Transit

[Gail]

I have started a new topic because I could not find anyone else's review.

Written in the early 1940's but not published until after the war, Seghers captures in a sure hand the plight of immigrants and refugees as they flooded out of Nazi occupied Europe and into Marseille, the last major port still flying a French flag. Marseille becomes a waiting room for all manor of displaced people but we focus on three lives, or rather three characters, as one of the major characters in this book is dead. It has been called a thriller because of the tangle of lives, mysteries and lies but the book actually mirrors the tension of endless waiting rather than the tension of a thriller.
Our MC is a German national who was thrown into a camp by the Nazi for not being a loyal supporter, he escapes this camp and a subsequent French camp but is not as consumed with fleeing Europe as most of the supporting cast is. However, the Vichy government does not let the refugees stay, they must keep moving and here is where the Beckett meats Kafka themes come into play. To get a visa to stay one must prove that you are going to leave. To leave one must get a visa from one's home country, a pass that you entered France legally, a visa for the country you are going to, a proof of purchase that you have a berth on a real ship that is actually sailing to somewhere specific, a transit visa for any country that you will need to pass through on your way and finally an exit visa which you can only get once you have all of the above. If the ship is late (or never shows up), all of the above will expire and you have to start again. Add to this horror the fact that many of the refugees are no longer citizens of the country that they were born in. For example, one character was born in a village in "Germany" which then became part of Poland after WWI but which is now German occupied territory in Lithuania. He must get certification from a country he has never been to or had any dealings with.
The internal struggles of our main character not only has to do with the concept of place, of home and of belonging, but he has almost by accident taken on the identity of another man who committed suicide when the Nazi occupied Paris. This man is a well known writer who comes with money, some of the correct visas and a wife who left him for another man when she realized she would have to escape Paris alone. She does not know her husband is dead and because our main character is often acting the part of her husband when he is visiting various consulates, she has in fact been told that he is very much alive. Our MC falls in love with this wife who is constantly searching for a way out of her horrible situation.
The book is a slow read but not at all like Beckett or Kafka in its style. There is a tight solid story that literally transports the reader with a straight forward writing style, well translated.
The ending is somewhat mystifying but I will not spoil that for other readers.
I gave it 4 stars.

[[deleted user]]

Transit Anna Seghers
★★★★

The book is based on the authors real life attempt to escape the Nazis

The story largely focusses on one mans attempt to escape from the Nazis via Paris and eventually Marseille where he ends up trapped in a endless circle of beaurocracy.

Having escaped from a German concentration camp the narrator has ended up in Marseille by way of agreeing to deliver a letter, in Marseille he learns that refugees are not wanted in fact the only way to stay in Marseille is by proving that you are trying to leave. Each refugee is desperate to be on the next boat that leaves (except the narrator) to be allowed to leave however they need various documents, transit visa, exit visa, proof of passage, refugee status etc all these documents have a limited lifespan and it is virtually impossible to have all the documents valid at the same time.

Through the narrator we meet several characters over and over again as their applications progress and fail.

The narrator wanting to stay in Marseille assumes the identity of a dead man to get the paperwork which will allow him to leave thereby guaranteeing he can stay. This false identity leads to confusion with certain other refugees and leads to the narrator almost losing his own self.

I enjoyed the book and did not find the repetition boring as each repetition did add something more to the story even it was just the realization that refugees were trapped in a Kafkaesque kind of hell.

I also enjoyed the romantic sideline and the confusion of identity this caused the narrator

A different kind of book with a new view of life under the Nazi regim

[Amanda]

4 stars for me as well. I watched the series 'Transatlantic" when it came out in the spring and have had an interest in the story of the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseilles since. So this was the perfect read for one of my current historical interests. The fact that this account was contemporary and the author really did escape the Nazis through France really does make the sense of dread and fear of waiting come through strongly.