Jakob the Liar

This is a fable, a small story within a big story, a story about some people in a ghetto during the holocaust. It’s by Jurek Becker, and I’m reading it in translation, because it was written in Germany in the sixties, and it’s only been available in English since the nineties. Becker was a holocaust survivor and the little details of life in the ghetto, like the rations and the newspaper and the way work was done all reflect his experience.

It’s written in a very straightforward manner, with a style that seems to be peculiarly American, which either means that’s the way it’s been translated, or that the American style has come from there, maybe. I’m sure someone knows this better than I, but perhaps it’s to do with the way people talk, and maybe the Jewish subculture in America has something to do with it; I don’t know. There’s certain structures – like beginning a sentence with “so”, using the narrator’s voice to ask questions and give answers, using short sentences and then long sentences with phrases, separated with commas, which don’t have verbs in them – that seem to reflect speech, which seem to reflect a certain writing style which seems American to me. And actually, I’ll be honest, it reminds me of the way a lot of fanfic is written. Which isn’t an insult – I mean good fanfic – but maybe it’s got to do with the American style and way good fanfic writers mimic speech. There has to be someone who knows the answer to all of this, or who can at least say it’s all rubbish, because I don’t know, but that’s what I feel.

In this story Jakob finds himself in a bizarre situation which the back of the book says is Kafkaesque but it isn’t really, because unlike a Kafka story you know why these bizarre situations are going on – he’s in a ghetto surrounded by the Nazis who want to kill them all. He says one lie and it snowballs into something enormous. That’s why it’s like a fable, like a children’s story. The difference is that you aren’t sure – the narrator isn’t sure – whether these outcomes are good or bad or whether the good outcomes outweigh the bad or whether the bad ones would have happened anyway. When his friend finds out the truth, he kills himself; and the most powerful part in the story is when the narrator says to Jakob, ‘ “The point is not that you’re to blame for Kowalski’s death, but that he has to thank you for having stayed alive up to that day.” “Yes I know,” was Jakob’s response, “but none of that helps.”’ And none of it does help, in the end; because after his friend’s death, he keeps the lie going, as long as he can; but they’re all deported to the camps anyway. So does it make a difference, that he kept hope going that long?

Apart from Jakob there are a number of characters – Lina, the little girl, Mischa, a young man, Rosa, his lover – and they’re all drawn beautifully. Everything can be seen clearly, every chair in every room, and all presented without sentiment. It is a small story within a big one, and that’s ambitious, because it quite powerfully presents the small ordinary lives that went on during that horrific time.