British flag

Author: Imre
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: In the world, there is a kind of pain and a complete submission that we can only see through Kertész's eyes. I will always be grateful to him—for truth's sake, it's more gratitude for his work The Journal than for him personally—that made me suddenly realize a sense of humiliation, where I was, in an adventurous and terrifying moment. Or rather: where I truly was. From the perspective of the "material" and structure of the novel, The British Flag is a continuation of The Defeat and A Prayer for a Child Not Yet Born. It can be said that The British Flag encompasses the typical, fundamental features of Kertész's writing technique. In the novel The Tracker, the author uses Kafkaesque literary means to tackle a very heavy theme. However, in the treatment of people or things, what is expressed is not Kafkaesque confusion, but a tragic liberation. The reading of this book is a lonely, heart-shaking spiritual adventure. From the very beginning, we are gripped by the suspense of "the British flag," accompanying the protagonist through an utterly real spiritual adventure. We eat steaks "without coupons" in the era of "coupon distribution," symbolizing a symbolic resistance of a weak individual against society's fragility. We participate in the daily political study sessions filled with "criticism and self-criticism" of that time with the protagonist, witnessing the confusing scene of a revolutionary being ruled by other revolutionaries. We become prisoners outside the temporary parole bars with the protagonist, enduring the hysterical barking of mad dogs. We listen to the heart-stirring opera Aeneid with the protagonist, secretly enjoying "illegal freedom" behind the red curtains of the theater box. We gaze together at the "British flag" wrapped around the front of a jeep.