Inside Outside: Life Between Two Worlds

A Sydney-based academic and critic, Riemer here recalls the circumstances of his family history. Born in Budapest in 1936, he emigrated with his parents to Australia in 1947. Although he alludes in general terms to the turmoil in Europe in the '40s, the subject of this book is not why he left Hungary but rather what he found in Australia. The family's unreal expectations of a tropical paradise where they would continue to lead their comfortable lifestyle were rudely shattered. His father, a prosperous manufacturer of fine fabrics in Hungary, found no market for his goods in Australia. And suburban Sydney, where they settled, was a dreary cultural desert. In school the language barrier put Riemer into a class for intellectually handicapped children, and, though he would later join normal children, he continued to feel isolated by his physical appearance (short, dark) from his tall, fair classmates. In 1990, as a graduate student of English literature, Riemer returned to Budapest, a defining visit as he came to grips with the reality of a decaying city, just emerging from totalitarian rule and bearing little resemblance to his nostalgic memories. Throughout this thoughtful memoir, the author muses on the immigrant's paradox: whether to seek elusive assimilation, or to maintain one's ethnicity and risk a ``ghetto mentality.'' Neither route offers a solution for him. He remains, he says, essentially rootless. (Dec.)