The Invisible Writing by Arthur Koestler

Author:Arthur Koestler [Koestler, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

The action takes place in a home for German refugee children near Paris; time, the present. The characters are children from 2 1/2 to 16 years, mostly of proletariau origin; parents and staff … The thirty ernigre children, cut off from their French environment, lead a kind of desert-island existence which undergoes strange transformations, follows its own logic, and reflects in a much more pointed form than is normally the case, the problems of social integration and the crises of puberty. The initial difficulties and disorders in the inadequately staffed and financed Home are overcome by the growing sense of responsibility of the Collective; the stages of this evolution, the shared experiences of the children, occupy the major part of the novel.

In the last part of the book, individuals, characters and destinies begin to take shape. `Ullrich the Opposition’, already at the age of fifteen a typical middle-class intellectual, is incapable of subordinating himself to the proletarian community of the children. His inner conflicts, and clashes with the Collective, lead to an abortive attempt at suicide. The story of his main opponent Piet, son of a Hamburg stoker killed by the Nazis, provides the closing chapters of the book.

The main characters in the novel were, apart from those already mentioned, `Saucy Gustav’, `Igelchen’, and ‘Bobo, the Badger’. `Igelchen’ means Little Hedgehog, which sounds rather endearing in German. Igelchen was seven: a very pretty, haughty, husky-voiced and unapproachable proletarian princess, the step-daughter of my Party-guru, Peter. Bobo the Badger, aged eight, was an egg-headed, misshapen humpty-dumpty and an inveterate bedwetter, whose father worked in the Party underground in Germany. As for Saucy Gustav, aged 13, I shall let the curriculum vitae (authentic) that he wrote for the Committee speak for him:

I was born August 1921 and sent to foster parents where I stayed 6 years and was then sent to the Jewish Orphanage which I disliked. For it was like a barracks, and prayers all the time. We were also beaten. One day my mother turned up and took me away. I,was then 9. But she couldn’t keep me because I am illegitimate. My mother worked in the Jewish Office as an assistant. My mother was a member of the Independent Socialist Party and gave me political enlightenment. But at that time I did not understand much about politics. Later I was sent to a home for Workers’ children in Berlin and my mother lost her job. Then my mother joined the German C.P. I liked school, we had a teacher who was also a Communist. We also had a group of Communist Pioneers. Then Hitler came and the Pioneers were dissolved. On May 1st somebody made a speech as follows: `The Marxists want only manual workers in the May-Parade, but we want everybody.’ That was Demagogy, because May Day belongs to the Working Class. Because of this argument they locked me into a dark bunker. In the bunker I was afraid and sang the `Internationale’. Later they arrested my mother, and my uncle brought me to Paris.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.