'Seiobo There Below' by László Krasznahorkai (Review)

While I was right on top of what was happening in the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize this year, it's taken me a while to catch up with some of the big guns in the American version, the Best Translated Book Award.  In today's post, then, I take a look at this year's winner, a book which (as far as I'm aware) still hasn't come out in the UK.  It was the writer's second win in succession - and if you're following my personal comparison of the two big translation prizes, this definitely makes it a third consecutive win for the American side of the pond ;)

*****
László Krasznahorkai's Seiobo There Below (translated by Ottilie Mulzet, published by New Directions) is most definitely not a book for fans of easy reading.  It consists of seventeen pieces (calling them short stories would be misleading) which, while not really interlinked, come together to produce a cohesive work.  In fact, most reviews have given me the impression that the book is supposed to be considered a novel.

Seiobo There Below is less a novel in the traditional sense, though, than an exploration of the idea of beauty, approached via a series of sketches examining the effects great art has on the human mind and the problems great artists have in producing their masterpieces.  Krasznahorkai takes us on a dizzying journey through time and space, where we might find ourselves in modern-day Japan on one page, then in Renaissance Italy on the next.  It's a bumpy ride at times, but one thing is certain - the scenery is always beautiful :)

From the very first piece, in which a description is given of a white heron standing in wait in the shallows of Kyoto's Kamo River, the reader senses that this is a book where plot is a minor issue.  It's all about words, emotions, about being swept along in the writer's wake:

"...- and that is why it stood there; almost in the middle of the Kamo River, in the shallow water; and there it stands, in one time, immeasurable in its passing, and yet beyond all doubt extant, one time proceeding neither forward nor backward, but just swirling and moving nowhere, like an inconceivably complex net, cast out into time; and this motionlessness, despite all its strength, must be born and sustained, and it would only be fitting to grasp this simultaneously, but it is precisely that, this simultaneous grasping, that cannot be realized, so it remains unsaid, and even the entirety of the words that want to describe it do not appear, not even the separate words..."
'Kamo-Hunter', pp.4/5 (New Directions, 2013)

I hope you're all following this - there are still another four-hundred-and-forty-odd pages to come...

As mentioned above, the main theme is art and beauty, and the writer explores it in great depth, using his stories to examine the effect they can have on ordinary people.  Krasznahorkai doesn't confine himself to painting, although many of the stories are concerned with this section of the arts - he also looks at music, architecture and sculpture, leaving characters and reader dumbfounded:

"...finally he made his way around and once again began the slow sliding, here gaping at the ceiling, here at the Tintorettos, and so it went, and he could not even conceive that, in this palatial hall, such bounty as had been created, marvellous but still too weighty for him, could even be possible, because it was too much..."
'Christo Morto', p.114

From the rotund music lecturer thundering away on the subject of Baroque music (to a terrified handful of old people at the local community centre) to the unemployed migrant mesmerised by the figures in a Russian triptych, these consumers of art are anything but passive, almost unable to withstand the beauty of their chosen pieces of art.

While there's a lot about people appreciating art, much is also written about how the works are created.  Many of the sections have a two-strand formation, with one showing a modern appreciation, the other looking at the history of the piece.  These sections offer the reader interesting insights into the origin of paintings and cultural artefacts, as we are shown teams of artists in Italian workshops scrambling to fulfil an order for a mural, or the lengthy and deliberate preparations for rebuilding a Japanese temple.

However, in many cases, time is kept at a distance, allowing us to see the effect of beauty, but not all its secrets.  The Louvre guard who watches over the Venus de Milo every day has his theories on what her lost arms were doing, but he'll never know for sure whether he's right.  When it comes to some of the Renaissance masterpieces, even the greatest of art scholars can be unsure as to whether a particular piece was finished off by the master or one of his apprentices.  As for the magnificent Alhambra complex, many more questions are raised than answered.  Who commissioned it?  Who built it?  And, more importantly, what is it actually for?  This idea of the impossibility of complete comprehension is most clearly portrayed in the short final section where we are privy to a brief glimpse of magnificent treasures buried beneath the earth, their secrets left thousands of years behind...

In addition to writing about the art, Krasznahorkai also turns his gaze to the artists, unveiling the agony and madness which can go hand in hand with greatness.  Whether it's an eccentric Romanian sculptor who frees horses from the soil or a Swiss painter whose nerves are shot, the character studies revealed in the book show us that creating a lasting testament has an effect on the creator.  In fact, for many of these artists, the act of creation never really stops:

"...in a word, rehearsal is his life, so that for him there is absolutely no difference between rehearsal and performance, there is no particular mode of performance in the Noh, what happens in a performance is exactly the same as what happens in a rehearsal and vice versa, what happens in a rehearsal is exactly the same as what happens in a performance, there is no divergence..."
'The Life and Work of Master Inoue Kazuyuki', p.237 

For this famous Noh actor, as for many of the other characters of the novel, genius exacts a cost...

Seiobo There Below is a wonderful book, dazzling in its range of ideas and settings, fascinating stories told in dense, lengthy, multi-page sentences which drag the reader along, breathless and dizzying at the same time.  If you're looking for comparisons, books which immediately come to mind include Mikhail Shishkin's Maidenhair, Mircea Cărtărescu's Blinding or even (in terms of scale and time) David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.  However, Krasznahorkai's work is a little more oblique than those, and it's up to the reader to join the dots and make sense of what the writer has offered us.

One of my favourite sections, 'The Preservation of a Buddha', is a representative example of much of what I've discussed.  It follows the progress of a statue's restoration, from its departure from the temple to its unveiling a year later.  The writer describes the  secrets and rituals of the monks in minute detail, but it's only towards the end that we really see the uncanny similarities between the rites of the monks and the meticulous nature of the restorers, who are perhaps the true artists of this piece.  There's a fine line between religion and bureaucracy...

