6) Kaddish for a Child Unborn, by Imre Kertész
I guess I shouldn’t try and read heavy literature while I am travelling and feeling under the weather, because I found the peculiar narrative structure of this book rather off-putting. The central human dilemma, an Auschwitz survivor who is looking back on his childlessness and his failed literary career, is an important one, but I couldn’t get into it.
The bit of that C S Lewis review that made me laugh out loud – or rather, emit a bitterly ironic “Ha!” – was
It is a strange comment on our age that such a book lies hid in a hideous paper-backed edition, wholly unnoticed by the *cognoscenti,* while any “realistic” drivel about some neurotic in a London flat–something that needs no real invention at all, something that any educated man could write if he chose, may get seriously reviewed and mentioned in serious books–as if it really mattered.
I wonder how long this tyranny will last?