Gyorgy Konrad's novel "The Case Worker" is incredibly bleak, but well written. I liked the book overall, even though it had some pretty disturbing scenes in it, making it a book I wouldn't particularly want to read again.

The story is set in Hungary, where a social services worker becomes very engaged with one of his clients -- a little boys whose parents have died. The boy has high special needs and no one to take care of him.

The novel is pretty gritty and a bit sad, but presents an interesting point of view. I'm glad to have read it. ( )

. The Case Worker by Gyorgy Konrad (1969, 1974)

Hungarian writer Gyorgy Konrad has been called the "true heir of Kafka," and this, his first novel, was one of the books added to the list of 1001 books to read before you die in 2008.

The case worker, a child welfare worker in Budapest, has become increasingly dissatisfied with his job. As he tries to resolve the situation of a brain-damaged child who has spent his entire life chained to a feces-smeared crib, and whose parents have just committed suicide, he ruminates on his life:

"My defensive reflexes are slack, more and more often the blows hit me in the pit of the stomach....Other people's sufferings have been affecting me lately: my head is full of their stories, my dreams are live with them....What can I do in the face of this frenzied squirming, which gets nowhere and regularly ends in defeat? Nothing, or next to nothing. I observe it, I draw parables from disaster, and compile records of failure...My job is to sell indifference and normalcy."

This is how he describes his job:

"I must huddle and render judgement. Don't throw the newborn into the garbage pail. Don't let your infant starve. If baby is ill, call a doctor. It is not advisable to tie a baby to his crib, sit him down on a hot stove, shut him up in the ice box, put his finger in an electric socket, or beat him with a trouser belt, rolling pin, chair leg, carpet beater, wooden spoon, broom stick, clothes line or shoe heel. Refrain from raping teenage girls, particularly your own. While making love do not crush your sleeping child against the wall. Do not feed him brandy, don't pawn his winter coat, don't give your girl friend his supper, don't let him be devoured by lice, don't call his mother a whore or his father a bastard, don't threaten him with your service pistol, don't send him out begging, don't sell him to elderly queers, don't urinate in his school bag, don't leave him behind on the train, don't cheat him, don't laugh at him, don't shout him down, don't bellow at him, don't shame him; in a word, as far as possible respect the innocence of his beginnings."

He comes to the final realization:

"Actually, what I do amounts to nothing. I regulate the traffic of suffering, sending it this way and that, passing on the loads that pile up on me to institutions or private citizens."

This is a bleak and grim book. I know there are lots of readers who quite understandably prefer not to read books like this. But if you can handle it, the writing is stellar, and the questions raised are profound.

Recommended
3 1/2 stars ( )