The head monk in the story eventually realises that perfection is impossible, and that we can only do our best, despite our limitations, and at this point it's time to take his advice and give up the struggle for a perfect review.  There's far too much in Seiobo There Below to cover properly here; it's a wonderful book which has added to Krasznahorkai's already considerable reputation.  As always, though, the English-speaking world is behind the game, and with a future Nobel Prize definitely within the realms of possibility, it might be time to finally get more of his work translated into English.  I, for one, am certainly keen to see what else he has to say :)

'They Were Found Wanting' by Miklós Bánffy (Review)

It's been a while, but after enjoying the excellent They Were Counted, I finally found some time to move on to the second part of Miklós Bánffy's 'Transylvanian Trilogy', which continues the personal and political struggles of the Hungarian gentry just before the First World War.  Of course, as it's a sequel, there may be a few details revealed over the course of the review which could affect your enjoyment of the first book - so be warned ;)

*****
They Were Found Wanting (translated by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Bánffy-Jelen, review copy courtesy of Arcadia Books) begins with a parliament (as usual) in turmoil.  With a fragile coalition government unable to pass any meaningful legislation, time is spent on petty squabbles, while outside in the real world (and the Hungarian parliament is a bubble which appears blind to events outside Budapest) Europe is taking the first steps towards the catastrophic war which will erupt in just a few short years.

Things are no less dramatic for the two main characters of the series.  Laszlo Gyeroffy, having fallen from grace, is reduced to living in squalor in his ramshackle family home, even though there is no shortage of women ready to take a chance on the attractive drunkard.  As for the aristocratic Balint Abady, while his love for Adrienne Miloth is as strong as ever, he is becoming impatient for her to finally take the step of leaving her husband, the sinister Pali Uzdy.  However, there's something preventing her from asking for her freedom, something which may make the divorce impossible...

I read the first of the trilogy, They Were Counted, a few months back, and it took a while to remember all the names and connections, but once I'd found my feet, I again raced through Bánffy's world of the Hungarian élite in the pre-WW1 era.  It has that same, calming feeling as reading one of the big Victorian novels I enjoy so much, but dating from a later era (and another location), there's a slightly different mood hanging over the novel, a gloomier modernist Weltschmerz which contrasts with the more confident and secure Victorian era.

Of course, there's every justification for the tone as Bánffy is looking back from the 1930s to a time just before his country was to be torn apart, both by the war and the peace that followed.  While the writing is clearly on the wall, hindsight is a wonderful thing - the poor Hungarians of the time, blinded by petty squabbles, are oblivious to the impending disaster, even when they read of dramatic events elsewhere in Europe:

"The news was mulled over when they read the morning newspapers, argued and discussed in the clubs and coffee-houses and possibly even discussed at the family meals but, while it was, everyday life went on as usual and most people only thought seriously about their work, their business interests, property, family and friends, their social activities, about love and sport and maybe a little about local politics and the myriad trifles that are and always have been everyone's daily preoccupation.  And how could it have been otherwise?"
p.301 (Arcadia Press, 2011)

We, who have history to guide us, realise how foolish this is, knowing what's just around the corner...

A large portion of the novel is set in the Hungarian parliament, and through the eyes of the main character, Balint Abady, we are able to witness how futile the years of discussions there are.  A junior (rather submissive) partner to Austria in the dual monarchy, the Hungarian government spends its whole time with its head in the sand, trying desperately to keep together a ruling coalition which has achieved absolutely nothing.  It won't be to everyone's taste, but if you're a fan of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels, you'll be at home in the Budapest parliament's dark corridors, even if it's a little noisier than you're used to ;)

If it's Trollope's Barchester Chronicles that appeal more, though, then the other half of the story will be for you as the time outside parliament is mostly spent in the country, where the landed gentry, drink, flirt and shoot anything that moves.  There's a hunting scene which could have come straight out of a Trollope novel, and we're not short of a scheming lady or two, hoping to make a conquest of a handsome young visitor (either for life or for the night...).  With the addition of dances and a country fair, it would be easy to think we'd ended up in Barchester by mistake.

Even here, though, the more melancholy mood is evident, and the love lives of the two principal characters, Abady and his cousin Gyeroffy, rarely go as planned.  Balint and Adrienne are separated by the small fact of her being married to a madman, while poor Laszlo continues the downward spiral started by his addiction to gambling in the first novel.  Tragically, he is unable to accept the help of those who wish to save him (and there are plenty of people who want to help the attractive, talented musician), and he is degraded further and further the longer the novel draws on.  It's tempting to compare his decline with that of the country in general...

They Were Found Wanting isn't a light, fluffy read, but it's an excellent novel for those prepared to devote their attention to it.  Populated by likeable characters, the book delights in complicating their lives, leaving them searching, usually in vain, for the one thing that will make it all worthwhile:

"Whatever Fate sent one's way, somehow it was never enough.  It was not a question of wanting more of the same thing, it was just that there was always something else, something one did not yet have but which was or now seemed necessary for complete happiness.  It was this constant desire which kept human joy in check, for everyone felt that if only he could achieve just this one little thing more then all would be well." (pp.105/6)

Alas, the moral of the story seems to be that you can't always get what you want (and if you try sometimes, you might find yourself even further away from your happiness...).

The 'Transylvanian Trilogy' ends with They Were Divided, a title with a multitude of implications, and with the first two books slowly leading us up to the First World War, you sense that the series will end with a bang.  Will our heroes finally find happiness?  It's doubtful, but one thing's for sure - the reader is likely to enjoy it all, whatever the outcome.  I'm sure I will :)

'Journey by Moonlight' by Antal Szerb (Review)

While I'm lucky enough to be fairly up to speed on a lot of what's happening in the world of translated fiction, it's impossible to cover everything, and there have been many times when I haven't got around to trying a book others read years ago.  One of those much-praised writers is Hungarian author Antal Szerb, another of those European writers whose reputation Pushkin Press has been trying to restore in the Anglosphere, and the book which has won most praise is his novel Journey by Moonlight.

So, having got there at last, will I be adding my name to the long list of admirers?

Let's just call that a yes...

*****
Journey by Moonlight (translated by Len Rix, review copy courtesy of the publisher) is a beautiful, entertaining novel, a book whose pages seem to fly by.  It's the story of a recently-married Hungarian couple, Mihály and Erzsi, who have travelled to Italy for their honeymoon.  However, what should be a happy time quickly turns sour.  In addition to a chance encounter with one of Mihály's old friends, a rather unpleasant meeting, there's the small matter of a mix-up at a small train station - when Mihály gets back on the train, he realises that he and his wife are now bound for different destinations...

