Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp, 2000
Description
Originally published in 1938, Youth Without God explores the indoctrination of youth under a totalitarian regime. From the perspective of a disgruntled teacher, Horvath narrates a sinister tale of disillusionment, betrayal and dark despair. Set in a dystopian world of a pre-military camp for adolescents, names are replaced by letters; racial intolerance rages; freedom is denied; and everyone is a secret spy for the state. Without direct reference to the Third Reich, Horvath offers a stark and haunting portrait of paranoia in Nazi Germany.
User reviews
LibraryThing member greeniezona
I had never heard of Horvath before this year, and now this is the second book I've read by him? I'm totally blaming Neversink Library.
So yes, this is another selection from Neversink LIbrary at Melville House Books. I tell you, their website is dangerous. Six of the books I've read this year were
Okay, so I loved this one. Much more accessible than The Eternal Philistine, this is a dark, dark story, even without the seedy satire. Youth WIthout God reads more like classic morality tales from Kafka and Camus. It is all the more impressive for its depiction of the heartlessness of the rising Nazi state when one is reminded that it was written before either Germany's annexation of Austria or its invasion of Poland. It's a place where the cruelty of schoolchildren isn't corrected, but encouraged as long as it is in the direction of the scapegoats of the state. Opinions contrary to official propaganda are suppressed and erased. Individual morality and conscience disappear. So where is there room for God?
It would be easy to read this story as simplistic and shallow, because it is so accessible. But there is a lot going on here just under the surface. Mediations on culpability, conviction and man's capacity for evil. A rewarding, but disturbing read.
So yes, this is another selection from Neversink LIbrary at Melville House Books. I tell you, their website is dangerous. Six of the books I've read this year were
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published by them, five of which I bought (one was from the library), and I have at least one more on my shelves and at least two on back-order. (I'm afraid if I check on the back-orders, I'll end up buying five more books, so it's best just to wait.)Okay, so I loved this one. Much more accessible than The Eternal Philistine, this is a dark, dark story, even without the seedy satire. Youth WIthout God reads more like classic morality tales from Kafka and Camus. It is all the more impressive for its depiction of the heartlessness of the rising Nazi state when one is reminded that it was written before either Germany's annexation of Austria or its invasion of Poland. It's a place where the cruelty of schoolchildren isn't corrected, but encouraged as long as it is in the direction of the scapegoats of the state. Opinions contrary to official propaganda are suppressed and erased. Individual morality and conscience disappear. So where is there room for God?
It would be easy to read this story as simplistic and shallow, because it is so accessible. But there is a lot going on here just under the surface. Mediations on culpability, conviction and man's capacity for evil. A rewarding, but disturbing read.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
Falls squarely into the "should have cut the first 50 pages" basket. The first few chapters contain some fine polemic ("someone should invent a weapon that nullifies other weapons"), but the book really gets going once our narrator stops looking outward, and starts looking at himself. Despite the
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fascism, the anomy, the picture of disgusting youth (still relevant), the murder, and the turpitude of the narrator, this is ultimately a kind of farcical comedy: the narrator confesses to his wrongdoing, and that confession itself leads, after some time, to a kind of justice. As befits a man who fled the Nazis to Paris but was killed by a falling tree limb in 1939, the justice is bloody and discomforting, but justice nonetheless. The narrator himself enters a life of penitence, which will make very many contemporary readers very uncomfortable, and not in the silly "art must make us uncomfortable" way--instead, in the "life makes me rather too uncomfortable" way. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1937-10-26
ISBN
3518388746 / 9783518388747
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