This will hurt me...

November moon, as seen in a backyard in Geilston Bay. November 2010. Friday Book Club and a productive week of reading has just gone by. Three for three in terms of quality, although when you have the ninth all-time bestselling book ever published and a Nobel Prize winner’s most fondly remembered novel in the mix, you would hope so! The first one to mention is Imre Kertész’s wonderful self-autobiographical novel Fatelessness . When he won the Nobel Prize in 2002, the committee noted that his writing “upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". This is very much a theme in Fatelessness . Ostensibly the tale of a young Hungarian boy swept away from his life in Budapest through the changing fortunes of the Second World War. Ethnically, the boy is a Jew; yet his family (bar an uncle) do not actually practise that religion. In this way, the notion of being persecuted – to the extent of Auschwitz – for something you are unsure of your...

Metaphysically speaking, I am left perplexed by the declaration found here in today’s advertisement. Regular readers will know that I have a deep respect for the Teutonic spirit, and am capable of seeing the broader worth of a peoples, culture and language than fixate on one or two (however dreadful) historical periods. Thus, I can look beyond an historic stain and embrace the gute volk in Deutschland with hearty Wohlwollen and nicht wertend Geist . That said, the notion of “ Deutschland ”, does not conjure up images of frolicking Fräuleins hitting the links in some desperate effort to secure everlasting life. I understand that in the aftermath of a war (any war, pick one) a nation must look to ways to [ahem] construct an appeal for foreign visitors to bring their hard currency engage in the spirit of peace and reconciliation. Nevertheless, golf ? Really? Cricket would have been far more appropriate.

As is always a good sign, I managed to steam through this book in 3 days, despite the fact that I’ve been working full time at the moment. Seriously, I found this book difficult to put down, and one of those occasions when you are truly sad to finish it. Compounding this is the fact that we get no subsequent biographical information of the author (although I both respect and understand her right to choose this). I’ve tried not to give too much away as to events of the book. The author – then a 34-year-old journalist – started this eight-week diary in April 1945, as the Russians were encircling Berlin and the city's (mostly female) inhabitants was heading to its cellars to wait out the fighting. The scarcity of food meant that anyone able-bodied took to looting buildings for food of any kind. However, soon the Red Army arrived and soldiers were everywhere. With an astonishing degree of bluntness, she describes the plundering of her neighbourhood when Berlin was conquered and Soviet ...