From there, the two stories diverge, and we learn about the couple's pasts as they think back to what came before, trying to work out how to move forward.  Szerb sets his stories against a luscious Italian backdrop with a whole cast of wonderfully eccentric, fleshed-out characters, and while the whole novel sails serenely by, there's a sense that everything is exactly as it should be, and that a dramatic denouement is just around the corner :)

Journey by Moonlight is the story of a marriage at cross purposes.  The two ill-matched partners are hoping that marriage will help them to solve their issues; the problem is that each has a very different idea of what their future should hold.  Erzsi, the society lady, is bored and is longing to escape the dull conformity of her previous existence.  Having run away with her lover, she's now married again and beginning to sense that she might have made a huge mistake...

...and she has.  You see, Mihály has his own issues.  While Erzsi has a longing for the bohemian life, her new husband is desperate to move in the other direction and become a more conventional man.  In fact, his choice of Italy for his honeymoon is confirmation of this turn:

"During his protracted years of wandering he had travelled in many lands, and spent long periods in France and England.  But Italy he had always avoided, feeling the time had not yet come, that he was not ready for it.  Italy he associated with grown-up matters, such as the fathering of children, and he secretly feared it, with the same instinctive fear he had of strong sunlight, the scent of flowers, and extremely beautiful women."
p.9 (Pushkin Press, 2013)

He's finally made it to Italy because he believes he's ready to settle down, but it's very unlikely to happen - Mihály is a dreamer incapable of knuckling down to a steady work life.

We soon learn that the roots of his issues lie in the events of his youth, part of which he spent with a group of rather unconventional friends.  The doomed depressive Tamás Ulpius and his beautiful sister Éva, the criminal János Szepetneki and the religious Ervin (later to become a priest) - it's a fascinating group of people, but not one likely to accept the rigours of the nine-to-five.  Mihály's flight to Italy is an attempt to detach himself from the group's influence.  Sadly, it turns out that he can't get away from them, and in a well-plotted story, it all comes full circle.

As mentioned above, Journey by Moonlight is an easy read, and a most enjoyable one.  It's crammed with fascinating anecdotes and wonderful descriptions of Italy (of both the countryside and the famous cities).  It's also a very European book with its scattering of foreign extras, and in scale and detail, it's almost movie-like at times.  As the pages slip by, it's only too easy to see why Mihály is happy to be lost ;)

The effect is heightened by the great writing and the sumptuous translation.  Journey by Moonlight is such an easy book to read, that it was actually far too tempting to just sit back and enjoy and forget to take notes - Len Rix, take a bow.  This pleasure is also enhanced by the frequent light touch the writer utilises:

"I can't begin to describe how simple and natural it was just then to commit suicide.  I was drunk, and at that age drink always produced the feeling in me that nothing mattered.  And that afternoon it freed in me the chained demon that sleeps, I believe, in the depths of everyone's consciousness.  Just think, dying is so much more easy and natural and natural than staying alive..."
"Do get on with the story," said Erzsi impatiently. (p.51)

I enjoyed the occasional comic scenes, such as Mihály's entanglements with Millicent, a rich American art student, and his talks with a *very* English doctor, and these detours prevented the book from slipping into darkness, despite the serious nature of some of the events.

If I were to try to sum the book up, I'd say that it's a novel which looks at how to live a life.  There are many paths to take (priest, thief, worker, socialite, layabout, academic, suicide), examples of which stroll through the pages of the book.  The question is whether Mihály is strong enough to go his own way:

"Oh, Mihály, the world won't tolerate a man giving himself up to nostalgia."
 "It doesn't tolerate it.  It doesn't tolerate any deviation from the norm.  Any desertion or defiance, and sooner or later it turns the Zoltáns on you." (p.247)

As it turns out, it's not quite as easy to live your own life as you'd think...

Journey by Moonlight is a book which has long been championed by virtually everyone in my blogging circles, and it turns out that they were all absolutely right.  It's a book to savour, a book to reread, a great discovery, and I'm very happy that I (belatedly) made the time to read it.  Congratulations to Len Rix and Pushkin Press for bringing Szerb's work into English - and rest assured that there'll be more of his work to come on the blog before too long ;)

'They Were Counted' by Miklós Bánffy (Review)

Do you like big Victorian novels?  Are you a fan of fiction in translation?  Are you always on the lookout for quality books with a couple of sequels ready for you to move on to?  Well, come this way, gentle reader - I may just have something to interest you today...

*****
Miklós Bánffy's They Were Counted (translated by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Bánffy-Jelen, review copy courtesy of Arcadia Books) is the first in a trio of books entitled The Writing on the Wall (The Transylvanian Trilogy), a series whose focus on blood is more regal than vampirish.  This first novel is set in Hungary in the first years of the twentieth century, a country proud of its long history but nervous of its junior role in the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy.  Despite the very real threat of a loss of autonomy, though, the upper classes continue to drink, gamble and fool around in parliament while Vienna schemes to strip the Hungarians of much of their glory.

The novel focuses on two main characters, cousins representative of the national elite.  Balint Abady is a nobleman who has become an independent member of parliament, an intelligent and hard-working man who dreams of dragging his estates (and the country) into the twentieth century; Laszlo Gyeroffy, by contrast, is a bit of an outsider, a talented musician whose ambition to master music is threatened by his weakness for cards and drink.

Of course, it wouldn't be an epic classic novel without a touch of romance, and both of the cousins are unlucky in love.  The bright (but relatively poor) Gyeroffy is in love with Klara, for whom her parents have much higher ambitions, and his affairs of the heart threaten to derail the plans to become a talented musician.  Abady's love is directed in an even more unfortunate direction, as his desired partner, the beautiful Adrienne Miloth, is actually already married.  Still, in a society where appearances and honour count for everything (and reality nothing), it's always possible to find a way...

They Were Counted is a truly ambitious novel, a deep, melancholy attempt to capture a time of great change in Hungary.  From its opening scenes of Balint on his way to a grand ball at a large country house, the lover of Victorian literature is in familiar territory.  The first page is Hardyesque in its description of the solitary traveller (as is much of the natural description in the novel), but the castle Var-Siklod, and the ball itself, is more Downton Abbey in its imposing majesty.

