Book Review

(Works: Budapest Past: A Secret File of an Eastern European Family during the Cold War, by kati marton, translated by Mao Jun Jie, Nanjing University Press, 2065438+April 2009).

It is generally understood that a person must commit a crime before being imprisoned or sentenced. However, there are still quite a few people in mankind who once wore the shackles of prisoners and were "deliberately looking for their own sins." They didn't understand what crime they had committed, so they fell into self-abuse and introspection. "only by reflecting on what you have done can you find out why the state punished him." And this is the ultimate victory of the authority representing the country.

In the face of this victory, the prisoner will ask himself again and again until he loses his mind and collapses completely. Collapse will bring despair from the bottom of my heart, turn a strong-willed person into a lost dog, and give the authorities a pitiful flattery. This poor difference once again proves the high-handed tactics of the authorities in Andre Marton.

Because children are Marton's weakness. After a series of premeditated and organized surveillance and detailed reports from informants, the disgusting symbol of the authorities-the secret police-thought that they had seized the lifeline of making Marton obey. As we all know, it was children who supported Marton's courage to challenge power and resist the authorities. This courage is reflected in Marton's wits and wits with the secret police. This wits and wits battle lasted for 20 years and became an episode in his life with his wife. This indifferent attitude diluted people's terror.

"Decreasing terror" is the basic principle of Martens when they are surrounded by secret police and informers. It maintains human dignity, and also leaves children with the childhood impression of parents' self-respect and self-love. Therefore, when she grew up, Katie remembered that her father was personable and her mother was elegant and charming. In cloudy Hungary 1950, she is a special couple, swaggering in the street, envied by others. The couple's husband had a long-term file set up by the secret police because he "showed interest in what the government classified as a state secret". But in the eyes of friends who know Marton very well, he is just an outspoken person who has written a lot of truth.

This is the image of Katie's parents reconstructed by reading the files of the Hungarian secret police when she grew up. Father Andre Marton, an Associated Press reporter, became a thorn in the side of the secret police for reporting the truth. My mother, Ilona Marton, is a journalist in united press international. Out of consideration for human nature, she was persuaded by her husband to join united press international. The admiration for the glamorous life of "American journalists" made Ilona openly show his irreconcilable ambivalence about "survival" and "life" in his memory. With an extra salary from abroad, the Martens can not only better maintain their living standards, but also have a powerful news organization to provide protection for themselves. In fact, although Ilona has keen observation and witty comments on important events, he is not a writer. Therefore, all the news articles of the Associated Press and united press international came from her husband. This makes Marton, as a father, fuller under Katie's reconstruction.

Of course, this is a secret that the secret police and its loyal informants can't explore. This secret enriches Marton's image, but it is difficult for Katie to rebuild her father's concrete and rational kindness and care. This requires finding a man's delicacy and patience in front of children in the monitoring records of informants in those years. They formed a great fatherly love together, which is unique and ironic.

Katie's satire played the secret police and the informer just right, and the surveillance record of revealing the informer was incredibly accurate. It not only provided the secret police with a detailed report about the "enemy", but also became an effective way for Katie to recover her memory after reading the file one day.

According to Katie's irony, whether we should be proud of having a big document about our parents is an open question. In the process of reading archives, Ricatti's trembling heart just shows that terror continues its thrilling power with the passage of time. This kind of power will make terror not really die out, but will awaken the moment of full recovery in the pursuit of scum.

This is the true meaning of terror. In addition to physical abuse, mental torture of the so-called "enemy" is a long-term means to make it lose its self-dignity. Katie read gingerly from her parents' files, and she also read something that scared her. Although those contents have become history, we can still feel a sense of sadness in the process of reviewing them again. Corresponding to the solemnity, it was a true record from the secret police, which pleased Katie. "During the trial, Andre Marton did not expose a Hungarian citizen." The rigid words reflected the meticulous working attitude of the secret police. This is not a record of respecting facts, but a mechanical copy of "Xiang Jin" and "accuracy". Katie saw a brave father in it. He loves life, has a wide range of interests and attaches importance to enjoyment, but he can keep the final moral bottom line. This kind of courage is different from the idealistic and romantic "fearless" courage. It allows weakness, confusion, and even escape from all illusions, and still insists on "not selling, not betraying, not telling." Katie is therefore grateful to the secret police, because the file made her realize that her father's bravery is the exact reflection of her conscience. Ironically, the archives of the secret police are only historical documents that bear witness to conscience. So after "Budapest Past" was written, Katie wanted to dedicate the title to the Hungarian secret police, thanking them for helping them get to know their parents again with detailed monitoring records. Katie's idea was opposed by her husband Richard. "He feared that some readers might misunderstand the meaning of irony." .

