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A review by clairewords
Transit by Anna Seghers
5.0
An incredible novel, written in a surreal time, while the writer was living in exile in Mexico, Anna Seghers (having left Germany in 1933 to settle in France) was forced (with her husband and two children) to flee from Marseille in 1940, the only port in France at that time that still flew the French flag, the rest under German occupation.
With the help of Varian Fry, ([b:Surrender on Demand|426764|Surrender on Demand|Varian Fry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174658690i/426764._SY75_.jpg|415812]) an American who came to Marseille to help artists, writers, intellectuals escape Europe, they found safe passage to Mexico, where they stayed until able to return to East Berlin, where she lived until her death in 1983.
While in Mexico she wrote this thought-provoking, accomplished, "existential, political, literary thriller" novel narrated by a 27 year old German man who has escaped two camps before finding himself in Paris and doing a favour for a friend, comes into possession of a suitcase of documents belonging to a German writer Weidel, who he will learn has taken his own life.
The young man takes the suitcase to Marseille, where he hopes to stay, something only possible if one proves one has the documents to leave. Alongside many others genuinely trying to flee, we follow him to hotels, cafes, consulates, shipping offices, travel bureaus and stand in line as he apples for visa and stamps that he has little invested interest in, observing the absurd demands made of people trying to find safe passage to what they hope is a free world.
The man he knows is dead has awife widow waiting for him in Marseille, her story becomes part of the young man's quest, in this transitory city that holds a thin promise of a lifeline to the fulfillment of desperate dreams for so many refugees.
The complexity of requirements means many more are rejected than succeed and all risk being sent to one of the camps that the authorities send those whose papers are not in order.
Because our narrator is alone, without family and not in possesion of a story that invokes much sympathy in the reader, he quite likes this city and would like to stay, it removes something of the terror of what people were actually going through, allowing the reader to see the situation outside of the tragic humanitarian crisis it was, and instead to see the absurd situation and demands all refugees encounter, when they are forced to flee homes they don't want to leave to go to a safe(r) place equally they don't necessarily want to go to, but will do so to survive and in an attempt to keep their families together.
I highlighted so many passages, that I will go back and reread, and even though this book was written 77 years ago, there is something about the bureaucracy that still rings true in France, for immigrants today.
The depiction of Marseille, though in a time of terror is also evocative of that city today, only the places mentioned here are now frequented by people from a different set of countries, those who have fled or left in search of something better in the last 30 years, from parts of Africa, Vietnam, Lebanon and those who need to disappear for a while, finding anonymity and comradeship in the small alleys and cafes of Marseille, a city of temporary refuge, where everyone has a story that begins elsewhere.
With the help of Varian Fry, ([b:Surrender on Demand|426764|Surrender on Demand|Varian Fry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174658690i/426764._SY75_.jpg|415812]) an American who came to Marseille to help artists, writers, intellectuals escape Europe, they found safe passage to Mexico, where they stayed until able to return to East Berlin, where she lived until her death in 1983.
While in Mexico she wrote this thought-provoking, accomplished, "existential, political, literary thriller" novel narrated by a 27 year old German man who has escaped two camps before finding himself in Paris and doing a favour for a friend, comes into possession of a suitcase of documents belonging to a German writer Weidel, who he will learn has taken his own life.
The young man takes the suitcase to Marseille, where he hopes to stay, something only possible if one proves one has the documents to leave. Alongside many others genuinely trying to flee, we follow him to hotels, cafes, consulates, shipping offices, travel bureaus and stand in line as he apples for visa and stamps that he has little invested interest in, observing the absurd demands made of people trying to find safe passage to what they hope is a free world.
The man he knows is dead has a
The complexity of requirements means many more are rejected than succeed and all risk being sent to one of the camps that the authorities send those whose papers are not in order.
Because our narrator is alone, without family and not in possesion of a story that invokes much sympathy in the reader, he quite likes this city and would like to stay, it removes something of the terror of what people were actually going through, allowing the reader to see the situation outside of the tragic humanitarian crisis it was, and instead to see the absurd situation and demands all refugees encounter, when they are forced to flee homes they don't want to leave to go to a safe(r) place equally they don't necessarily want to go to, but will do so to survive and in an attempt to keep their families together.
I highlighted so many passages, that I will go back and reread, and even though this book was written 77 years ago, there is something about the bureaucracy that still rings true in France, for immigrants today.
The depiction of Marseille, though in a time of terror is also evocative of that city today, only the places mentioned here are now frequented by people from a different set of countries, those who have fled or left in search of something better in the last 30 years, from parts of Africa, Vietnam, Lebanon and those who need to disappear for a while, finding anonymity and comradeship in the small alleys and cafes of Marseille, a city of temporary refuge, where everyone has a story that begins elsewhere.