Posted in Classic Novel, Hungary, Literary on Jan 11th, 2011
As full of dramatic tension as anything written by Poe, this masterpiece of character development idealizes the personal values of a lost world, and celebrates the rewards and obligations of friendship. Henrik, a former Austro-Hungarian general and member of the aristocracy, is approaching the end of his life, having lived 75 years according to the “male virtues: silence, solitude, and the inviolability of one’s word.” He is awaiting a visit from Konrad, his former best friend, a man he has not seen or heard from in “41 years and 43 days,” a man he believes betrayed him and upon whom he has yearned for revenge for more than half his life. The simple narrative framework allows Henrik to tell the story through his own meditations and his one-sided conversation with Konrad after his arrival.
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Posted in Hungary, Literary on Jan 11th, 2011
Full of the kind of dramatic tension and intimacy usually associated with great stage plays, Hungarian author Sandor Marai’s newest novel to be translated into English plumbs the depths of a love thwarted and then revisited years later. Twenty-three years before the book opens, sensible Esther, now in her mid-forties, shared a once-in-a-lifetime passion with Lajos, a man who bewitched everyone who came into contact with him—her brother, her family, and her friends—a man so full of energy—and lies—that life became a dangerous, exciting adventure for everyone around him. As persuasive as he was charming, he lived the good life, often “borrowing” valuable items or money from friends, and they, just as often, excusing him, wanting to believe that he would eventually return or replace what he borrowed (or not caring enough to challenge him). Esther, believing it important for the family history, has now decided to record every detail of her earlier relationship with Lajos. Moving back and forth in time, Esther creates a vivid picture of Lajos and the magical, mysterious hold he exerted on everyone, concentrating on his hold over her and her ability to resist (or not resist) his versions of the “truth.” (To see the entire review, click on the title at the top of this excerpt._
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When he first meets Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker, the young narrator of this novel thinks of him as “good, honest, dull, and plain.” When Strickland suddenly abandons his wife and children and takes off for Paris, however, the narrator decides he is a cad. Though he has had no training, Strickland has decided to become an artist, a drive so strong that he is willing to sacrifice everything toward that end. Anti-social, and feeling no obligation to observe even the smallest social decencies, Strickland becomes increasingly boorish as he practices his art. Eventually, he makes his way to Tahiti, where he “marries,” moves to a remote cottage, and spends the rest of his life devoted to his painting. Basing the novel loosely on the life of Paul Gauguin, Maugham creates an involving and often exciting story. His narrator is a writer who feels impelled, after Strickland’s death and posthumous success, to set down his memories of his early interactions with Strickland in London and Paris. (To see the entire review, click on the title of this excerpt.)
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An extended Anglo-Irish family living in the vicinity of Dublin on the eve of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 reflects the attitudes and pressures that lead eventually to the cataclysmic events at the Dublin Post Office. Andrew Chase-White, a young officer in the British Cavalry, has been assigned to Dublin, where he has often spent holidays and where he has an almost-fiancee. His idolized cousin Patrick Dumay, “the iron man,” is secretly a member of the Irish Volunteers and an admirer of Padraig Pearse. His teenaged cousin, hot-headed Cathal, supports the Citizen’s Army under James Connolly. As the action unfolds throughout the week leading to the uprising, the family interacts on several levels, revealing their mores, their dreams for the future of Ireland, their occasional tendency to look for religious significance in political destiny, and their personal hopes and failings.
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Published by Random House of South Africa, The Hero of Currie Road presents two kinds of stories. About half of them are about individual boys under Alan Paton’s care at the reformatory–sensitive and insightful tales about young teenagers at crossroads, often inspired to lead honorable lives but without the ability, always, to make the right choices. The second group of stories is about the white world, mostly adults, who reflect the ingrained attitudes of apartheid which have permanently limited the attitudes, aspirations, and achievements of the native majority population–and which Paton sometimes despairs of ever changing. All the stories from his first collection, Debbie Go Home (known as Tales from a Trouble Land in the US), from 1961, are included here, as are the stories from his 1975 collection, Knocking on the Door. Together they show Alan Paton in his most personal, most revealing moments, in which he frankly states opinions that he cannot make in his novels, a form for which “the inexorable rule is that you must put your story first, not your politics or religion or your anger about the Group Areas Act.” (To read the entire review, click on the title of this excerpt.)
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