- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (3 July 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099466651
- ISBN-13: 978-0099466659
- Product Dimensions: 13 x 1.3 x 19.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,065,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Culturewars.org.uk
`Removed of the `actual' experience, it becomes Angelika's writing that guides us, and the notion of an aesthetic rendering of Klara's story is eventually hers to tell. This accession, along with one of the most satisfying, powerful and disturbing endings I have ever come across in a novel, made for an astonishing experience which I can well recommend'
Book Description
A moving and often heartbreaking glimpse into how the suffering of those imprisoned in the Nazi death camps didn't end with their liberation
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This winter I have read three of the most shattering, startling, heartbreaking novels to have ever come my way: Hans Fallada`s Alone in Berlin, Cormac McCarthy`s The Road, and now Soazig Aaron`s mind-bending, not to mention disturbing, Refusal - Le Non de Klara in the original French; difficult to translate adequately into English, though Klara`s Refusal might have been as good if not better than the single word Barbara Bray has chosen. No other quibbles on that front as her translation as a whole is so well-judged that the reader quickly forgets it is one.
Klara, a German Jew, has returned to Paris, where she had been living before the war, having spent over two years in Auschwitz (or Oswiecim, its Polish name: Klara refuses to speak any more German) then several months wandering through Europe, including a spell in Berlin, her home city...we find out what happened when she made it to Berlin at the end of this breathless novel. Believe me, it is worth the wait.
That`s about it for `plot`. (But then, does one read The Outsider or The Castle for their plots?) Much of the book is in fact Klara`s monologue, with interjections & questions from her childhood friend Angelika who has given her a bed and a not always willing ear, as she tells her - and us - of her time in the Nazi death camp. Most of this is genuinely painful to read, stark and brutally, viscerally truthful. Klara proves a far from `sympathetic` character (the author sentimentalises nothing, for which I heartily thank her) but the unbearable memories to which she is trying to give voice rivet the attention of both her friend and the reader, as, with searing honesty, she attempts to find some kind of meaning in the terrible suffering she has endured and seen. `Closure` is not what she seeks - she`d probably punch you if you suggested such a pat way out.
Klara is barely alive, almost literally a `shadow of her former self`, and the strongest emotion her story evokes - at least in this reader - is horrified pity. I for one have seldom if ever read such a relentlessly candid portrayal of human barbarity and its effects. Once you start this novel you have to read on, because not only is it superbly written, but Klara tells truths rarely spoken in either fiction or non-fiction. They may not be everyone`s truths, but they are hers, and she has been in hell.
It all sounds pretty dour, doesn`t it? It isn`t. What it is is a work of art, a true `criticism of life`. Art worth the name can be cathartic, can teach, question, move. I was moved to tears.
After I`d read the last page of Fallada`s Alone in Berlin, I knew I`d just read one of the greatest novels I`ll ever read. When I gingerly read the last awful (in the proper sense of that word) pages of Refusal, I knew I had been privileged to enter a tragic, unresolved world made bearable by the artistry of its author, Soazig Aaron. I urge anyone to get hold of this uniquely urgent, brave novel. It will make you think and feel! It has things to say that you might not want to hear, but you may well be glad you took the trouble.
Klara, a German Jew, has returned to Paris, where she had been living before the war, having spent over two years in Auschwitz (or Oswiecim, its Polish name: Klara refuses to speak any more German) then several months wandering through Europe, including a spell in Berlin, her home city...we find out what happened when she made it to Berlin at the end of this breathless novel. Believe me, it is worth the wait.
That`s about it for `plot`. (But then, does one read The Outsider or The Castle for their plots?) Much of the book is in fact Klara`s monologue, with interjections & questions from her childhood friend Angelika who has given her a bed and a not always willing ear, as she tells her - and us - of her time in the Nazi death camp. Most of this is genuinely painful to read, stark and brutally, viscerally truthful. Klara proves a far from `sympathetic` character (the author sentimentalises nothing, for which I heartily thank her) but the unbearable memories to which she is trying to give voice rivet the attention of both her friend and the reader, as, with searing honesty, she attempts to find some kind of meaning in the terrible suffering she has endured and seen. `Closure` is not what she seeks - she`d probably punch you if you suggested such a pat way out.
Klara is barely alive, almost literally a `shadow of her former self`, and the strongest emotion her story evokes - at least in this reader - is horrified pity. I for one have seldom if ever read such a relentlessly candid portrayal of human barbarity and its effects. Once you start this novel you have to read on, because not only is it superbly written, but Klara tells truths rarely spoken in either fiction or non-fiction. They may not be everyone`s truths, but they are hers, and she has been in hell.
It all sounds pretty dour, doesn`t it? It isn`t. What it is is a work of art, a true `criticism of life`. Art worth the name can be cathartic, can teach, question, move. I was moved to tears.
After I`d read the last page of Fallada`s Alone in Berlin, I knew I`d just read one of the greatest novels I`ll ever read. When I gingerly read the last awful (in the proper sense of that word) pages of Refusal, I knew I had been privileged to enter a tragic, unresolved world made bearable by the artistry of its author, Soazig Aaron. I urge anyone to get hold of this uniquely urgent, brave novel. It will make you think and feel! It has things to say that you might not want to hear, but you may well be glad you took the trouble.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is another tale with an interesting angle of the effects of the nazi regime and the aftermath. Based on a woman who hosts an old friend who has managed to return from the camps. The poor woman struggles to cope with herself after her experiences in the camp. The life she once had seems like another person's now and slowly as the tale of her existence unfolds one understands why.
Certainly buy this book.
Certainly buy this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
Riviting and Compelling
28 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback
An amazing break-out book. It's one of those books that you start reading and won't put down until you have read the last page.
I can't wait for the next book. There's no biography information on the internet on this incredible author, yet.
I can't wait for the next book. There's no biography information on the internet on this incredible author, yet.
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