If I were looking for one apt comparison, however, it would have to be Anthony Trollope, albeit a more melancholic, modernist, Weltschmerz-laden Trollope.  Abady, the well-to-do politician from the Transylvanian provinces, can't help but remind the reader of a character like Phineas Finn, particularly in his initial naivety:

"Balint's innocence stemmed not only from his straightforward nature and an upbringing that had shielded him from dishonesty and greed, but also from the fact that the protected years at the Theresianum college, at the university and even in the diplomatic service, had shown him only the gentler aspects of life.  He had lived always in a hothouse atmosphere where the realities of human wickedness wore masks; and Balint did not yet have the experience to see the truth that lay behind."
p.4 (Arcadia Books, 2013)

Ah, the innocent making his way towards the metropolis - rest assured, the end of the novel will see a much more worldly Abady...

The book, while set in 1904/5, was written in the 1930s, and the story is overshadowed by the knowledge of what was to come (the First World War, and the subsequent loss of Abady's Transylvanian homeland to Romania) and the uncertainty in the air due to Germany's belligerent rumblings in Central Europe.  This lends the book a sombre mood, with echoes of death and darkness scattered throughout, as shown in a small dinner party hosted by one of the main characters, where the table glistens with light, while behind the guest the food is served from the darkness:

"And yet, thought Laszlo, behind all this lay the uncertainty of real life; bleak, cold, cruel, unrelenting and evil.  In front was every pleasure that man could invent: food to be savoured with knowledge, wine to drive one to ecstasy, beauty and colour, light and the rosy temptation of woman's flesh to make one forget everything, especially the merciless advance of death which lurked in the shadows behind them.  The feast had been prepared so knowingly that it seemed to Laszlo that everyone present ate and drank more voraciously than usual and chatted with more hectic vivacity, as if they were driven to enjoy themselves while there was still time." (p.305)

Laszlo, in particular, is a man unlikely to meet with a happy ending.  He certainly enjoys himself, but you always have the sense that he is living on borrowed time.

Laszlo's struggles, though, are merely a distraction from the main character, Balint.  His efforts to understand the political intrigues of the fractured Empire, with the ethnic Romanians demanding more say in their affairs, and the Austrians determined to take the Hungarian military into its fold, allow the reader an insight into the events leading to 1914 (which, I'm sure, will be covered in the sequels).  He is determined to play the part his breeding demands, and when Laszlo scornfully dismisses politics, Balint replies:

"All life is politics; and I don't mean just party politics.  It is politics when I keep order on the estates and run the family properties.  It's all politics.  When we help the well-being of the people in the villages and in the mountains, when we try to promote culture, it's still politics, I say, and you can't run away from it!" (p.455)

Hmm.  Retreating to the country to help the peasants - remind you of anyone?

They Were Counted is a wonderful novel, and I'm keen to move on to the sequels when I get the chance; however, there is one aspect to the book which is a little off.  Balint's pursuit of his former love Adrienne is made unpalatable by the fact that she is scarred by her relationship with her brutish husband, a man who simply forces himself upon her.  While this is bad enough, Balint himself, blinded by his obsession, is determined to have a physical relationship with her, despite her obvious trauma.  It's unpleasant reading for a modern audience, an example of the vast gulf that can appear between cultures and eras...

I wouldn't let that put you off reading the book though, especially if you're a sucker for a novel with dashing army officers, magnificent ball scenes, gambling and promissory notes, and women in enough jewels to cover the debt of a decent-sized country.  With an excellent translation, one which reads like one of the V-Lit classics so many of us love, this is a book to enjoy leisurely - over a long period of time.  It's well worth setting aside a few weeks for ;)

'The Inflatable Buddha' by András Kepes (Review)

As regular readers will no doubt have gathered by now, I like to do my best to promote literature in translation, especially when it's new or small publishers bringing books out.  Recently, I got an e-mail from Armadillo Central, a publisher not known for works in translation, but with a Hungarian book they thought I might be interested in.  The title is fascinating (as is the cover), but, as always, I was more interested in what happens inside...

*****
András Kepes' The Inflatable Buddha (translated by Bernard Adams, review copy courtesy of the publisher) is an attempt to look back on twentieth-century Hungarian history by following three individuals and their families.  The three boys, Isti Veres, Dávid Goldstein and Pál Szentágostony, are born around the end of the First World War, appearing just as Hungary was losing much of its traditional territory in the Treaty of Trianon, and they come of age as the clouds of war are again beginning to gather over central Europe.

Isti is a good-looking peasant, a skillful footballer and violinist; Dávid is a Jew, the son of a local shopkeeper; Pál is the local Baron's son.  Despite growing up together in the village of Tövispuszta (the name of the book in the original), their origins will determine the decisions they make and the way their lives unfold in the decades to come.  In twentieth-century Hungary, there were plenty of hard choices to make, and the three men will be confronted with several before the end of the novel.  German or Hungarian?  Fascist or Communist?  Revolutionary or Policeman?  And, of course, patriot or emigrant...

Naturally, Dávid's path is the most difficult, initially at least.  Many westerners may not know the role Hungary played during the first part of the Second World War as one of Germany's allies***, and the Jewish characters in The Inflatable Buddha all face trips to concentration camps if they are caught by the police.  However, matters are not much better after the war; Dávid's poor uncle has his business seized twice - once by the Fascists, then by the Communists...  Having little interest in religion, Dávid attempts to change his name and hide his origins, but (as a friend points out) it's a plan with little chance of success:

"Believe me, my boy, it's no good trying to pretend you're not Jewish, there'll always be somebody that'll remind you.  I thought that after Auschwitz it would no longer be possible for people to be fed all kinds of vileness because everybody would see what inspired hatred and where it led to.  But it seems it isn't so."
p.200 (Armadillo Central, 2013)

If that's true though, what option remains?

Pál and Isti have their own concerns.  As a nobleman (and someone with close ties to the West), the young Baron Szentágostony is unlikely to fare well in post-WW2 Communist-occupied Hungary, while Isti's decision to throw in his lot with the authorities is destined to cost him too.  However, it's hard to blame any of the friends for their choices - in a situation like the one Hungarians found themselves in ninety years ago, there really was no right option...

The Inflatable Buddha is an interesting story, a book you can sail through quite comfortably, but it's definitely not in the style of some of Kepes' more illustrious countrymen.  Anyone hoping for some of the linguistic excellence of Krasznahorkai or the Proustian minutiae of Nádas will be disappointed - this is a fairly straight-forward piece of historical fiction, albeit one which continues the story up to fairly recent times.

