Book Review: The Twenty-Fifth Hour by Constantin Gheorghiu

The Twenty-Fifth Hour novel was published for the first time in 1949 by the writer of Romanian origin, Constantine Georgiou, to represent a real slap in the face of totalitarian regimes and modern societies that degrade the value of a man and classify him according to religious, ethnic, and ideological considerations, and then plunge him into the raging war machine to be its fuel, until it took from him his freedom, his identity, and his humanity.

The adventures of Johann Moritz form the central story of this novel. Moritz is a simple Romanian engineer of German origin whose only sin and the origin of all his struggles and sufferings is that he married the girl he loved and who was admired by the village commissioner. And because of his hatred and jealousy when he could not win her, Moritz's adventures began—a series of atrocities and pains that lasted for 13 years.

As the commissioner takes advantage of his growing power due to the tense political conditions that Europe was witnessing during World War II, especially the harassment and persecution that was practiced against the Jews with the encouragement of Nazi Germany, he puts the name of Moritz as a suspected Jew even knowing that he is a Christian, after which he is transferred to a hard labor camp for the Jews. To begin the journey of the 105 concentration camps.

Moritz tries absurdly to escape from the concentration camp and flees to Hungary, only to be arrested and accused of spying for the Romanian government. Then he is later sold to the Nazis as a slave worker in the coal mills, and when the Nazi state needed soldiers to fuel its war, Moritz was recruited against his will because of his "Northern" appearance to become a soldier fighting under the banner of Nazi beliefs.

In fact, this novel is not only a documentation act of the pain and disasters of World War II, but rather it's an embodiment of the crisis of modern man and his struggle with his individualism and humanity, which has been distorted by classifications into categories according to his religious or ethnic affiliations or ideologies...etc.

The tech community needs classification, and it can't treat each individual as he or she is a unique case. In the context of the novel, the main classification is the category of "The Enemies of the State", a rather vague idea that can accommodate everyone.

The writer says, in the words of the priest "Koruga", one of the main characters of the novel:

Class is the most brutal and most terrible deception of all opinions that have ever invaded the human mind. We must not forget that our enemy is a person, not a class.

Thus, we find Moritz drifting from one broad, ill-defined category to another, always finding himself on the wrong side: A Roman Christian spy in Hungary; a Hungarian volunteer worker in Germany at the height of the war effort; a Hungarian Jew during the pogroms, a German Aryan enlisted in the SS when the Americans occupied Germany.

Johann Moritz's character is a representation of the broader human experience under oppressive regimes. It reflects the struggles, complexities, and challenges faced by individuals who find themselves caught between their moral compass and the demands of an oppressive government.

As readers follow Moritz's path, they are forced to reflect on their own beliefs, morals, and decisions they might have made under similar circumstances. This makes it not only a historical novel but also a deeply philosophical meditation on the choices we make when we face life's most difficult moments.

The title of the novel, "The Twenty-fifth Hour," that hour that does not exist, symbolizes the time when individuals confront their true selves, their deepest fears, and their final decisions. It is the hour that extends for Moritz to reveal his true personality, to comprehend the complex decisions he faces, his inner struggles, and his questions about loyalty, betrayal, and the meaning of existence.

The world is about to enter its twenty-fifth hour, after which the sun will never shine on human civilization, and after which a new day will not come. It is the hour when human beings will turn into a thoughtless minority with no job other than managing, maintaining and cleaning the hordes of machines.

At the novel's peak events, Moritz is presented with a choice that summarizes the moral dilemma of the story. The authorities pressure him to betray his own body and blood, putting him in an agonizing position between his love for his family and his commitment to his principles.

What Moritz ultimately chose had profound implications. It demonstrates the strength of his character and his defiance of a system that seeks to destroy the human spirit. His choice emphasizes the novel's themes of moral courage, individualism, and the enormous sacrifices that individuals must sometimes make in the face of tyranny.

In fact, "Johann Moritz" is each one of us put into the war machine according to religious, ethnic, and ideological considerations. Although his only sin was trying to keep his humanity. Perhaps Moritz's tragedy was echoing through the walls of 105 political concentration camps, and 13 years of persecution, marginalization, and criminalization, but our tragedy today, we modernists, may seem more complicated, and our freedoms may seem more violated and shackled, despite our wrists being freed from shackles! The real restriction was done in our minds by the machine.

Modern society is a society in which humanity has retreated and the machine has penetrated it, to impose its laws on man and force him to submit to them in order to turn him later into a mere (number). Marx previously referred to a dangerous phenomenon that will impose itself on industrial societies, which is (alienation and objectification). This alienation is based on 3 elements: ideological, political, and economic alienation.

It is sufficient for one of these elements to occur so that it drags the other two with it. This deliberate dispossession is accompanied by an objectification of human value and man's return to his specificity that he is only a productive biological being, not a being who simply aspires to live in peace according to his own considerations.

The human being is losing its existence, since its thirst for freedom and justice has become a symbol of its madness.

Book information:

Book: The 25th Hour

Author: Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu

Issue date: 1949

Pages: 496

Genre: Fiction