Panorama: A Novel Review

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Panorama: A Novel ReviewHans Adler, a noted Czech novelist and poet, wrote "Panorama" in 1947. It is a fictionalised account of his life from childhood up to his release from various German concentration camps. It was published in German in 1968, but not translated and published in English until 2010. It followed "The Journey", another book about the Holocaust, which was first published in German in 1962 but not translated to English until 2008. Both of Adler's books, "The Journey" and "Panorama" were translated from the German by Peter Filkins. Adler died in London in 1988.
"Panorama" is a large, epic-length book, divided not into chapters, per se, but rather into "stories". Each story is about the same character, Josef Kramer, who is born in Prague in 1910. The "stories" are written - and translated - in rather free-form style. The translator, in his notes, states that the text, as Adler wrote it and he translated it, "...long, streaming sentences build clause upon clause, in order to render the consciousness at work, narrating the novel as much as the events themselves." It's not the writing style that is the problem of "Panorama"; it is the "distance" from the material to the reader.
Each "story" is about Josef Kramer and follow him in age. However, the same secondary characters - always richly drawn - do not continue from story to story. It is almost as if Josef Kramer is "reborn" in every story; an orphan in terms of who he takes along with him. After the first story, which is beautifully written about his early years, his parents, relative, and friends seem to "disappear". The second story tells of his life for a year or so in a small Czech village, living on a farm. No characters continue from first to second story and its the same for the rest of the book. I assumed they would all turn up in the final couple of stories, but basically they didn't. We - the reader - don't find out the fates of those people who Josef has met and influenced and been influenced by. The "orphaning" of Josef left him a cold and distant figure. I ASSUME Adler meant to write him that way, and maybe it was his way of dealing, in 1947, with what he has been through. But it leaves an almost empty main character. Did Josef leave any impression on others?
The distance of the main character is not a problem if the reader approaches the book simply as a story of one man's life from childhood to middle age. It's a compelling story and Adler is a brilliant writer, and Filkins is a brilliant translator. I only wish I was left with more of an understanding of Josef Kramer and the people around him.
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