Not knowing a lot about the country, I enjoyed the trip through the past century, but there were a few drawbacks.  While 315 pages doesn't sound especially short, it is when you're trying to cram in many decades of eventful history, and some of the chapters appeared a little over-filled with events (and endnotes).  The lengthy timespan covered also meant that the reader got to meet several generations of the same family, and with three main families to explore, that's a lot of people to remember, most of whom only appear for a line or two before reappearing a few chapters (and thirty years) later on...

Still, it's an intriguing trip down (a Hungarian) memory lane, and it's easy to see why it was a best-seller in its native country.  However, it'd be fascinating to see exactly what people made of it, as it's tempting to think that they are likely to take what they want from the book, according to their political views.  At one point, a character is described as:

"An identity-challenged boy searching for explanations in an identity-challenged country..." (p.231)

Sadly, that's still true today.  If you've been keeping a close eye on political events in central Europe, you'll know that many people appear to have forgotten what happens when a country ignores the past.  Perhaps they should all take another close look at Kepes' book before things go too far...

*****
***This sentence initially began "Many westerners may not know the role Hungary played during the Second World War as one of Germany's closest allies,...".  I corrected this factual error after one of the comments below alerted me to it.

'animalinside' and 'Diplomat, Actor, Translator, Spy' (Review)

One of the perks of blogging is that sometimes people send you stuff unexpectedly, and that's especially good when it's books in your area of interest.  Recently, Daniel Medin, from the Center for Writers & Translators at the American University of Paris was kind enough to send me a few titles from The Cahiers Series, coffee-table books for those interested in translation and translated fiction.  The books are short, elegant and visually pleasing  - and (as you'll see) the content's not bad either ;)

*****
First today is Diplomat, Actor, Translator, Spy, a fascinating little pamphlet by French translator Bernard Turle (translated into English by Dan Gunn).  In this short work, Turle talks about his life as a translator in twenty-six short chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet.  The cahier is accompanied by photos from Gunn's childhood (which, while sounding a strange idea, works well), making for a real bilingual collaboration.

It's a fascinating insight into the day-to-day life of a translator, and the changes brought about in this field by technology.  Turle explains how the spread of the Internet has allowed for a new relationship between translator and 'translated' and discusses his growing relationship with the English language.  It's one he first describes as exciting (an escape from the realities of French) and later intrusive (an imperialistic tongue...).  He also talks about how translation can sometimes be confronting as you can't always choose what you need to translate (there's some horrible, gut-wrenching stuff out there which some poor soul has to convert from one language to another...).

For me, the best part was the fact that a French insert  of the original text was also provided, allowing me to compare (and criticise!), which just goes to show that translation is an art, one that can be discussed until the cows come home.  In fact, this is even reflected in the choice of title.  While the original title is Le traducteur-orchestre, the English title has echoes of a John Le Carré novel (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), perhaps playing on a comment Turle makes in section E (for 'Espion' or 'Espionnage'):

"Le traducteur est un espion à la solde de l'écrivain." (p.5)
"A translator is a spy whose paymaster is a writer."
 p.12 (Sylph Editions, 2013)

Now that's not a description I'd heard before...

*****
The second of today's choices will be of particular interest to many of my readers (well, those who have a passion for fiction in translation, anyway).  animalinside (words by László Krasznahorkai, images by Max Neumann, translation by Ottilie Mulzet) is a short collaboration where the Hungarian writer reacted to the German artist's surreal pictures of a dog-like figure (as seen on the cover).  There are fourteen pictures, and for each there is one chapter, around two pages in length.

While it may sound short and trivial, it's anything but.  From the very beginning, Krasznahorkai fans will feel themselves to be in very familiar territory.  The text consists of long sentences, flowing powerful prose (that feels more like poetry).  There's a constant, dark feel to the monologues - menacing, threatening, and at the same time claustrophobic.

The focus is on a shadowy 'I', an entity which at times is trapped, constrained and frustrated:

"Every space is too tight for me.  I move around, I jump, I fling myself and yet I'm still inside that one space which is too tight for me, unbearably small, although at times it is only exactly just a bit too tight, and it is exactly then, when it is exactly just a bit too tight, that it is the most unbearable..."
Part IV, p.14 (Sylph Editions, 2012)

These ideas occur over and over again, and the repetition adds to the sense of restriction.

At other times though, the 'I' is a frightening, omnipotent force, greater than the cosmos, a being that threatens to rip you apart:

"...if one day I set out, no matter what you do it is completely hopeless, in vain do you try to resist, it will be of no use because you don't know who I am, and you don't know me, and your not knowing me protects me from your preparations, I am an invisible enemy, and you shall know very soon what invisible means, and chiefly, you will know what enemy means, because I am not just any kind of enemy, not even an enemy, but a blow that smites, that strikes down then and there and onto those exactly when, where, and onto whom it wants to..." (Part VI, p.19)

It's tempting to try and pin down just exactly who 'I' is.  Is it Death, fate, cancer, ruin?  Speculation is fun, but it's easier just to enjoy the rage and anger...

Perhaps animalinside is a work which reflects on our dull human existence, with people trapped in imaginary cages of our own making.  The 'I' comes from inside our own bodies - the seeds of our destruction are already inside us...

...and, apparently, it looks like a dog with no fore-legs ;)

*****
The cahiers may only be forty-pages long each, but they are wonderful little books.  As well as being interesting in their own right, the texts are complemented by the images chosen, providing a wonderful reading experience.  They're well worth a look, and I'm grateful to have had the chance to check them out -  merci, Monsieur Medin ;)

'Satantango' by László Krasznahorkai (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 16)

When the longlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was released, I frantically scanned the list, working out what I needed to do to get through it in time.  I had already finished four of the titles (all review copies) at some point in 2012, and I was able to obtain a further review copy fairly quickly.  The next stop was The Book Depository, where I bought the French-language version of Alain Mabanckou's Black Bazaar, leaving the bulk of the heavy lifting to my wonderful local library system.

While the majority of the books came in fairly quickly, one remained stubbornly in the hands of a library patron in the north of the state - and as that was the only copy in our consortium of libraries...  After weeks of constantly checking online, I began to lose hope, until one day I got the text message I'd been waiting for - Satantango had finally arrived :)

But was it worth the wait?

