Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Quotes from book
Kaddish for an Unborn Child
Imre Kertész
Original title
Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért
(Hungarian, 1990)
Kaddish for an Unborn Child is a novel by Imre Kertész, first published in 1990 .
“I am as much or as little accomplice to my staying alive as I was to my birth.”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Context: I am still here, although I don’t know why; accidentally, I guess, as I was born; I am as much or as little accomplice to my staying alive as I was to my birth.
“What we usually mean by fate is what we least understand, that is to say, ourselves”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Context: What we usually mean by fate is what we least understand, that is to say, ourselves, that subversive, unknown individual constantly plotting against us, whom, estranged and alienated but still bowing with disgust before his might, we call, for the of simplicity, fate.
“To live and to write, it's all the same, both together, for the pen is my spade”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Context: To live and to write, it's all the same, both together, for the pen is my spade; when I look ahead I only look back, when I stare at the paper I only see the past: she crossed that bluish green carpet as if she were crossing the sea because she wanted to talk to me, for she found out that I was "B.", author and literary translator, one of whose "works" had read, and which she definitely wanted to discuss with me, she said, and we talked and talked until we talked ourselves into bed — Good God! — and continued to talk even then, uninterrupted.
“Auschwitz cannot be explained.”
And yet, it doesn’t take a Wittgenstein to notice that the sentence is faulty even from the point of pure linguistic logic;
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
