Battlefields and Playgrounds

Surely one of the most powerful Holocaust novels we have seen to date, Hungarian author Nyiri's story of a young Jewish boy who lives through WWII in Budapest is a wrenching exploration of a childhood torn apart by persecution and war. Yet, for all its descriptions of brutality, violence and death, the narrative is lively and often humorous, propelled by the voice of its narrator, Janos Sondor. Six years old when we first meet him in 1938, Janos is incorrigibly irreverent (sometimes impudent), mischievous, feisty, stubborn and often recklessly daring. In the village of Oszu, where Janos has been sent to live with his grandfather because his father, an elegant, philandering playwright, refuses to provide money for his support, Janos experiences the ingrained anti-Semitism of country people. When war breaks out, he returns to join his mother and older brother in Budapest; there they endure the menace of Nazi roundups, risk arrest in not wearing the yellow star and find themselves chronically short of money, food and shelter. Their peril increases as the Germans become more desperate, the vicious Hungarian Arrow Cross partisans round up and murder thousands of Jews, and the Russian army closes in. Like any preadolescent, Janos is preoccupied with games and sports, daydreams and friends. Nyiri maintains a perfect tone in detailing Janos's schoolboy adventures while tracing his maturation in the crucible of war. The youngster becomes a shrewd judge of human nature, even as he questions the existence of God and the value of his religion in a world where prejudice escalates to extermination. In this hellish environment, some Jews are guilty of greed and arrogance; there are also rare, merciful Christians who provide shelter and succor, in spite of their own mortal danger. The novel won several prizes in England, but the one jarring element in the commendably matter-of-fact prose is the pervasive use of British colloquialisms (bloke, swot, sod off!, etc.). Overall, however, this is a gripping narrative, undoubtedly destined to be regarded as a classic picture of war, seen through the eyes of a bright, courageous child. (Nov.)