Satire is a writing skill that Katie inherited from her father, which makes the sharpness in the text no longer noticeable. Perhaps, only readers with a certain degree of understanding can show a knowing smile through Katie's words, because her humor and ridicule present the predicament of a family living in terror in a relaxed way, making the initiator of terror like a buffoon to expose unspeakable ugliness on the historical stage.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin put themselves in danger by telling the truth. But unlike other Hungarians, they often disappear in an unexplained way, are taken away, and their whereabouts are unknown. It seems that something or someone is sheltering them. Even after being arrested and sentenced, secret police officials linked Marton's case with national interests in a complicated way and made an ambiguous but certainly well-founded conclusion. Katie concluded that all this depends on parents as a "useful asset" to become a bargaining chip for the secret police.

When Rakosi was in power, Marton was particularly precious because he was welcomed by foreigners such as the United States, Britain and France. In order to know more about the western world, especially Americans, the secret police gave the Martens temporary freedom, hoping that "Rakosi would wait". This freedom is characterized by being followed and weaving a whistle-blower net around the mink group. Restaurant waiters, hairdressers, postmen ... are all cracks in this informer's website. They formed a pervasive team of "public security volunteers", and gradually became loyal accomplices of the secret police under the infiltration and peep of other people's lives.

Surrounded and followed by these accomplices, the Martens frequently hosted banquets and entertainments with American diplomats and journalists, exchanged views and opinions on the current situation, and then reported and published them, ignoring the informers who were as mediocre as their neighbors. This open-minded realm is a precious legacy, which nourishes Katie's generous mind. In Budapest, Katie got a kind suggestion when she started reading her parents' files: don't judge them, only the system. "They" here refers to informers. They are not worth judging. When these informers are accused and criticized, it is equivalent to digging them out of the garbage dump of history. BLACKPINK once again enjoys the pleasure of being a villain and bringing fear and trembling to others. These individuals who have already become gears, in the new historical period, "it doesn't matter anymore, why bother yourself?"

Facing history, Katie disdains to judge the secret police, informers and totalitarian regime that gave birth to this "flower of evil" with a sense of history. She was surprised by what happened after her parents immigrated to the United States. She felt that the eternal feelings of human beings-love and dignity-supported her parents to join hands for life.

After the end of the Rakosi era, the Hungarian authorities realized that once the Martens left their familiar land, they were far away from the opportunity to obtain first-hand information, and there would be no more reports about the truth. Therefore, the Martens' visa to the United States was approved almost without any suspense. This pair of "useful assets" became famous because they were sentenced in the Rakosi era. After coming to the United States, they became "ideal tools" for some members of Congress to seek fame. At the same time, it is logical to become the monitoring object of the FBI. The Hungarian secret police followed closely and spared no effort to make a whimsical recruitment plan to recruit any Martens as informants.

In this complicated and changeable tide of life, Marton "puts family above career", skillfully handles the relationship between all parties, and balances the pressure exerted on him by monitors and recruiters. The real core of this pressure reveals a depressing message. The Martens have always been regarded as "public enemies" in the old country and have settled in the United States all their lives. They don't have the full trust of Americans. But the archives let a dignified Marton survive with the reconstruction of his daughter Katie.

Reconstruction, let Katie restore her biological parents. They have a complicated side of human nature, and they seldom distinguish between black and white. And this is the face of ordinary people. However, compared with ordinary people, dignity is the foundation of Marton's life. With armor-like dignity, Marton lived a detached, calm and alert life. No one can make him yield except for the price of not breaking the moral bottom line for freedom.

(End of the full text. Written on 2021165438+1October 26th)

About the author: Wang Xu. The pen names used are Wang Muyu, Xu Muyu, Xu Muyu's bookcase, and Wang Xu 326, who lives in Chongqing.