interpretive approach, which creates a certain British formality in tone.

Still, as Arthur Miller once wrote, “Attention must be paid.” Hans Keilson is one of the last witnesses to the atrocity that was the Holocaust. In an era where – incredibly – a new breed of Holocaust deniers are rearing their ugly heads, it is important for the world to understand once again the sheer evil and damning repercussions of this most heinous act of genocide. (Translated by Ivo Jarosy.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 18 readers
PUBLISHER:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reissue edition (July 20, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wkipedia page on Hans Keilson
EXTRAS:	The New York Times article on Hans Keilson
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of : Comedy in a Minor Key Also try: The Great House by Nicole Kraus

Bibliography:

• Life Goes On (1933)
• A Comedy in a Minor Key (1947; July 2010 in US)
• Death of the Adversary (1962; July 2010 in the US)