*****
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (translated by George Szirtes - from Tuskar Rock Press)
What's it all about?
Krasznahorkai's classic novel dates from 1985, but only appeared in English for the first time last year.  It's a dark, demanding tale, a novel set in the Hungarian backwaters of an abandoned estate, where a small group of villagers have been hanging around for years, waiting for someone or something to rouse them from their torpor and lead them to happiness.  Deserted by the rest of their group, the remaining families pass their time drinking and sleeping with the neighbours, while all around them nature swiftly takes back what civilisation had carved out of the wilderness.

Just as it appears that some of the characters have summoned up enough energy (and cash) to make a run for it, a rumour reaches the village, news of the return (or resurrection...) of a man long thought dead.  The charismatic Irimiás is on his way back to the village, and thoughts of flight are immediately shelved.  The poor, deluded villagers are prepared to put all of their trust and belief, not to mention their hard-won cash, into the hands of the prodigal son.  While the hope they invest in Irimiás is understandable, given the circumstances, you sense that it's a decision they'll come to regret.  You see, Irimiás is no angel - unless it's one of the fallen variety...

Satantango is highly allegorical, of course, a story of people rotting amongst the ruins of a failed forced agriculture project in Hungary.  It consists of twelve chapters divided into two parts, labelled I-VI and then VI -I, making up a story which, while moving forwards, also turns in a circle, bringing us back to where we started.  It also plays with narrative viewpoints, with the first half of the book consisting mostly of the same day and events told by several different voices - in fact, the occurrence promised in the first few pages of the book doesn't eventuate until we are well past the half-way mark...

Most reviews of Satantango address the style, and Krasznahorkai's way of writing is certainly noteworthy.  Satantango is made up primarily of lengthy, one-paragraph chapters, with long, long sentences spiralling off into the distance:

"His imagination was bewitched, almost to the point of paralysis by the notion that this estate with its rich, generous soil was, only a few million years ago, covered by the sea...that it had alternated between sea and dry land, and suddenly - even as he conscientiously noted down the stocky, swaying figure of Schmidt in his soggy quilted jacket and boots heavy with mud appearing on the path from Szikes, hurrying as if he feared being spotted, sliding in through the back door of his house - he was lost in successive waves of time, coolly aware of the minimal speck of his own being, seeing himself as the defenseless, helpless victim of the earth's crust, the brittle arc of his life between birth and death caught up in the dumb struggle between surging seas and rising hills..."
p.58 (Tuskar Rock Press, 2012)

Apologies - my aching fingers just couldn't quite make it to the end of that sentence ;)

The novel is deliberately obscure, confusing and unsettling.  There's an epigram from Kafka's The Castle at the start, and this is rather apt for what follows, as the reader spends much of the book in a Kafkaesque muddle, unsure as to what is actually happening (and why...).  The second chapter, where we meet Irimiás, has particular shades of Kafka, set as it is in a bureaucratic nightmare, with stairs leading off into the distance, offices leading into further offices and hours spent waiting for appointments.  There's another similarity with Kafka here - if you think you understand what the writer is trying to do, you're only kidding yourself...

Of course, there's so much more to Satantango than a stylistic homage to The Castle or The Trial.  The slow pace allows for some great characterisation, and Krasznahorkai spends time sketching out a cast of wonderful creations.  As the story progresses, each of the characters becomes more fleshed out, and the links between them become more established, allowing us to almost predict how a person is likely to react, and what they might say when events take a turn for the worse.

More than the descriptions of the villagers though, it is Krasznahorkai's portrayal of the environment which is most striking.  Satantango takes place amid a winter of mild discontent, and the reader can feel the cold, the wet, the mud, the rot and the decay:

"The Schmidts hadn't used the room since spring.  Green mildew covered the cracked and peeling walls, but the clothes in the cupboard, a cupboard that was regularly cleaned, were also mildewed, as were the towels and all the bedding, and a couple of weeks was all it took for the cutlery saved in the drawer for special occasions to develop a coating of rust, and what with the legs of the big lace-covered table having worked loose, the curtains having yellowed and the lightbulb having gone out, they decided one day to move into the kitchen and stay there, and since there was nothing they could do to stop it happening anyway, they left the room to be colonized by spiders and mice." (p.7)

In describing how nature has invaded the village, taking back what was once torn from its grasp, Krasznahorkai shows the extent to which the villagers have given up, retreating into themselves and waiting for an unlikely change.

Enter Irimiás...  The star of the show is an enigmatic figure, and it takes a while to find out just who he is (and we never find out exactly what he is doing).  There is a lot of talk in the book about networks, establishing connections to insulate the villagers from the realities of the outside world - and this is something echoed by the vast networks of webs spun by the mysterious spiders at the bar.  However, what he's really up to is swindling money from the villagers.

What's surprising though is just how easy it is for him to do it, especially in such a short time.  He even tells them that there is a good chance that they can lose all the money they eagerly place on the table in front of him.  Devoid of hope and desperate for a way out, the jealousy and infighting leaves the villagers easy prey.  Mrs. Schmidt's lust, Mrs. Halics' faith, the men's greed...  They want to believe, sheep needing to be led.

In fact, Irimiás hypnotises them, to the extent that they are prepared to burn all their bridges, smashing furniture before their supposed impending departure from the village.  However, the greater the drunken (mass) delusion, the more painful the wake-up call:

"It was as if they were just now emerging from some evil spell.  They were sober at a stroke but they simply couldn't understand what had happened to them in the last few hours: What demonic power had taken possession of them, stifling every sane and rational impulse?  What was it that had driven them to lose their heads and attack each other "like filthy pigs when the swill is late"?  What made it possible for people like them - people who had finally managed to emerge from years of apparently terminal hopelessness to breathe the dizzying air of freedom - to rush around in senseless despair, like prisoners in a cage so that even their vision had clouded over?" (p.237)

It's a case of fools fooling themselves...

It seems churlish to look for negatives in a book like this, but there were a few things I didn't like.  The dialogue was noticeably Americanised in places, especially in the early chapters, peppered with expressions like 'buddy', 'pal', 'asshole', 'sonofabitch', and 'dumb ass', and this jarred (perhaps deliberately so) with the style of the descriptive sections.  There was also a rather odd convention where seemingly normal expressions were enclosed in quotation marks, drawing attention to themselves for no real reason.  In addition, I wasn't overly convinced by the ending; it all seemed a little too convenient and perhaps unworthy of the book as a whole...

