Transit by Anna Seghers
Title: Transit
Author: Anna Seghers (1900 - 1983)
Publication date: 1944.
Genre: Classics. War Story. Literature.
Languate read in: German.
Page Count: 290.
Summary/Back of the book:
Marseille in the summer of 1940: Those hunted and threatened by the Nazis gather at the edge of Europe. They rush to get their visas and certificates, so they can flee overseas into the safety of exile. For a short time foreign lives are connected by hopes, dreams and passions. [Source: Rough translation of the back-flap]
Review in 5 words or less: Very intense atmosphere | Realistic | Very good and touching story but one annoying character almost ruined the whole book for me |
Personal Rating: ◊ ◊ ½ of 5.
Review:
Transit is told in first person perspective by a narrator we never really get to know by name. Not his real name, anyway. He is a young man of twenty-seven years who has escaped from a concentration camp in 1937 and has been on the run ever since. Eventually he makes his way to Marseille where he takes the identity of the author deceased Weidel, a man he met briefly in the concentration camp. The only trouble is that the narrator may be the only one around who knows that Weidel has died but before he can use the other man's name to get all the papers and visa he needs in order to escape from the war and from Europe, he runs into a series of old and new acquaintances. For one thing there are exactly those Germans around who fled from the concentration camp with him and Weidel and who could easily betray his identity. To make matters worse our narrator falls in love with an elusive woman, none other than Weidel's estranged wife Marie who first left Weidel for another man and now can't bring herself to stop looking for her abandoned husband.
It quickly becomes apparent that Transit is, to a great part, inspired by the author's own experiences as she fled from Europe. She, too, fought to get her visa in Marseille before she made her way to Mexico. Naturally this makes the descriptions of Marseille during the war-time, the thicket of regulations the fugitives have to get through and the general atmosphere or just passing through, the restlessness, the ever changing game of emotions which go from one extreme to the other: from fear and despair to hope to hopelessness to resignation and back again, very convincing and realistic to read. In fact, one can't shake the feeling that a great part of the novel is a way for the author to find a way to deal with her own experiences.
Aside from the great realism in Transit the narrator's dry and detached style stands out. He tells the greatest tragedies with barely a shrug of his shoulder - understandable if you consider what he went through and that he had to shut himself off in order to have a chance at survival. In fact, this attitude is mirrored in a multitude of characters, each of them coping in slightly different ways but always finding a way to protect themselves.
The effect on the reader, however, couldn't be greater. It's exactly the way the narrator has gotten used to all the tragedies happening all around him, that make those tragedies twice as bad as there's a constant reminder that these things aren't that extraordinary. They're barely worth mentioning - and that is what is truly horrifying in my opinion.
Now one could say that Transit deals with nothing more than just one man's attempt to escape, but that would be doing the book an injustice. I feel as if the core of the book is much more centered around the narrator's struggle to survive as an individual. He gets caught up in his net of lies and identities, in his clever little plots which should all bring him some gain (in the form of visas, getting food or affection) but effectively he's losing himself. There's a very telling part which shows this nicely toward the ending of the book where the narrator is shocked to find out that for once someone is willing to help him which in itself takes him by surprise, but that person is willing to help him because he is himself. Formerly he has successfully convinced himself that his own story, while sad and exciting, is simply too unremarkable to warrant being told since so many others struggle with a more difficult fate.
In fact, it's not until comes to rest and stops playing his little games, that the narrator gets back in touch with himself and experiences a semblance of peace.
Having read all these observations it would seem pretty obvious that Transit is a highly impressive book. It is, I will eagerly agree to that, but there was one part that really bothered me. Namely, Marie, Weidel's wife and the woman the narrator (and a whole lot of other men) falls in love with.
I'm not entirely sure whether or not Marie is even supposed to be a sympathetic character but to me she represents far too many things that I detest and unfortunately each time that I really got into the story Marie would turn up (or the narrator's obsession with her) and immediately make me groan and wish to put the book aside. Marie is a woman who made one man after the other fall in love with her (admittedly, it's not clear whether or not she did it on purpose). She left her parents as a young woman on order to accompany Weidel because he could show her the world. She then left Weidel because another man, the doctor, offered her a way out of the bombed out city she was fleeing from. It comes out that in a sudden bout of a bad conscience for leaving her husband, she delays the doctor's escape at a time when both of them could have fled relatively safely and finally, when it looks as if the doctor is fed up with her and leaves, it doesn't take her even a minute to decide that she's the narrator's woman now. Unexpectedly the doctor returns and Marie switches again, using those men who care for her. Before the narrator falls in love with Marie (it's never explained what's so appealing about her, either) he is with a woman named Nadine whom he perceives as too cold and calculating. Ironically in the end it is Nadine who shows compassion and helps the narrator while I haven't seen Marie do a single thing in the book that wasn't done for her own benefit. This really, really bothered me and is ultimately the reason why the book got such a relatively low rating from me. I just couldn't enjoy it because of this fixation with Marie.
The Verdict: Does Transit "deserve" its place among the 1001 books that should be read? Definitely yes in my opinion. It tells an important and touching story and it was doubtlessly written by a very skilled author. It has depth, it's realistic and there's enough substance to the book that it could serve as a basis of discussion for a long time.
It's just that I didn't enjoy reading it. I get intellectually that it's a good book, moments and scenes touched me but overall I was relieved when the book ended. The characterization of Marie really got on my nerves and the narrator's obsession with her distracted from the parts that could have reached me.
Would I recommend reading it? Yes, actually, because it's a story worth being told. I just hope you'll enjoy the actual process of reading it more than I did.
Links: @ wikipedia
Other books I've read by this author: ---.