DISCUSSION QUESTIONS The Invisible Bridge |
1. What does the opening
chapter establish about the cultural and social milieu of prewar
Budapest? What do Andras’s reactions to Hasz household reveal about the
status of Jews within the larger society? How do the differences between
the Hasz and Levi families affect their assumptions and behavior during
the war? Which scenes and characters most clearly demonstrate the
tensions within the Jewish community?
2. Why do Andras and his friends at the Ecole Speciale tolerate the
undercurrent of anti-Semitism at the school even after the verbal attack
on Eli Polaner (pp. 39–40) and the spate of vandalism against Jewish
students (p. 94)? To what extent are their reactions shaped by their
nationalities, political beliefs, or personal histories? Why does Andras
agree to infiltrate the meeting of Le Grand Occident (pp. 97–102)? Is
his belief that “[the police] wouldn’t deport me... Not for serving the
ideals of France” (p. 102), as well as the reactions of Professor Vago
and Andras’s father to the German invasion of Czechoslovakia (p. 266)
naïve, or do they represent widespread opinions and assumptions?
3. Andras and Klara’s love blossoms against the background of
uncertainties and fear. Is Klara’s initial lack of openness about her
background justified by her situation? Why does she eventually begin an
affair with Andras? Are they equally responsible for the arguments,
break-ups, and reconciliations that characterize their courtship? Do
Klara’s revelations (pp. 214–34) change your opinion of her and the way
she has behaved?
4. Despite the grim circumstances, Andras and Mendel produce
satirical newspapers in the labor camps. What do the excerpts from "The
Snow Goose" (p. 331), The
Biting Fly (pp. 360–61), and The Crooked Rail (p. 437) show
about the strategies that helped laborers preserve their humanity and
their sanity? What other survival techniques do Andras and his fellow
laborers develop?
5. In Budapest, the Levi and Hasz families sustain themselves with
small pleasures, daily tasks at home and, in the case of the men,
working at the few jobs still available to Jews (pp. 352–55, pp. 366–77,
pp. 405–10). Are they driven by practical or emotional needs, or both?
Does the attempt to maintain ordinary life represent hope and courage,
or a tragic failure to recognize the ever-encroaching danger? What
impact do the deprivations and degradations imposed by the Germans have
on the relationship between the families? Which characters are the least
able or willing to accept the threats to their homeland and their
culture?
6. What details in the descriptions of Banhida (pp. 356–63, pp.
392–99), Turka (pp. 486–503), and the transport trains (pp. 558–66) most
chillingly capture the cruelty perpetrated by the Nazis? In addition to
physical abuse and deprivation, what are the psychological effects of
the camps’ rules and the laws imposed on civilian populations?
7. General Marton in Banhida (pp. 399–402), Captain Erdo, and the
famous General Vilmos Nagy in Turka all display kindness and compassion.
Miklós Klein engages in the tremendously dangerous work of arranging
emigrations for fellow Jews (pp. 422–23). What motivates each of them to
act as they do? What political ideals and moral principles lie at
the heart Nagy’s stirring speech to the officers-in-training (pp.
506–7)? (Because of his refusal to support official anti-Semitic
policies, Nagy was eventually forced to resign from the Hungarian army;
in 1965, he was the first Hungarian named as a Righteous Among the
Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute.)
8. Why does Klara refuse to leave Budapest and go to Palestine (p.
510)? Is her decision the result of her own set of circumstances, or
does it reflect the attitudes of other Jews in Hungary and other
countries under Nazi control?
9. “He could no sooner cease being Jewish than he could cease being
a brother to his brothers, a son to his father and mother” (p. 46).
Discuss the value and importance of Jewish beliefs and traditions to
Andras and other Jews, considering such passages as Andras’s feelings in
the above quotation and his thoughts on the High Holidays (pp. 201–3);
the weddings of Ben Yakov and Ilana (pp. 255–56) and of Andras and Klara
(p. 317); the family seder in wartime Budapest (pp. 352–55); and the
prayers and small rituals conducted in work camps.
10. The narrative tracks the political and military upheavals
engulfing Europe as they occur. What do these intermittent reports
demonstrate about the failure of both governments and ordinary people to
grasp the true objectives of the Nazi regime? How does the author create
and sustain a sense of suspense and portending disaster, even for
readers familiar with the ultimate course of the war?
11. Throughout the book there are descriptions of Andras’s studies,
including information about his lessons and the models he creates and
detailed observations of architectural masterpieces in Paris. What
perspective does the argument between Pingsson and Le Corbusier offer on
the role of the architect in society (pp. 273–74)? Whose point of view
do you share? What aspects of architecture as a discipline make it
particularly appropriate to the themes explored in the novel? What is
the relevance of Andras’s work as a set designer within this context?
12. Andras’s encounters with Mrs. Hász (p. 6) and with Zoltan Novak
(pp. 19–20) are the first of many coincidences that determine the future
paths of various characters. What other events in the novel are the
result of chance or luck? How do the twists and turns of fortune help to
create a sense of the extraordinary time in which the novel is set?
13. Does choice also play a significant role in the characters’
lives? What do their decisions (for example, Klara’s voluntary return to
Budapest; Gyorgy’s payments to the Hungarian authorities; and even
Joszef’s attack on Andras and Mendel (p. 492)) demonstrate about the
importance of retaining a sense of independence and control in the midst
of chaos?
14. The Holocaust and other murderous confrontations between ethnic
groups can challenge the belief in God. “(Andras) believed in God, yes,
the God of his fathers, the one to whom he’d prayed...but that God, the
One, was not One who intervened in the way the needed someone to
intervene just then. He had designed the cosmos and thrown its doors
open to man, and man had moved in.... The world was their place now” (p.
432). What is your reaction to Andras’s point of view? Have you read or
heard explanations of why terrible events come to pass that more closely
reflect your personal beliefs?
15. What did you know about Hungary’s role in World War II before
reading The
Invisible Bridge? Did the book present information about the
United States and its Allies that surprised you? Did it affect your
views on Zionism and the Jewish emigration to Palestine? Did it
deepen your understanding of the causes and the course of the war?
What does the epilogue convey about the postwar period and the links
among past, present, and future?
16. “In the end, what astonished him the most was not the vastness
of it all—that was impossible to take in, the hundreds of thousands dead
from Hungary alone, and the millions from all over Europe—but the
excruciating smallness, the pinpoint of which every life was balanced”
(p. 558). Does The
Invisible Bridge succeed in capturing both the “vastness of
it all” and the “excruciating smallness” of war and its impact on
individual lives?
17. Why has Orringer chosen “Any Case” by the Nobel Prize–winning
Polish poet Wislawa Szymborkska as the coda to her novel? What does it
express about individuals caught in the flow of history and the forces
that determine their fates?
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