The title?  Well, it has to do with both a pivotal scene mid-way through the book, one where the drunken villagers decide to dance while waiting for the 'devil', and the structure of the novel.  You see, the way Krasznahorkai has constructed his work apparently reflects the steps in a tango - six steps forwards, six steps back...

*****

Do you think it deserved to make the shortlist?
Of course, I do.  While I may have discussed a few minor issues with the book, the reality is that I'm not judging this to see if it's good or not, but on the level of whether it deserves to be crowned best in (Shadow) show.  It's a wonderful book, and one which I'd love to try again some time.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
I have two theories...

One - The panel had just written down the six names on the shortlist (of which Satantango was one) and sealed it in an envelope, when the five of them suddenly froze in mid movement.  An alien appeared from nowhere, opened the envelope, erased Satantango from the list with some kind of sonic device, replacing it with Bundu.  After resealing the envelope, the alien then disappeared, and the panellists went on their way (none the wiser), only realising what had happened when the envelope was opened and the news was made public - alas, too late to rectify the error.

Two - The five panellists, having read the sixteen books on the longlist, decided that Bundu was a better novel than Satantango, one which would stand the test of time much better than Krasznahorkai's work.  Then they all went off for tea.

Yeah, I know - theory two does seem a little far-fetched...

*****
Well, that's it - sixteen books read and reviewed.  Very soon, my colleagues and I will begin deliberations to see which of the six works on our shortlist will take out The Shadow Panel prize.  Keep an eye out for our verdict...

...oh, and we'll see if the real panel can come up with a worthy winner too ;)

Shadow IFFP 2012 - Round-Up Number Twelve-A

Yesterday’s post focused on what Péter Nádas was trying to say in his epic novel Parallel Stories (translated by Imre Goldstein)– today’s will look a little more at how he said it, and try to work out how successful this book really is.  I hope you're in for the long haul...

*****

There's a lot to discuss when thinking about the writer's use of language in Parallel Stories.  The language used in the book is, as you would expect, wide-ranging, and with Nádas’ mother tongue of Hungarian differing so much from English, the translation has attempted to keep as much of the original flavour as possible.  The word order can be confusing, reflecting the choices the writer made in the more flexible original language, and the choice of vocabulary attempts to show the tone of the Hungarian words used.

Parallel Stories is notable for its long, elaborate descriptions, almost Proustian in its attention to detail.  Where Proust describes inanimate objects in great detail though, Nádas saves most of his descriptive talents for action, especially of the sexual kind.  His extended portrayal of Ágost and Gyöngyvér’s sex session (and it is sex, not lovemaking) is probably the most obvious example of this, drawing the reader in and telling them things they would probably rather not know about the external and internal anatomy of the lithe young things.

However, this attention to detail is also evident in the way the writer deals with dialogue.  There is a plethora of lengthy conversations in the novel, and Nádas’ approach here is less Proustian than Jamesian.  Like Henry James, Nádas performs the feat of having his characters exchange bland, trivial remarks, which appear loaded only because we are told of the physical and psychological state of the speakers.  The psychological processes are stripped bare, and it is the emotions we are witness to, rather than the words we hear, which are important.

As if this is not difficult enough for the reader, there are more traps in store.  Nádas has decided to dispense with quotation marks, probably because they make life simpler for anyone trying to follow his dialogue.  This omission, coupled with a tendency to jump between direct and indirect speech, often in the same conversation, can make it tricky to work out who said what.  When you realise that the writer also often avoids giving the name of the characters involved until the chapters are well underway, you can imagine how confusing things can become.  Now, imagine, if you will, passages where the action shifts from character to character, place to place, time to time at the drop of a hat, sometimes in mid-sentence…

There are times when Nádas’ relentless prose is a joy, a flow of words washing over the reader.  Below is an example I picked out, virtually at random:

“Continually, without letup, relentlessly, I thought of only one thing, that I had never seen such beauty and never would again if I left her even for a moment.  Her eyes, the color of her eyes or her glance, I don’t know what, but it paralyzed me.  Her scent probably had a part in this, but I could reach only the edge of it because she took it with her, though sometimes she left thick clouds of it behind.  Her eyes were not blue but not green either.  As if I were looking down into the depths of unfamiliar waters.  I did not understand the angry darkness, but the color of the water was throwing sparks at me.  No human can have eyes of this color.  There is no water of this color, no material of any kind.”  p.456

However, at other times, pages of dull, trite, pointless dialogue sludge up the story, brief moments of time stretched out over dozens of pages.  It’s this constant battle that makes reading Parallel Stories such a chore at times.  Just when you start to feel that you’re making progress, along comes another twenty-page roadblock, stopping you dead in your tracks.  Perhaps this effort though, the constant struggle to negotiate the writer’s linguistic choices, is precisely what makes it the book it is…

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?

That is a very difficult question to answer.  When confronted with a work like Parallel Stories, it seems almost absurd that it could be on the same footing as some of the other contenders – shouldn’t there be weight categories?  Alas, that is not the case, so we are forced to compare books that are as different as apples and monoliths.  If we were basing our decision purely on ambition, there would be no contest: Parallel Stories would win every prize going and be mentioned in the same breath as Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdus as one of the most impressive works of literature of the modern era.  Instead though we’re basing our decision more on the success of the novel, and I’m not sure the decision here is quite so clear-cut.

There’s an argument for saying that Parallel Stories is both over- and under-written.  There are whole sections where you cannot wait for the endless prose to end, for something, anything to happen, for the writer’s attention to be diverted from breasts, penises, lips or whatever body part he is currently focusing on.  On the other hand, after well over a thousand pages of small type on very large pages (I’ve heard that the book actually runs to more than 1500 pages in other versions), the intrepid soul who has conquered Mount Nádas gets to the summit and thinks… Have I missed something?  Wasn’t there supposed to be a story in there somewhere?

I also have some issues with the translation, mainly personal ones.  I’m not a big fan of American translations, preferring to have only one filter, not two, between myself and the writer, and Parallel Stories, set as it is throughout the second half of the twentieth century, is full of foreign, awkward words and expressions.  The unique style of the original is undoubtedly to blame for much of this, but when my very-English mind stumbles upon words such as ‘Daddio’, my mental red pen comes out and (in a triumph of mixed metaphors) chalks up another black mark.

So my answer then is no, not quite.  The real panel has, as you will know, agreed with me; the Shadow Panel, or at least our chairman, has disagreed.  It will be interesting to see what we all think of Parallel Stories when we come to discuss it.  Assuming, of course, that any of the other members have managed to get to the end of it…

Why did it miss the shortlist?

For the reasons outlined above, plus one undeniable truth.  I honestly don’t think the judges fancied ploughing through it again…

*****

OK, I'm off for a sleep to recover.  There'll be more IFFP fun when I've restored my strength :)

Shadow IFFP 2012 - Round-Up Number Twelve

If there’s one book which stands out on the longlist of the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, it’s Péter Nádas’ epic novel Parallel Stories (translated by Imre Goldstein).  A monster of a book, eighteen years in the writing (and four in the translating), it runs to 1133 pages, and the hardback copy I obtained from my local library weighs a ton.  It’s a book with themes heavy enough to match its bulk, a story of a country and its inability to face its recent past.  The question is though, (ignoring its size) is it any good?

*****

What’s it all about? 

Parallel Stories is a book which is extraordinarily difficult to pin down.  There are two major strands, revolving around events in the small German town of Pfeilen and various places in Hungary, particularly Budapest.  The main characters come from two families – the German Döhrings and the Hungarian Lippay Lehrs.  Within each half of the story though, there are several different timelines and viewpoints, meaning the reader has to pay a lot of attention and remember a vast array of names, many of them extremely unfamiliar.

The novel start with a suspicious death in Berlin, but we are soon torn away to Budapest in 1961.  Right from the beginning, we never stop jumping from time to time, place to place, part-way through chapters, even mid-sentence.  At times it is difficult to make out (or even believe in) a coherent plot of any kind.  The reader experiences vague connections, echoes, parallels between events, and while it is tempting to draw conclusions from the information we’re presented with, it’s hard to imagine that we are really meant to be any the wiser by the end of the book about any underlying grand plan.

We’re not even really sure who the central characters are supposed to be.  The dust cover of my version focuses on André, Hans and Ágost, three Hungarians who, having lived abroad, felt like exiles in their native Budapest.  Having read the book though, I’m not all that convinced by what seems a very convenient (and arbitrary choice).  For me, the key characters are Döhring, the young German student whose discovery of a body begins the book, and Kristóf, the youngest member of the Hungarian family and the one whose path we most often cross.

One reason why these two characters stand out, apart from the relatively-extended appearance time they have, are the obvious parallels between them.  Both are psychology students, introverted and struggling to make sense of the world, despite (or perhaps because of) their insights into the human psyche.  Both have confused sexuality, yearning for the unavailable or forbidden.  Both spend time on bland, yet tension-ridden, conversations with a person they’re intrigued with.  There’s a lot they have in common…

And the parallels don’t stop there – in fact, as you may have guessed, the novel is packed with them.  The word is ubiquitous, to the point of being overused.  Nádas carefully constructs parallels between anything he can think of, from the two countries and families, to the actions his characters take.  Lesbian mothers, children snatched and later returned, names adopted and discarded – wherever there’s an action, there seems to be an equal and similar action somewhere else among the many, many pages Parallel Stories has to offer the reader…

Of course, the problem is keeping all that straight without having to take copious notes (something I started doing half-way through the book…).  As well as being incredibly long, the book doesn’t exactly make it easy for the reader to keep up with events.  Characters pop up briefly, disappear for what seems like enough time for glaciers to cover Europe again, then reappear in another place entirely.  As a child.  You think I’m joking?  The detective Kienast, whom the unsuspecting reader would have taken as a major character at the start of the novel, promptly vanishes, not to be seen until close to the end of the book.  However, another Kienast, a child who may or may not be the same person, does get a mention a little earlier – about 600 pages in…

Regardless of whether there is any real overarching structure to the book, there are several themes that crop up repeatedly.  The one that probably gets the most attention, and may put many people off the book, is the prominent position sex has in Parallel Stories.  I don’t think I’ve read a work of literature which has such lengthy, detailed descriptions of sexual acts, smells, positions and fantasies, passages which test the stamina of the reader just as much as that of the participants.  For the most part, Nádas is a tease, spreading anticipation and memories of sex over several pages, preferring anticipation to the actual consummation (and when you think again of the size of the book, that may come as no surprise!).

At times though, the sex is graphic, leaving nothing – absolutely nothing – to the imagination.  I’ve read that this idea of hedonism was a reaction to the lack of freedom Hungarians had, a way of reclaiming their identity and independence, and it’s an idea which does make sense.  There’s a pervading sense of sexual liberation and freedom of choice in sexual identity, one particularly evident in Kristóf, what with his pursuit of the entrancing Klára and his nocturnal adventures in Budapest’s gay underworld.  The forty-page session enjoyed by Ágost and his girlfriend, Gyöngyvér, is surely pushing this idea to the limit though…

Another interesting idea is the focus on mental illness and schizophrenia.  This takes us back to Döhring and Kristóf, both of whom appear to have some sort of issue, unable to cope with the parallel desires they experience.  This may also be a metaphor for the whole book, as Budapest itself is a schizophrenic city, and not just in the divided, geographical sense.  Nádas repeatedly mentions the split between the normal folk on the street and the Hungarian aristocracy, and the Lippay Lehrs, with both noble origins and communist leanings, are particularly torn between these two opposing poles.  The country as a whole, however, could also be seen as schizophrenic, needing to pretend that everything is alright, ignoring the political realities and the ever-present brutality in order to stay sane…

In the end though, it’s probably pointless to dig too deeply into all of this madness.  If it took Nádas as much time to write Parallel Stories as it takes to raise a child, there’s little chance that I’m going to unlock its secrets in one insignificant review.  It’s a book which takes a lot of reading, but it does reward the reader, even if the first half is rather slow going.  A more thorough knowledge of Hungary and its recent history would probably make things a little clearer, but one thing is for sure – this is not a book for the faint-hearted!

*****

Oh dear!  Nádas' love of elaboration is obviously catching - I'm only half-way there...  Join me tomorrow for the second half of my Parallel Stories review, in which I discuss its linguistic qualities and whether it was good enough for the shortlist :)